Russia's Lukoil company wants a 20 percent to 40 percent stake in an international consortium being formed by British Petroleum and Norwegian Statoil to develop Azerbaijan's Shah-Deniz oil and gas field, one of the most promising in the Caspian Sea. The field's recoverable reserves are... MORE

Orenburg Oblast in the Urals has become the first region of the Russian Federation to sign a comprehensive treaty with the federal center, and Russian prime minister Victor Chernomyrdin says the center is ready to devolve real powers to the regions. (9) He said this... MORE

Ruslan Khasbulatov, the former chairman of Russia's parliament, recently enlisted by Moscow to help return Chechnya to the federal fold, has announced his withdrawal from the December 17 election of the "head" of Chechnya. Khasbulatov accused Moscow of having ordered the concurrent regional and federal... MORE

General Motors and Elaz, the Yelabuga-based automotive firm (Tatarstan), have agreed to build and operate a $250 million plant to assemble Chevrolet Blazers for the Russian market. The companies said the proposed plant in Tartarstan could be building the sport utilities within two years of... MORE

Ukrainian prime minister Yevhen Marchuk won a parliamentary seat in the December 10 by- elections, as did Anatol Franchuk, ousted only days ago from his position as Crimea's regional prime minister. Results were invalid in most of the 45 districts where balloting took place because... MORE

According to an analysis by the Central Bank of the nation's balance sheet for the first half of 1995, Russia for the first time has begun to improve servicing of its foreign debt. Russia reportedly met its obligations concerning its post-1991 debts and paid $1.8... MORE

The Brussels- based Christian Democratic International (IDC) believes that death of a Russian deputy who was running for reelection occurred under suspicious circumstances. On December 9, Vitaly Savitsky, leader of the Christian Democratic Union of Russia, was killed in a traffic collision in St. Petersburg.... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin spoke to German chancellor Helmut Kohl by telephone yesterday about this week's signing of the Bosnia peace accord, Yeltsin's press service said in a statement. It was Yeltsin's first contact with a foreign leader since he was rushed to hospital October... MORE

Yesterday's elections to the Majlis, the lower house of Kazakhstan's parliament, filled 43 out of the chamber's 67 seats. Country-wide turnout was officially reported at 78 percent. A total of 278 candidates from six parties contested the elections, held solely on the basis of single-mandate... MORE

On a three-day official visit to Azerbaijan, Turkish president Suleyman Demirel called for the withdrawal of Armenian/Karabakh forces from "occupied Azerbaijani territories" as a condition of settling the Karabakh conflict. Demirel deemed it necessary to publicly reassure the Azeri leadership that Turkey would "remain as... MORE