Russia and Japan yesterday reaffirmed their determination to follow through on three key foreign policy goals: to sign a peace treaty formally ending World War II by the year 2000, to resolve a territorial row over the four south Kuril Islands, and to implement a... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry yesterday restated Moscow's position that any attempt by the West to settle the Kosovo crisis militarily would be unacceptable to Russia. Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin also suggested that a military intervention by the West to halt the violence in Kosovo would... MORE

The Russian Agriculture Ministry announced on September 15 that, as a result of this summer's unprecedented drought and heat wave, Russia's 1998 grain crop will be only two-thirds of last year's. Last year, Russia harvested a bumper 88.5 million tons of grain. This year's figure... MORE

There was further bad news on the health front as British, American and French doctors meeting in London warned that tuberculosis is spreading rapidly in Russia and could become a worldwide epidemic. "It is only a matter of time before drug-resistant tuberculosis of Russian origin... MORE

The Russian government yesterday postponed by a week (to 25 September) the announcement of conditions under which it will redeem GKOs--short-term, ruble-denominated government bonds. Russia effectively defaulted on GKOs when, on August 17, it announced a three-month moratorium on payments. The postponement came after seventeen... MORE

President Islam Karimov paid a state visit to Israel from September 14-17, the first such visit by a Central Asian president since those five countries became independent in 1991. Karimov made a point of meeting with Israel's leaders in Jerusalem. Political talks focused on joint... MORE

Viktor Ilyukhin, the communist chairman of the Russian Duma's Security Committee, finds that the new Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov shares the communists' basic views on Russian-Ukrainian relations. Those views boil down to seeking "grand friendship" in the form of "Slavic unity" and creation of a... MORE

Some 1,000-1,200 representatives of the National Academy of Sciences picketed buildings of the presidential administration and the parliament in Kyiv on September 16. They demanded wage arrears for 1996-1998 and an increase of budget expenditures on science to 1 per cent of the GDP in... MORE

Zurab Samushia, leader of the shadowy Georgian White Legion, made an unusual appearance yesterday on Russian state television. Samushia maintained that the White Legion operates in Abkhazia not only without Tbilisi's authorization, but also against official Tbilisi's will. He stated that the White Legion has... MORE

Some 200 parents of school children demonstrated in central Minsk yesterday against the imposition of Russian in place of Belarusan as the primary language of instruction in schools. Activists of the Belarusan Language Association organized the rally, citing figures showing that only 30 percent of... MORE