The newly elected Ukrainian parliament convened yesterday for its inaugural session. In an address to both parliament and the nation, President Leonid Kuchma appealed for prompt legislative action to reform the economy. Alluding to the relative success of leftist forces in the March 29 elections,... MORE

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) concluded its annual board meeting yesterday in Kyiv. The EBRD and Ukraine's Energo-Atom signed two agreements on the allocation of grants totaling $130 million to repair the defective "sarcophagus," the protective shelter built after the 1986 disaster... MORE

A court in the Uzbek city of Namangan yesterday sentenced four local residents to prison terms from five to seven years on charges of "terrorism" and "propagating Wahhabism." The sentence took into account the "mitigating circumstance" that the defendants had "sincerely repented." They were said... MORE

United Tajik Opposition leader Saidabdullo Nuri has appointed Mirzo Zia (Zieyev) to the post of commander in chief of UTO forces. The field commander from Garm area, Mirzo Hoj Nizom, was appointed chief of staff to Zia. Zia succeeds UTO's Chief of Staff Dovlat Usmon,... MORE

It seems that the glare of media attention has forced China to abandon a covert scheme to obtain an ex-Soviet aircraft carrier from Ukraine for its navy. The ship is the Varyag--a 65,000-ton vessel that was to be the sister-ship of Russia's only aircraft carrier,... MORE

A Japanese newspaper on May 10 reported what it said were new details about a peace treaty proposal made by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto during his April 18-19 summit meeting with Russian President Boris Yeltsin. In the immediate aftermath of the summit, Japanese newspapers had... MORE

Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov said yesterday that talks in Moscow with the chairman of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, scheduled to begin today, will deal only with Russia's current contract to build a nuclear power plant at the Bushehr site in Iran. Recent Western... MORE

Today's Russian-Iranian talks come as U.S. lawmakers increase pressure on the White House to impose sanctions on Russian energy giant Gazprom for its participation in a French-led project to develop an Iranian natural gas field. Late last week, a letter from fourteen U.S. Senators urged... MORE

Aleksandr Lebed says the ground is being prepared for an annulment of the May 17 election for governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai in the event that he, Lebed, emerges the winner. Speaking on national television on May 10, Lebed accused his rival for the post, incumbent... MORE

Senior Ukrainian officials have in recent days strongly reaffirmed their country's interest in importing Azerbaijani oil and transiting it to Central and Western Europe. Ukrainian Prime Minister Valery Pustovoytenko carried these proposals to Baku. The Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, Yuri Shcherbak, also discussed... MORE