Russian president Boris Yeltsin yesterday issued a decree granting military draft deferments to up to 1000 young Russian men per year who have acquired an advanced specialty in finances and who go directly from school into full-time work for the Russian tax service. The decree... MORE

The mayor of the town of Zhukovsky, in Moscow Region, was shot dead June 13. Police said the murder was not being seen as a political crime. The mayor, Viktor Mosalov, was a businessman until March of this year and police believe his murder was... MORE

Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council head, Volodymyr Horbulin, has conferred with top NATO leaders and the ambassadors of member countries at allied headquarters in Brussels on the draft document of a "special partnership" between NATO and Ukraine. Horbulin stated that "rapprochement with NATO represents... MORE

Presidents Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, Askar Akaev of Kyrgyzstan, and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan held a regular summit of the Central Asian Economic Union (CAEU) in Bishkek on January 9-10. The presidents signed a treaty on "eternal friendship," envisaging both concerted policies on regional and... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin's office and the Executive Secretary of the CIS, Ivan Korotchenya, announced in separate statements over the weekend that the planned CIS summit is being "tentatively" rescheduled for January 29-31. The event, intended to mark the fifth anniversary of the CIS, had... MORE

Russia's Gazprom has agreed to sell 23 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Ukraine in 1997, and to allow the transit of up to 25 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to Ukraine through Russian pipelines. Gazprom in turn plans to... MORE

When Chinese prime minister Li Peng visited Moscow in late December he signed a secret arms deal to buy two Russian Sovremenny-class guided-missile destroyers, the Washington Times said on January 10. The ships will be equipped with advanced SS-N-22 anti-ship cruise missiles. The deal was... MORE

Local elections were held yesterday in three Russian regions and, as expected, incumbents were victorious in all three. In Tyumen oblast in western Siberia, incumbent governor Leonid Roketsky was reelected with 58.8 percent of the vote while his opponent, a banker, gained 32.9 percent. Roketsky's... MORE

Saying that the constitution "is not an icon," the speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, Yegor Stroev, has called for the constitution to be amended to give more power to parliament. (NTV, Interfax, January 10) Stroev referred to the wide powers to... MORE

Lt. Gen. Alyaksandr Chumakau, chief of staff and acting Defense Minister of the Belarusan armed forces, was appointed defense minister on Saturday by President Alexander Lukashenko. Chumakau succeeds Lt. Gen. Leanid Maltseu, who was fired on November 1 for allegedly appearing drunk at a public... MORE