Moscow and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have reached an agreement on new Fund credits. The Fund's managing director, Michel Camdessus, who met in Washington with the Russian delegation, headed by First Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Maslyukov, said that the Russian side had agreed to... MORE

While the news that Moscow and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had come to an agreement came too late to make today's newspapers, some of them already knew of the IMF conditions for the credit, and reacted quite negatively. One paper headlined its main article... MORE

Russia yesterday found itself at the center of a frenzied wave of diplomatic activity aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Kosovo. A day after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott held talks in Moscow with the special Russian envoy for... MORE

Feliks Kulov, one of Kyrgyzstan's most powerful political figures, resigned on April 26 from his latest post--that of mayor of the capital Bishkek. That post is appointive, not elective; Kulov accordingly handed in his resignation to President Askar Akaev who had appointed him. But Kulov's... MORE

The number of Ukraine's political parties continues to rise--typically by splits within established parties. Latest among these are the environmentalists--the Greens---following in the footsteps of the Rukh, the Social Democrats, the Liberal and Democratic parties. Next on the list is undoubtedly the so-called "party of... MORE

Presidents Haidar Aliev of Azerbaijan and Robert Kocharian of Armenia held a two-hour, tete-a-tete discussion on April 26 in the U.S. State Department in Washington. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hosted the meeting but left after a few minutes, letting the two presidents to conduct... MORE

Russia and China have completed an exhaustive seven-year effort to mark their joint borders, a Russian official said yesterday. According to Genrikh Kireev, a Russian diplomat involved in the effort, a Russian-Chinese border demarcation commission will disband this week. While active, the commission reportedly produced... MORE

Russia and Belarus have decided to create a joint "regional group of armed forces," according to Russian Defense Minister Marshal Igor Sergeev, who was interviewed yesterday (Krasnaya zvezda, April 27). Sergeev headed a Russian military delegation to Belarus last week for discussions with President Alyaksandr... MORE

Russia's new first deputy prime minister, Sergei Stepashin, will be in charge of relations with the regions and oversee the country's elections. Presidential spokesman Dmitri Yakushkin stressed the latter responsibility in saying that Stepashin's "principal task is to conduct clean and honest elections" (Russian agencies,... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin made his first substantive move against the cabinet of Yevgeny Primakov yesterday, firing First Deputy Prime Minister Vadim Gustov and replacing him with a loyalist, Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin. Primakov formally welcomed Stepashin at a cabinet meeting today, saying that the fight... MORE