Moscow'sORT network will again carry advertising, it announced in a broadcastAugust 3. The station had dropped such advertising earlier in1995 because of both official pressure and massive corruptionassociated with the lucrative business. ORT has created a specialcompany to handle the advertising in order to ensure... MORE

NikolaiRyabov, the chairman of the Central Election Commission, toldNTV August 2 that he had issued an instruction banning politicaladvertising on privately owned electronic media. If his ordersticks--and that is far from certain--candidates and parties wouldbe able to use only the state-owned media, something that wouldboth... MORE

Boris Yeltsinwill not name a new central bank director until the fall sessionof the Duma, presidential aides told Interfax August 3. Instead,Tatyana Paramonova, the acting director of the bank who has beenrejected twice by the Duma, will remain in place. Russia, China Again Dispute Ownership... MORE

Despitean agreement that was supposed to solve almost all border issues,Russia and China remain locked in a dispute over ownership anduse of several small islands in the Sungari and Bira rivers thatformer the boundaries between the two countries, Segodnya reportedAugust 3. Nationalities Minister Learned Ethnicity... MORE

VyacheslavMikhailov, lead Russian negotiator at Grozny and newly named nationalitiesminister, told Obshchaya gazeta (no. 31) that he had spent20 years in the Ukrainian city of Lviv "studying at lengthwestern Ukraine's ethnic problems" after receiving his educationaltraining at Moscow's higher party school. In other comments, Mikhailovexplained... MORE

Presidentialaides said that Boris Yeltsin will veto the recently passed bill"On the formation of the Federation Council" becauseits election procedures violate provisions of the Russian Constitution,Interfax reported August 3. Following such a veto, Yeltsin islikely to issue a decree which will set the standards for... MORE

Although parliamentarianshave collected more than the 90 members' signatures required toforce a special session of the Duma on the electoral law, theemergency session must still be approved by the so-called DumaCouncil which is headed by Speaker Ivan Rybkin, Ostankino televisionreported August 3. Rybkin has repeatedly... MORE

Moscow'scourse of privatization, and its increasing reliance on the military,make it likely that Russian society "will acquire the peculiaritiesof the largest Latin American countries of the '60s and '70s,"Moskovskaya pravda suggested August 2. Duma Special Session Still in Doubt.

The Russian councilof ministers approved a draft budget for 1996, Interfax reportedAugust 3. Based on certain optimistic assumptions--an inflationrate of 1.2 percent a month (compared to 5 percent a month now)and a ruble-dollar exchange rate of 4,500 to one--the deficitanticipates a deficit of 81.2 trillion... MORE

In a televised address August3, Boris Yeltsin said that the military agreement between Moscowand the Chechens presented a "real chance" for endingmilitary operations and starting on the road toward peace. Hesaid that the political accords to be reached in the future wouldbe based on the... MORE