Russian forces yesterday lost 13 killed, mostly in battling resistance forces just outside Bamut. The Russian command canceled a previously scheduled visit to Bamut by Russian and foreign journalists, which was intended to demonstrate that the area is under firm military control. The Council of... MORE

Georgia's first-ever Constitutional Court was sworn in yesterday. Created under the constitution adopted in August 1995, the Court is comprised of nine justices -- three of them nominated by the president, three by the parliament, and three by the Supreme Court. President Eduard Shevardnadze said... MORE

A Pakistani military delegation headed by the armed forces' Chief of Staff, General Hussein Shah, is completing today a three-day visit to Kyrgyzstan where it met with defense minister Myrzak Subanov and other commanding officers and visited military units. According to a senior Kyrgyz officer,... MORE

The Uzbek press yesterday cited president Islam Karimov as saying at the inauguration of the Uzbek-Daewoo automobile-manufacturing joint venture (see Monitor, July 22) that Uzbekistan must upgrade its roads in order to accommodate the cars to be produced there. "Uzbek roads have been good enough... MORE

Speaking in Jakarta yesterday at the Post Ministerial Conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov praised the organization for providing a forum in which to discuss lingering disputes in Asia and said that Russia had adopted guidelines for... MORE

A Moscow publishing company has published "The KGB's Guide to the Cities of the World" in which former Soviet intelligence officers share their impressions of Paris, Rome, London, Cairo, Bangkok and New York. At a book launch in Moscow yesterday, the book's editor, former KGB... MORE

An explosion rocked a passenger train at the central railway station of the Russian city of Volgograd early this morning. There were no people in the train at the time and no casualties were reported. Further details are not yet available. (Itar-Tass, July 25) Vietnam... MORE

Vietnam has protested to Russia over alleged human rights violations being committed against Vietnamese citizens by Russian police in Moscow's ongoing crackdown against "criminal elements" in the capital (Itar-Tass, July 24) The Russian police operation followed bus bombings on July 11 and 12. Ethnic Caucasians... MORE

Ukraine's new prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko arrives in Washington today for a three-day working visit aimed mainly at securing support for the continuation of Ukraine's reforms. Lazarenko will meet with World Bank and International Monetary Fund managements as well as with U.S. officials. The protracted... MORE

The U.S. state department's coordinator for relations with the newly independent states, James Collins, said in Riga July 23 and in Tallinn July 24 that the U.S. disagrees with Russian allegations about violations of the rights of Russians in Latvia and Estonia. The issue is... MORE