Boris Yeltsin today retreated from yesterday's threat to sack Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. Yeltsin said that what the minister needed was a good deputy to handle paperwork. Referring to his comments on Thursday in which he said he was looking for a candidate to replace... MORE

Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev continued his shakeup of military and law enforcement structures Thursday, firing his top lawman and the commander of Interior Ministry troops. Nazarbayev issued a decree removing Interior Minister Bolat Baikenov and ministry troop commander Bulat Zhanasayev, replacing them with closer allies... MORE

The Council of Europe said on Thursday it had accepted applications for membership from Ukraine and Macedonia, raising the organization's membership to 38. It said the applications were endorsed by the Executive Council of Ministers, and the two countries would on November 9 officially join... MORE

Russia's deputy prime minister and CIS Interstate Economic Committee chairman Aleksei Bolshakov expects Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to join the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan customs union "in the near future." He said that experts are currently completing the drafting of relevant documents to ensure free movement of their... MORE

Having fired the Internal Affairs minister and his deputy, President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus is now taking aim at the Constitutional Court. Earlier this month, the court ruled against Lukashenko on the constitutionality of several of his presidential decrees. The Court on Tuesday unexpectedly canceled... MORE

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma told journalists in Kiev that he and Russian president Boris Yeltsin are not likely to meet at the UN General Assembly session in New York next week. Kuchma said that should a meeting nevertheless take place, he would "invite Yeltsin to... MORE

The National Conciliation Bloc, a coalition of left-of-center and left-wing parties, yesterday issued a strongly-worded statement asking to be entrusted with forming the government. The leftist bloc holds 53 of the parliament's 100 seats, and includes a strong party led by a German citizen of... MORE

Exactly one year ago, the newspaper Moskovsky komsomolets published an investigative article on corruption in the Russian forces deployed in the former East Germany. The article bore the none too subtle title, "Pasha-Mercedes: The Thief Should Be Imprisoned, Not Minister of Defense." Minister Grachev took... MORE

On Tuesday in Moscow, leaders of the Udmurt republic sign a package of agreements on power-sharing with the federal government. The new arrangement gives the Ural mountain republic greater authority over its natural resources, budget, and other governmental functions. President Yeltsin used the occasion to... MORE

The OSCE's Permanent Council has reversed its decision to sharply reduce the personnel of its Grozny mission, the Russian foreign ministry's European cooperation department director Yuri Ushakov said yesterday. The decision to lie low had been made in response to recent threats and attacks on... MORE