Russian Federal Border Guard Service Director Nikolai Bordyuzha was named on September 14 to the post of Russian Security Council secretary (Itar-Tass, September 14). General Bordyuzha succeeds Andrei Kokoshin, the civilian defense intellectual who was unceremoniously dumped from the post on September 10. Bordyuzha served... MORE

Russia's newly named foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, told reporters yesterday that Russia's foreign policy would remain unchanged under his stewardship. Following a Kremlin meeting with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Ivanov said that the top priority of Russian foreign policy today is to ensure favorable external... MORE

Representatives of the IMF and World Bank who met with Yevgeny Primakov in Moscow yesterday said they were encouraged by the new prime minister's assurances that Russia will honor its debts and continue its economic reforms. IMF officials said, however, that they would need to... MORE

The government of Kazakhstan announced yesterday the signing of four contracts, totaling approximately US$2 billion, with Japan's Marubeni and Mitsubishi companies. The contracts concern, respectively: reconstruction and expansion of the Atyrau oil-processing plant (on the Caspian coast), construction of a petrochemical plant specializing in plastic... MORE

The Moldovan government has applied to the European Union for "urgent exemptions" from tariff and other barriers to Moldovan agricultural products. The request cited the "dramatic impact" of Russia's economic crisis upon Moldova, more than 60 percent of whose exports normally go to Russia. Those... MORE

The Independent Trade Union of Coal Miners of Ukraine has demanded resignation of the Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko and turned to parliament for support (Itar-Tass, September 14). Meanwhile, another five mines joined the strike initiated earlier by four mines of the Pavlohradvuhillya (Pavlograd coal)... MORE

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze told the country on radio yesterday that the U.S. Sixth Fleet flagship's arrival in Poti is "a normal development for an independent country" and must not be viewed through a cold-war prism. The remark appeared intended to preempt possible Russian expressions... MORE

The Open Spirit-98 naval exercise, the first ever to involve the Baltic joint naval squadron BALTRON, began on September 12 in Estonian waters. Until September 22, fifteen ships and 800 sailors from eleven NATO, Nordic and Baltic countries will practice mine-detection and mine-sweeping. In the... MORE

Also on September 12 the joint Lithuanian-Polish battalion, LITPOLBAT, began its first combat exercise, code-named Gruenwald Wind. Until September 18, the 800-strong unit will practice peace enforcement operations at the Orzysz testing grounds in Poland's Suwalki province. Formed on the basis of bilateral agreements in... MORE

Belarusan Foreign Minister Ivan Antanovich regards Russian President Boris Yeltsin as a latter-day Mikhail Gorbachev--and does not mean it as a compliment. Interviewed on Belarusan television, the foreign minister accused Yeltsin of following Gorbachev's example in allowing Western statesmen to "constantly foist their views on... MORE