The EUhas decided to give almost $4 million to Russia and other CIScountries to fight a diphtheria epidemic there, Interfax reportedJune 30. The EU said that it would send vaccines in order to preventthe number of victims this year from reaching the projected figureof 200,000.... MORE

Officialsin Russia's Kostroma region have sharply restricted the freedomof religious expression, Kostromskiy kray reported June8. According to a recent decision, all religious groups must registerwith the state, the police must watch all foreign missionaries,religious groups cannot conduct "agitation" in publicplaces and are subject to strict... MORE

In a June 30 Segodnyaarticle, former nationalities minister and current director ofthe Institute of Ethnology Valeriy Tishkov urged the Russian authoritiesto start a massive educational effort to promote tolerance amongpeoples of different religions, nationalities, and professions.Tishkov said that there was little open discrimination in Russiansociety... MORE

The chiefof the Federal Security Service in Voronezh acknowledged thathe had planted a bug in the phones of oblast administrative headAleksandr Kovalev, Segodnya reported June 30. Most

On June 29, Russianpresident Boris Yeltsin and Yakutiya-Sakha president Mikhail Nikolayevsigned a treaty delineating responsibilities and power betweenMoscow and Yakutsk, Novosti reported. Sakha received a greatershare of the wealth from its diamond production in exchange foracknowledging the supremacy of Russian Federation legislation.The treaty codified 15... MORE

Russian specialists on handling hostagesituations sharply criticized Moscow's approach in Budennovsk,Segodnya reported June 30. The experts told the paper that"high-ranking amateurs" had interfered inappropriately,that the assault on the hospital had been poorly planned, andthat no one was now looking after the freed hostages, many ofwhom... MORE

Russian fishermanon the Pacific coast continued their strike into the fifth month,Russian radio as reported July 2. Their basic complaint: theyhave not been paid for more than two years. Moscow Unhappy With Baltic Visa-Free Regime.

The decisionof the three Baltic countries to allow their citizens to movefreely across their borders as of July 1 has infuriated localRussians and Moscow officials who believe that the new agreementdiscriminates against ethnic Russians in Latvia and Estonia whodo not have passports, Ostankino television reported... MORE

The failureof the Baltija Bank has sparked political controversy in the Latvianparliament over who will control the reform of the banking system,has worsened the Latvian government's budget deficit, has ledto a dramatic rise in the interest rates Riga must pay on itstreasury bills, and has... MORE

Thedeputy chairman of Russia's State Customs Commission told InterfaxJune 29 that his experiences in Belarus suggests that the expansionof a customs union to include other CIS states will not be "easyor fast." But Belarusian officials saw the introduction of100 Russian customs officers on the country's... MORE