More than a month after the present financial crisis erupted on August 17, the Russian government remains incomplete and without an economic policy. President Boris Yeltsin met with Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov yesterday to try to fill the remaining cabinet vacancies, which include the posts... MORE

The Supreme Court of Tajikistan began yesterday the trial of four of the leaders of the August 1997 antigovernment rebellion. Staged by hardliners who rejected the government's incipient accommodation with the opposition, the rebellion enjoyed covert support from neighboring Uzbekistan. Colonel Mahmud Hudoiberdiev and other... MORE

On September 19 President Haidar Aliev addressed a mass rally of his supporters, the first such in the current presidential election campaign. In asking for a second presidential mandate, Aliev dwelt on the themes of experience in statesmanship and continuity in government. He listed the... MORE

In an unprecedented gesture, Russian Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov has sent parallel messages of reassurance to the presidents and the chairmen of parliament of the three Baltic states. Speaking as the leader of Russia's new governing majority, Zyuganov presents the internal and international agenda of... MORE

Presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine held on September 18-19 near Moscow an informal, "no-necktie" meeting which was intended to energize the lagging economic relations. Departing for Moscow, Kuchma identified his two "top priorities" at these talks: first, devising a joint... MORE

The two British aid workers, Camilla Carr and Jon James, arrived back in Britain last night after being released from fourteen months' captivity in Chechnya. The two had been working with war-traumatized children when they were abducted in July 1997. They told a news conference... MORE

The Russian Duma voted by a narrow margin September 18 to lift the immunity from prosecution of Nadyr Khachilaev, member of the Russian parliament and leader of the Union of Muslims (NTV, ORT, RTR, September 18). This sets an important precedent. It is the first... MORE

Colonel General Konstantin Totsky was named director of Russia's Federal Border Service on September 16, as President Boris Yeltsin continued the shake-up of Russia's defense and security hierarchies in the wake of Yevgeny Primakov's appointment as prime minister. Totsky is a little-known career border services... MORE

Prime Minister Primakov has rejected calls for Russia's eighty-nine republics and regions to be redivided into a dozen or so big administrative units. He told journalists on September 18 that while the idea was "reasonable... eighty-nine is too many," and such a reform would be... MORE

The former chairman of Russia's Central Bank, Sergei Dubinin, has denied allegations that loans provided by the IMF were embezzled or wasted. Last week, Russia's prosecutor general opened a criminal investigation into the allegations. Yesterday, Russia's chief state auditor, Venyamin Sokolov, told the BBC that... MORE