The first auction of state-owned gasoline stations is being held in Baku today. Approximately 800 stations are to be privatized for cash under the program. The revenue is expected to accrue partly to the state budget and partly to a specially created fund for post-privatization... MORE

The Ukrainian parliament yesterday rejected President Leonid Kuchma's proposal to place the National Guard under the command of the president in his capacity as commander in chief of the armed forces, which would have given him the right to appoint the Guard's commander. The parliament... MORE

Ingush president Ruslan Aushev yesterday expressed concern that Russian "military hotheads" may again invade Ingushetia, this time under the pretext of searching for "separatists" among the Chechen refugees. Aushev announced that more than 100,000 Chechen refugees are now registered in Ingushetia and the number keeps... MORE

Warm relations between Russia and Bulgaria may have cooled a bit in the wake of the Russian Duma's March 15 resolution denouncing disbandment of the USSR and following two visits to Sofia by high-ranking Western leaders. Yesterday, following talks with NATO Secretary General Javier Solana,... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin yesterday again promised to unveil a "peace plan" for Chechnya, now setting March 31 as the deadline for the announcement, and still without offering any specifics. In recent days, members of the two commissions tasked by Yeltsin to produce a peace plan... MORE

Member of the Russian Duma Ramazan Abdulatipov suggested yesterday that the Communist-dominated parliament could be neutralized by the convening of a special "congress of independent [i.e., non-Communist] deputies" from both houses of parliament. (Interfax, March 25) The ad hoc forum would, he proposed, discuss ways... MORE

Former first deputy prime minister Anatoly Chubais says the Duma's March 15 decision on restoring the USSR was important only because, as the first major decision taken by the Communist party since its victory in the December parliamentary elections, it provided an indication of the... MORE

A signing ceremony at which three leading political figures were to throw their support behind the presidential campaign of the official Communist party candidate, Gennady Zyuganov, has been postponed for a week. The official explanation is that Zyuganov is campaigning outside Moscow. The unofficial reason... MORE

One of the fifteen action groups that had been collecting signatures in support of President Boris Yeltsin's reelection bid submitted lists containing 1.37 million signatures to the Central Election Commission yesterday. (Interfax, March 25) The CEC now has ten days in which to verify the... MORE

Lawmakers in the southern city Krasnodar are demanding that Yeltsin's presidential decree legalizing the sale of land should be suspended throughout Krasnodar Krai -- one of Russia's main agricultural-producing regions. They argue that a free market cannot be permitted in the region because of the... MORE