Russian minister without portfolio Yevgeny Yasin has given his seal of approval to foreign investment, calling it crucial for the recovery of the Russian economy. Interviewed in Izvestia, Yasin noted that domestic financing of investment continued to decline in 1997, while foreign direct investment rose... MORE

Armenian Foreign Ministry chief spokesman Arsen Gasparian on January 16 reaffirmed Yerevan's position that the OSCE and its "Minsk conference" group of countries is the sole negotiating forum for settling the Karabakh conflict. At the same time, Armenia "has welcomed and will welcome efforts by... MORE

The first trainload of oil from Kazakhstan's biggest oil field, Tengiz, arrived in China on January 17. Officials of the American-run Tengizchevroil company expect to supply at least one million tons of crude oil from that field to China in 1998. According to Russia's official... MORE

Presidents Lennart Meri, Guntis Ulmanis, and Algirdas Brazauskas signed with President Bill Clinton in Washington on January 16 a "Charter of Partnership among Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the U.S." The Charter, which took more than a year to negotiate, is a political document that does... MORE

After a gap of almost a month, the official Russian-Chechen commission met again in Ingushetia on January 17. Russian Security Council secretary Ivan Rybkin brought an expanded negotiating team with him, including, in his words, people capable of making a real impact on the Russian-Chechen... MORE

For the second time in two months, there has been an attempt on the life of the head of the organized crime administration of Dagestan's Interior Ministry, Col. Ruslan Gitinov. Late last week, Gitinov was wounded in the shoulder when a car in which he... MORE

A government delegation headed by Energy Minister Sergei Kirienko is in Kemerovo today in a fresh effort to resolve the decade-long crisis in Russia's coal industry. Last week, miners throughout the Kuzbass staged a one-day warning strike to protest continuing wage arrears. The mines are... MORE

The Speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, Yegor Stroev, has repeated his earlier warning that the government's policy of signing power-sharing treaties between the center and the regions threatens to turn Russia into a confederation. Stroev says the practice is fanning "nationalist... MORE

The Clinton Administration claimed over the weekend to have made some progress in stemming the flow of Russian missile technology to Iran, but administration officials conceded that the problem is far from being resolved. The latest developments in what has now been a year-long saga... MORE

Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin flexed his muscles last week when he announced a sweeping redistribution of responsibilities for his deputies. (Itar-Tass, January 16; ORT, January 17) President Yeltsin's spokesman, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said that the changes, which amount to a devastating loss of authority for... MORE