Georgianpresident Eduard Shevardnadze said July 24 that the resolutionof the Abkhaz and South Ossetian issues would become the "touchstone"of relations between Tbilisi and Moscow, Interfax reported. IfRussia can settle those conflicts, Shevardnadze added, it will"win the trust of CIS states." Also on July 24, Georgianforeign... MORE

Ukrainianpremier Evhen Marchuk told Crimean leaders in Simferopol thatKiev was seeking international assistance to help pay for thereturn of Crimean Tatars to their homeland and for the reestablishmentof their community there, Interfax reported July 24. He said thatKiev would seek special credits from the World... MORE

Belarusianpresident Aleksandr Lukashenko said that his country lacked thefunds necessary to complete the destruction of weaponry mandatedby the CFE Treaty and to complete the return of strategic missilesto Russia under its accord with Moscow, Interfax reported July24. In the first case, he blamed the US... MORE

Russianprime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin told Finnish premier PaavoLipponen that Moscow would like to construct an oil pipeline acrossFinland to that country's ports, Interfax reported July 24. Sucha pipeline would reduce Moscow's reliance on Baltic ports andsignificantly cut the incomes which the three Baltic states receivefor... MORE

Because of the expansion of Kaliningrad'sports and because of increasing exploitation of natural resourceson the Baltic sea floor, Russia and the three Baltic countriesmust agree on "spheres of influence" in this region,Kaliningrad regional administrator Yuri Matochkin told InterfaxJuly 24. The new ports in his region... MORE

In a step that will do little to reassure those who fear thatmore Latvian banks may be in trouble, the Latvian government hasannounced that it will prosecute anyone deliberately spreadingfalse information about the country's banking system, BNS reportedJuly 22. On July 24, a Council of... MORE

Over the last decade,the number of mentally ill in Russia who qualify for the statusof invalid has risen to 699,000, Sovetskaya Chuvashiya reportedJune 29. The number of mentally ill people who commit crimes inRussia has risen 60% in the last five years, and the percentageof... MORE

Like Moscow and other major Russian cities, SaintPetersburg faces a rising tide of homeless children. The city'smayor, Anatoly Sobchak, has announced his solution: the establishmentof special military cadet schools in which such children willbe enrolled, Krasnaya zvezda said July 22. In Soviet timessuch schools for... MORE

GrandDuchess Leonida, the widow of Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovichand grandmother of Prince Georgiy who is a leading pretender tothe throne, told the third congress of Russian monarchists thatthe last tsar and his family must be rehabilitated and his propertyrestored to his heirs, Russian radio reported... MORE

Dumahealth committee chairman Bela Denisenko told Rossiiskaya gazetaJuly 22 that Russia is rapidly becoming an "Eldorado"for drug traffickers who increasingly use Russia as a transshipmentpoint as they move narcotics from Asian producers to Europeanand American consumers. Unfortunately, she added, Russia has notescaped the other part... MORE