Russian President Boris Yeltsin returned to work in the Kremlin this morning after a week in which illness confined him to bed. (BBC, March 20) Presidential Race Heats Up.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Dushanbe government charged that the United Tajik Opposition is either unable to control its own armed units or "insincere when claiming that it wants peace." Citing recent cases of harassment of government forces by opposition units, the government warned... MORE

Russian authorities on March 17 and 18 arrested several supporters of the late Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, including former Finance Minister Guram Absandze and former Vice-Chairman of Parliament Nemo Burchuladze. The authorities also raided the Zviadist "information center" in Moscow and seized documents. Those arrested... MORE

The Democratic Party of Ukraine dates back to the heyday of the national-democratic movement. Party chairman Volodymyr Yavorivsky, a prominent writer, was one of the founding leaders of the Ukrainian Popular Movement -- the Rukh -- in 1989 and entered the parliament in 1990. Shortly... MORE

Russia's largest-circulation newspaper, the weekly Argumenty i fakty, claims in its latest issue that the real reason for President Boris Yeltsin's confinement to bed is that he is suffering from one of his periodic bouts of depression. According to Yeltsin's press secretary, the president is... MORE

Primakov also spent some time addressing Russia's concept of a "multipolar world" and the related imperative of preventing the emergence of a "unipolar system." These formulations are shorthand, obviously, for Moscow's efforts to counter Washington's still dominant influence on the world stage. Primakov points to... MORE

In an appearance before Russia's influential Foreign and Defense Policy Council earlier this week, Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov elaborated on several of the fundamental principles currently underlying Russia's activities on the international stage. (Nezavisimaya gazeta, Segodnya, March 17) According to a summary of Primakov's remarks... MORE

The spy scandal that has rocked relations between Russia and Norway and resulted in diplomats being expelled from each country appeared by yesterday to have run its course. On March 17, Norway's ambassador to Russia, Per Tresselt, expressed Oslo's regrets over the decision by Moscow... MORE

Two days after his return to Kazakhstan from six months' absence abroad, former Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin was elected head of Kazakhstan's Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (UIE). This is the post Kazhegeldin held before he was appointed premier in 1994. (Delovaya nedelya [Almaty], March... MORE

With 65 percent of the vote counted, Acting President Robert Kocharian is projected to have received 39 percent of the overall vote, Karen Demirchian 28 percent, Sergei Badalian 14 percent and Vazgen Manukian 12 percent in the first round of Armenia's presidential election on March... MORE