A seismic survey of Kazakhstan's portion of the Caspian continental shelf has discovered immense oil and gas deposits, representatives of the Caspian Sea Consortium which carried out the survey announced yesterday. According to Western and Kazakh representatives, the estimated reserves are in the range of... MORE

Presidential candidate Gennady Zyuganov has formally complained to the Central Election Commission about what he says are the illegal campaign methods employed by the Yeltsin team. "The leaders of Russia's constituent regions have been instructed to ensure Yeltsin's victory at all costs," Zyuganov told a... MORE

In a decree signed June 25, President Yeltsin announced that he was transforming his Presidential Council, set up in 1994, into a Political Consultative Council. The former body was made up chiefly of members of the liberal intelligentsia and met with increasing infrequency in the... MORE

Moscow's respected Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) says that 53 percent of Russian voters (plus/minus 4 percent) plan to vote for Boris Yeltsin on July 3. Center director Yuri Levada reported yesterday on a poll of 1,600 respondents held in 58 Russian... MORE

Meeting with leaders of Russia's regions yesterday, Boris Yeltsin urged them to do everything possible to get voters to the polls next week. "Turnout is the most important question in this round," the president said. (Interfax, June 26) The Yeltsin camp worried that voter apathy... MORE

. President Boris Yeltsin yesterday employed Russia's armed forces yet again as a campaign backdrop, appearing on TV with military leaders and his new security supremo, retired General Aleksandr Lebed, at a ceremony marking the graduation of cadets from Russian military academies. Yeltsin reportedly avoided... MORE

The chief of staff of Turkey's armed forces, General Ismail Karaday completed yesterday a three-day visit to Azerbaijan where he met with President Heydar Aliyev and military officials. No details of the visit were disclosed. Karaday was returning Azerbaijani defense minister Safar Aliev's June 10-11... MORE

In a draft national security concept paper excerpted yesterday by Interfax, Russian security council chief and Yeltsin aide Aleksandr Lebed called for Moscow to step up its economic espionage operations abroad while limiting the activities, travels, and contacts of its own domestic scientists and specialists.... MORE

Baltic presidents on a joint official visit to the U.S. said yesterday that president Bill Clinton told them at their White House meeting that "the first countries admitted to NATO will not be the last." Rather than addressing the issue of Baltic admission specifically, the... MORE

U.S. vice-president Al Gore said June 25 that he will travel to Moscow sometime in July in order to take part in the next meeting of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission. His visit would make Gore the most senior U.S. official to visit Russia in the aftermath... MORE