Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment during his current visit to Washington, Estonian Foreign Minister Toomas Ilves urged that NATO's next summit "bring more, rather than less clarity" compared to the last summit on NATO's enlargement. Ilves advised against a mere repetition of the last summit's... MORE

While the best-known opposition leaders--preeminently former President Abulfaz Elchibey--boycott Azerbaijan's presidential election, five lesser-known candidates are challenging the 75-year-old President Haidar Aliev. These five succeeded in collecting, each, the required 50,000 voter signatures from various parts of the country in order to qualify for registration... MORE

Statistics released last weekend confirmed what observers already knew from abundant anecdotal evidence about Russian military aviation: Russian Air Force pilots get so little flying time that they are far more accident-prone than their Western counterparts. Over the past six years this arm of the... MORE

Prime Minister Primakov chaired a weekend meeting in Moscow trying to find a solution to the conflict between Ingushetia and North Ossetia over the disputed Prigorodny district, which is part of North Ossetia but has traditionally been inhabited by Ingush. The meeting was attended by... MORE

General Aleksandr Lebed has for the first time taken a clear lead in the weekly presidential poll conducted for "Itogi," the politics program broadcast every weekend by Russia's NTV. The latest poll finds that those presently tipped to do well in the first round are:... MORE

Yeltsin's meeting with Hashimoto last week came as one Russian daily lamented that the country's domestic crisis is having an adverse effect on its foreign policy activities. Nezavisimaya gazeta said that Russia's economic problems, the recent government shake-up, and President Boris Yeltsin's own inactivity are... MORE

Ivanov appeared to convey essentially that same message to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during a meeting in New York yesterday. Ivanov reportedly told Albright that Russian diplomacy will remain steady despite the change of government in Moscow. He also said that "relations with... MORE

Liberal economist Grigory Yavlinsky--46, who leads the Yabloko movement and has already declared his intention of running for president in 2000--is in a Moscow hospital recovering from a heart attack. His condition is reported to be "satisfactory" but he is expected to remain in the... MORE

Diplomatic sources said yesterday that Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi will travel to Russia for a summit meeting with President Boris Yeltsin on or around November 11-12. The announcement followed a meeting held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York between... MORE

Russia's newly appointed First Deputy Prime Minister Vadim Gustov--former governor of Leningrad Oblast, who last week was given responsibility for regional policy--says he supports the idea of merging Russia's eighty-nine republics and regions into larger units to make them less unwieldy (Russian agencies, September 21).... MORE