Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev yesterday attended the inauguration of the Baku subsidiary of the Moscow-based Most Bank. According to the president, Most-Azerbaijan became the first bank in that country with 100 percent foreign capital; and it also became Most Bank's first foreign affiliate. Creation of... MORE

The Moldovan parliament on December 22 voted by a large majority to reject the amendments proposed by president Mircea Snegur to the law on state security. The amendments had sought to give the president the power to appoint and dismiss the State Security Ministry's senior... MORE

Assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko is expected to have the deciding word on who will be speaker of the new Belarusian parliament. The pool of likely candidates appears to have narrowed to about twelve people. In addition to Myacheslau Hryb,... MORE

The Russian Foreign Ministry's chief spokesman Grigory Karasin told a Moscow briefing that the ministry has complained to the West European Union's Permanent Council chairman, Luis Casanova of Spain, over the WEU Parliamentary Assembly's recommendation to form a standing Baltic naval force. Russia regards the... MORE

Russia and Iran will sign a protocol on the settlement of mutual financial obligations during Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Davydov's official visit to Iran of December 26-29. Davydov is also Russian minister for foreign economic relations. As of late July 1995, Tehran owed Moscow $582... MORE

The presidium of the CIS Interstate Economic Committee (IEC) held a special session yesterday in Moscow at the deputy prime minister level. The meeting participants discussed energy supplies to member states for the current winter. In a message to the session, Russian prime minister Viktor... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin yesterday moved to assert his personal control over foreign policy by setting up a new Council on Foreign Policy which will be responsible directly to him, his press service said. The Council's "main tasks are to draw up proposals for the president... MORE

Two names frequently mentioned as candidates for chairman of the new State Duma are the incumbent Ivan Rybkin and former chairman of the USSR Supreme Soviet Anatoly Lukyanov, who remains a Communist party loyalist. Russian media have reported that the Liberal Democratic Party, which previously... MORE

. Valentin Kuptsov, a member of the Communist party's top leadership, told reporters yesterday that it is premature to speculate about the possibility of Communist involvement in the cabinet before a full scale meeting of the party's Central Committee scheduled for Jan. 10-11. He was... MORE

Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers faulted "inefficient implementation" of the state's prevention program for the rise in economic crimes and misdemeanors over the past year. "Especially serious" were violations by banks, commercial structures, credit-financial institutions, and trust companies. Tax evasion was deemed "massive." The cabinet noted... MORE