Late last week, Russia's Central Election Commission registered the candidacies of Grigory Yavlinsky, retired Lt. General Aleksandr Lebed, and Svyatoslav Fedorov. This week, the CEC registered one businessman, prepared to register another, but refused registration to a third. The rejected candidate is Sergei Mavrodi, creator... MORE

Talks open today in Paris between Russian government officials and representatives of Western creditor nations known as the Paris Club. They are to discuss the rescheduling of Russia's foreign debt to Western governments, estimated at around $40 billion. The bulk of the debt dates from... MORE

During his visit to Khabarovsk krai, Yeltsin signed a power-sharing agreement with the krai on behalf of the federal center. As he remarked, this is the first time the signing of such an agreement has been staged outside Moscow. In recent years, Khabarovsk's leaders have... MORE

Also in Khabarovsk, Yeltsin signed a decree giving presidential status to a federal program to promote the economic and social development of the Russian Far East and the Trans-Baikal region. The program, which covers the period 1996-2005, was adopted by the Russian government on April... MORE

Campaigning in Khabarovsk prior to his departure for Beijing, Boris Yeltsin tried to defuse mounting controversy in the Russian Far East over demarcation of the border with China. Yeltsin declared that the 1991 border agreement with China had, in fact, forestalled Chinese claims on some... MORE

Reports out of Beijing suggested that the two biggest economic projects likely to be discussed by Russian and Chinese leaders are the development of a gas pipeline from Siberia to the Yellow Sea, a project that remains in its preliminary stages, and the construction of... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin received a sumptuous welcome in Beijing yesterday as he kicked off his second visit to China and the third meeting of Chinese and Russian leaders since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin's first visit came in December 1992. Chinese president... MORE

At an emergency session April 23 the Chechen Defense Council transferred the posts of president and prime minister to Dudaev's vice president, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, in an acting capacity. Born in 1952 in deportation in Kazakhstan, Yandarbiev was an ordinary worker who became a writer and... MORE

Chechen resistance leaders yesterday confirmed and provided some details of the death of President Djohar Dudaev April 22, following a nighttime rocket attack on him by a Russian helicopter while Dudaev was making a satellite phone call to a potential mediator in the conflict. Dudaev... MORE

The Illinois-based Deere & Co., one of the world's leading manufacturers of agricultural machinery, has contracted with Ukraine for its single largest equipment sale ever. Deere will deliver 1,049 advanced-model combine harvesters within the next 12 months to Ukraine for $187 million. The sale is... MORE