Following a strategy meeting of "Russia is Our Home" deputies to the new Duma, Russian prime minister Victor Chernomyrdin said he was considering appointing communists to his government out of respect for the 22 percent of the electorate who voted for the Communist party. Despite... MORE

Belarus's Ivan Karachenya, who serves as CIS executive secretary, is predicting that the January 19 CIS summit in Moscow will result in three new states -- Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan -- joining the CIS Customs Union. The Union presently consists of Russian, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.... MORE

. According to presidential economics advisor Alexander Livshitz, the ruble band may cease to exist next year. "If there are no abrupt shifts (in the economy) the currency corridor will be abolished" because "it will be no longer needed," said Livshitz. A new version of... MORE

Head of the Russian Central Bank (CBR) Sergei Dubinin was elected chair of the board of directors of the Bank for Foreign Trade (Vneshtorgbank) at a shareholders' meeting in Moscow yesterday. CBR has a 96.8 percent stake in Vneshtorgbank, which automatically guarantees the CBR director... MORE

Boris Yeltsin yesterday left the sanitarium for the state residence in Barvikha, where his treatment will be less strict. Doctors said the president has not yet fully recovered from the coronary attack he suffered two months ago. (1) Centrist Group Takes Shape in Duma.

A group of deputies elected from single-mandate constituencies have agreed to form a "centrist-democratic bloc" in Russia's new Duma. Among the initiators of the bloc are current Duma Defense Committee Chairman Sergei Yushenkov, Republican Party leader Vladimir Lysenko, Aleksandr Zhukov of Forward Russia, and Konstantin... MORE

"Turkmenistan is interested in the broad participation of foreign investors in its development," President Saparmurat Niyazov said in an interview. In a bid to attract Western capital, Niyazov announced a program to modernize the country's financial and banking sector and to change the legislation governing... MORE

Russian border troops reported having killed at least 65 Tajik insurgents, with no Russian casualties, in two engagements on the Tajik-Afghan border after the Russian legislative elections. One engagement took place in mountainous terrain in Badakhshan, the other on the Pyanj river. Russian forces used... MORE

U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan Stanley Escudero said at a Peace Corps oath-taking ceremony in Tashkent that U.S. companies and lending agencies currently consider investments worth more than $1 billion in Uzbekistan's oil and gas sector. (18) The new infusion amount would supplement recent U.S. investments,... MORE

The fifth round of the UN-mediated, Russian-assisted negotiations between the Tajik government and the armed opposition adjourned December 22 amid disagreement on virtually all political and military issues under discussion. The UN Secretary General's special representative Ramiro Piriz-Ballon formally announced that the round would resume... MORE