Igor Muravyev, the deputy chairman of the Duma committee on localgovernment, told Russian television August 30 that the new lawon local authorities signed by Yeltsin this week was so importantthat it constituted a "little constitution" for thecountry. The law defines how power will be selected... MORE

Rossiya(no. 28) argues that communists, nationalists, and liberals willbe able to coexist with one another more or less peacefully afterthe elections but that the real political struggle is within eachof these blocs. As a result, there is likely to be more comingand going within particular... MORE

Many employers of labor from foreign countries failto pay their workers enough to allow them to return to their homelandsafter they are discharged, Moskovsky komsomolets reported August29. As a result, many of these workers simply remain in Russiancities as a burden to the state. To... MORE

Moscow mayorYuri Luzhkov told Rossiiskaya gazeta August 29 that he does notwant to run for president or prime minister but will run for electionas mayor in 1996. Luzhkov said he would vote for Chernomyrdin's"Russia is Our Home" bloc. In other comments, Luzhkovsaid that crime was... MORE

Aleksandr Yakovlev told Ostankinotelevision that his friends had pressed him to run precisely becauseof his age and that he would be a candidate on Yegor Russia'sDemocratic Choice list. Yakovlev, now 72, would probably be theoldest member of the new Duma and thus would open it.... MORE

Citing disappointment with Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin for turningthe "Russia is Our Home" bloc into nothing more thana "party of high-ranking bureaucrats," Sergei Shakhrai,the leader of the Russian Party of Unity and Accord, and himselfa deputy premier, said he would run independently, Russian televisionreported August 30.... MORE

The Central ElectionCommission released a document that says a party that formallyenters a political coalition cannot then leave it and run as anindependent entity, Russian television reported August 29. Whetherthis rule can be enforced, and, indeed, what formal entrance intoa coalition means, remain very open... MORE

TheRussian government plans to name Anatoly Chubais to head a newfederal energy commission that will have broad authority overthe country's energy sector, Segodnya reported August 30.The new body will regulate prices and grant licenses for the exploitationand export of Russian oil and gas, provisions that... MORE

Claiming that it could easily kill Chechen president DzhokharDudayev, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service told Novostirazvedki i kontrrazvedki (no. 8) that such an operation wouldinevitably transform Dudayev into a martyr and complicate a futurepolitical settlement. The FSB has been much criticized for beingunable... MORE

The Russianforeign ministry told Kommersant-Daily August 30 that Moscowwas dropping its insistence on declaring the Caspian Sea a lakeand thus subject to common rather than sectoral exploitation bylittoral states. In addition, the foreign ministry spokesman saidthat Moscow was prepared to revise its 1940 agreement with... MORE