The ex-Soviet nuclear submarine base and training center at Paldiski, last remaining Russian military site in Estonia, was turned over to Estonian control September 26, marking the final completion of Russia's military withdrawal from the country. In a speech at the site, Estonian president Lennart... MORE

About 500,000 teachers and educators all over Russia went out on strike September 26 for higher pay. According to Galina Melnikova, an official of the Union of Russian Education and Scientific Workers, the average salary of a Russian schoolteacher is about 250,000 rubles a month,... MORE

United Democrats leader Yegor Gaidar predicts with concern that Communists and other left-wing parties have good chances in the election because the government has lost the initiative in promoting reform and lost touch with the electorate. Gaidar is also concerned about Yurii Skokov's and Aleksandr... MORE

Russian chief negotiator Vyacheslav Mikhailov said that he had failed to convince the Chechen side to suspend the creation of local self-defense detachments loyal to Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev. Mikhailov said that he does not see the need for such detachments in those localities where... MORE

Former chairman of Russia's Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khasbulatov told the media that he will travel to Grozny to promote early local elections in Chechnya, and that he will work through the Union of Peoples for the Liberation of the Republic, a movement he created. Khasbulatov... MORE

Russia will start deliveries of sophisticated weapons to South Korea later this year to pay off part of the ex-USSR's $1.56 billion debt to that country. A spokesman for Russia's arms export firm Rosvooruzheniye says it will supply Korea with modern T- 80U tanks, BMP-3... MORE

Oleg Davydov, deputy prime minister for foreign economic relations, told a Moscow news conference September 25 that Russia's strategic priority for the next decade will be to widen business cooperation with Asian-Pacific countries. Davydov will attend the second general session of the Pacific Economic Cooperation... MORE

Defense minister Pavel Grachev says that the money for defense in next year's draft budget must be increased by 17-18 trillion rubles. He says the previous two years' budgets fell far short of covering the armed forces' needs, that last year's defense spending was cut... MORE

Russia's foreign ministry is asking Belgium to rescind its refusal of a visa to Vladimir Zhirinovsky for a trip with a Duma delegation to that country, spokesman Mikhail Demurin told a Moscow briefing. Belgium had cited public order concerns in denying the visa, following Zhirinovsky's... MORE

Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev turned the UN Security Council's 50th anniversary meeting September 26 into an airing of complaints that his country was being left out of decision-making on Bosnia and other issues. He claimed that sanctions against Belgrade had been in place too long;... MORE