Concurrently with the October 3 parliamentary election, Latvia held a referendum on amendments to the citizenship law. In a strong turn-out, and by a margin of 53 percent to 45 (with 2 percent invalid and blank ballots), voters approved the amendments passed by the parliament... MORE

By a unanimous vote on October 2, Russia's Duma ratified two landmark documents codifying a military alliance of Russia and Belarus. A "treaty on military cooperation" reportedly includes a mutual obligation to withhold from third parties any military information about Russia and Belarus unless prior... MORE

Delegations from most of the former Union republics attended the first congress of the revived Soyuz [Union] movement on October 3 in Moscow. Russian participants included more than 300 Duma deputies, who were joined by representatives of organizations ranging from diehard communist to ultranationalist to... MORE

Gennady Zyuganov told NTV's "Itogi" that Wednesday's planned national protest will pass in an organized way. The Communist Party leader said that the protesters will themselves maintain order and prevent violence. "We have agreed with the police, the Federal Security Service and the Justice Ministry... MORE

Neither Primakov nor Maslyukov nor Central Bank chief Viktor Gerashchenko have been clear about whether the government has begun the "controlled emission" which all of them have suggested may be needed. The government claims to have paid off its debts to soldiers and students, and... MORE

Russian Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov went to Washington and presented a budget plan to his counterparts from the Group of Seven industrialized countries. The plan, which covers the final quarter of 1998, and which the Russian government plans to present to the State Duma, includes... MORE

Yevgeny Primakov met with members of the Consultative Council on Foreign Investment in Russia--a group formed in 1994 and including such Western corporate heavy-hitters as Coca-Cola, Mars, Siemens and British Petroleum. The Russian prime minister used the forum to deny that his government has any... MORE

The threat to reconsider Russia's relations with NATO, contained in the Duma's resolution on Kosovo (see above), also showed up in a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry and in unofficial remarks by a Defense Ministry official. The unnamed senior military official charged that NATO... MORE

Russian President Boris Yeltsin yesterday dispatched a high-level diplomatic team to Belgrade in an eleventh-hour effort to head off threatened NATO military strikes against Yugoslavia. The Russian move--which reflected widening differences between Moscow and its Western partners on the issue of Kosovo--capped a weekend in... MORE

The Tajik government and the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) yesterday issued a joint ultimatum to what they termed the "unlawful armed bands" commanded, respectively, by Saidmuhtor Erov and Rovshan Gafurov. The ultimatum gives the members of those detachments seven days to lay down their arms... MORE