The Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations announced yesterday that the government had ordered it, "in view of the difficult economic situation in Tajikistan, to send humanitarian aid to the Russian-speaking population in that republic." The ministry is accordingly sending flour, rice, powdered milk, canned meat,... MORE

An estimated 3,000 pro-independence demonstrators were attacked by OMON police in Minsk yesterday outside the buildings of the presidential administration, the parliament, and the Internal Affairs Ministry. The police beat and arrested scores of protesters along their march through central Minsk. The demonstrators, mostly young,... MORE

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma yesterday conferred with heads of parliamentary groups on ways to overcome the situation created by a leftist boycott of the parliament's work. On May 28 and 29, Communist and socialist deputies deprived the parliament of a quorum by refusing to attend... MORE

Vafa Guluzade and Jirair Liparitian, senior foreign policy advisors to Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev and Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosian, respectively, are currently conducting unofficial, confidential talks in Paris on possible solutions to the Karabakh conflict. Baku officials familiar with the talks said yesterday that they... MORE

In the absence of a law on Civil Defense Forces, President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree May 28 regulating their status, operations, and composition. Subordinate to the Ministry for Emergency Situations, the tasks entrusted to the Civil Defense Forces will reportedly be widened and their... MORE

In an interview carried May 29 by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov said that although the world would not see the return of the Cold War, Moscow would neither agree to be regarded as its loser nor to subordinate... MORE

The Yeltsin camp has launched a vicious and highly personalized attack on the president's main challenger in the election race, Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov. Millions of copies of a broadsheet comparing Zyuganov to Adolf Hitler were yesterday distributed throughout Russia in mailboxes and as... MORE

Also yesterday, Yeltsin's aide Georgy Satarov accused Zyuganov's supporters of planning to undermine the election by fabricating evidence of vote-rigging. Satarov said the Zyuganov camp has realized that its candidate stands no chance of winning and is therefore spreading rumors that the vote will be... MORE

A dangerous situation is developing in which both sides appear convinced that the other is going to cheat in the elections. It is a hallmark of democracy that power is transferred peacefully from one leader to another because both sides accept the legitimacy of the... MORE

The Russian government unilaterally published May 29 a draft treaty on Chechnya's status within the Russian Federation and the division of powers between the central government and Chechnya. Sergei Shakhrai, known as one of the war's initiators, is the main author of the draft. Russian... MORE