Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada yesterday included in its agenda a draft law on impeachment of the president, targeting Leonid Kuchma. A majority of the attending deputies voted in favor of the move. Furthermore, 196 deputies--more than the required 150--have signed a motion to start no-confidence proceedings... MORE

Instability returned to Dagestan yesterday. The center of the capital, Makhachkala, was sealed off by police after an exchange of gunfire between the security forces and occupants of a jeep in which the Khachilaev brothers were believed to be traveling. Magomed Khachilaev, leader of the... MORE

Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov says he will shortly reshuffle his cabinet. The reshuffle is necessary because several ministers, mainly supporters of former acting Prime Minister Shamil Basaev, have recently resigned. In the future, Maskhadov announced, he will exercise his constitutional right to act as his... MORE

The 10,000th person to acquire Latvian citizenship through naturalization received her passport yesterday in a special ceremony. She happens to be an ethnic Bashkir who came to Latvia twenty years ago from Russia, and is married to a local Russian who is a citizen of... MORE

Russia's current economic and political crisis could swell the number of Jews trying to emigrate from Russia to Israel, officials said yesterday. According to Aleksandr Osovtsov, identified as the executive vice president of Russia's Jewish Congress, "the process of emigration, involving not only Jews but... MORE

The two British aid workers, Camilla Carr and Jon James, who were kidnapped in Chechnya fourteen months ago, are alive and well but still in captivity. The British authorities have been given a videotape, apparently made quite recently, by a Russian member of parliament who... MORE

Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said yesterday, September 9, that deputy finance ministers from the Group of Seven countries are unlikely to make any concrete decisions on aid to Russia when they meet in London next week. Summers' remarks square with those made a day... MORE

Sources from Russia's Strategic Missile Troops were reported to have said yesterday that the service had been notified by North Korea of Pyongyang's intention to test-fire a ballistic missile sometime in the near future. No other details were reported. Russian missile defense forces said yesterday... MORE

A Japan-based Japanese-Russian friendship society held its inaugural meeting in Tokyo yesterday, September 9. The new group, called the Japan-Russia Friendship Forum 21, includes leading figures from Japanese politics, economics and academia. Its membership is said to include some 300 Russia experts. The organization also... MORE

Governor Leonid Gorbenko of Kaliningrad Oblast yesterday denied press reports that he had declared a state of emergency in his region. Constitutionally, only the president has that power. Gorbenko said that he spoke only of the necessity for emergency economic measures to prepare the region... MORE