The main pipeline carrying Russian gas to Georgia and Armenia was sabotaged by a bomb explosion November 12 on the territory of North Ossetia. The mainline has not yet been restored, and gas is moving in reduced amounts through a backup branch after a two-day... MORE

Georgia's Central Electoral Commission released yesterday the official returns of the November 5 general elections. Eduard Shevardnadze won the presidency with 74.3 percent of the votes cast, followed by the former Georgian Communist Party leader Djumber Patiashvili with 19.3 percent. Only three parties overcame the... MORE

Estonian prime minister Tiit Vahi told a news conference yesterday that Estonia does not intend to host nuclear weapons on its territory if admitted to NATO, and that Estonian diplomacy must make that clear to Russia. Vahi described this issue as Moscow's main objection to... MORE

Prime Minister-designate Maris Grinblats said yesterday that he has made progress toward putting together a new, right-of-center coalition government, and will submit it and its program for parliamentary approval next week. The government is to be comprised of Grinblats' Fatherland and Freedom bloc, Latvia's Way,... MORE

Moldovan president Mircea Snegur is currently consulting with selected parliamentary deputies, attempting to sway them into supporting his constitutional initiative to redesignate the country's official language from Moldovan to Romanian. The president's moves are bypassing the party leaderships and the parliamentary factions. Snegur is also... MORE

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma told a news conference in Kharkov that Russia is failing to live up to the 1994 Russian-Ukrainian treaty on free trade. Kuchma ruled out discussing Ukraine's accession to the existing Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan customs union, or a future CIS Customs Union, until Russia... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin has named Sergei Dubinin, 44, to head Russia's Central Bank. Dubinin is currently a board member of Gazprom, one of Russia's most influential companies. He was First Deputy Finance Minister in 1993, serving under Boris Fedorov in Yegor Gaidar's reformist government, and... MORE

Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin visited President Yeltsin in the hospital yesterday. Among other topics, the two men discussed personnel appointments. Later it was announced that Yeltsin was nominating Sergei Dubinin to replace Aleksandr Khandruyev as chairman of the Russian Central Bank. This move came only... MORE

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has provided Russia with 359.4 million Special Drawing Rights (SDR), or over $530 million at the current exchange rate, as the seventh tranche of a stand-by loan. Thomas Wolf, head of the IMF permanent mission in Moscow, said that the... MORE

Estonia's General Staff announced yesterday that the Defense forces' commander, Lt. General Alexander Einseln has dismissed the Chief of Staff, Colonel Arvo Sirel. Besides Sirel, a battalion commander, Lt. Col. Manivald Kasepold, also was dismissed. Reports in the press have said both were implicated in... MORE