Yet another Russian scientist with ties to a foreign research group has fallen afoul of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). According to the Russian daily Izvestia, the FSB's regional branch in the Maritime Territory has charged Vladimir Shchurov with illegally importing a militarily sensitive technology,... MORE

On October 6, the trial of Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky ended in Makhachkala, Dagestan. Babitsky was found guilty of holding a fake passport and was fined the equivalent of US$300. The correspondent, however, was then cleared of the punishment under an amnesty. Babitsky's lawyers... MORE

Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has extended its investigation in to the so-called Mabetex case, involving allegations that top Russian officials, including former Kremlin "property manager" Pavel Borodin, received kickbacks from two Swiss firms, Mabetex and Mercata Trading, in return for lucrative contracts to refurbish Russian... MORE

The governing Conservatives are likely losers, and left-of-center forces the likely winners, of the parliamentary elections held yesterday in Lithuania. Left-of-center parties dominate both of the major blocs vying to form the new government: the Social-Democratic Alliance and the New Politics bloc (see the Monitor,... MORE

Amid reports out of Belgrade late yesterday and this morning that President Slobodan Milosevic has been overthrown, Western governments welcomed the apparently bloodless change of leadership and moved to welcome Serbia back into the world community (Western agencies, October 5-6). With virtual unanimity Western governments... MORE

Former President Boris Yeltsin has given interviews to two weekly publications, Ogonek and Argumenty I Fakty, timed to the publication of "A Presidential Marathon," the third volume of his memoirs. Both publications also ran excerpts from the new book, and the Polit.ru website published extensive... MORE

In the excerpt from Yeltsin's book published in Ogonek, the former president has interesting things to say about various Russian political figures, including Anatoly Chubais, the architect of Russia's controversial privatization scheme and of Yeltsin's 1996 re-election campaign, who is now head of United Energy... MORE

On October 4, police in Djohar [Grozny] discovered a powerful homemade explosive device hear the Church of Mikhail Archangel, the only working Russian Orthodox church in the Chechen capital. The bomb was discovered and defused a short time before a service was to be held... MORE

On October 8, Lithuania is holding parliamentary elections which are certain to result in the replacement of the conservative-led government with one dominated by left-of-center forces. Those forces form the centerpieces of two blocs, in potential competition with each other. One is the New Politics... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree on September 30 launching the start of the Russian military's annual fall conscription campaign. In accordance with the decree, the call-up this year will last from October 1 until December 31. Just over 190,000 young men are to... MORE