Alarmed by the "suitcase trade" conducted by Belarusans with neighboring Poland, the Belarusan authorities have moved to limit what its citizens may import from Poland in private cars. They have also introduced costly new restrictions on the invitations that Belarusans must receive in order to... MORE

The command of Russia's border troops announced yesterday that it would propose to President Boris Yeltsin that the Upper Larsi border post be moved forward, to the location from which it had been withdrawn last month. The command made that decision following a senior staff... MORE

Armed groups loosely affiliated with Tajikistan's political opposition entered Dushanbe from the east on January 8 and, yesterday, pressured the government into releasing three opposition fighters. Government forces had arrested the three in Dushanbe on January 7. The opposition detachments, based in the capital's eastern... MORE

The IMF last week gave Russia a vote of confidence by releasing a previously suspended tranche of its extended loan, and saying that the next quarterly tranche may be issued a month earlier than expected. Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov expressed satisfaction with what he said... MORE

Overall, however, the conference was remarkably free of controversy. If Russia is indeed in the grip of "Mafia capitalism," it did not show up in the calm and balanced discussions of project financing and investment guarantees. Last year, the symposium made headlines with a keynote... MORE

The second annual U.S.-Russian Investment Symposium convened at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from January 9-11. More than 500 businessmen and officials -- including no less than seven Russian regional governors -- gathered to discuss the prospects and problems of foreign... MORE

"We know only too well who they are, those forces that advocate the southern pipeline routes; the Russian side knows those people's faces. ...Those people seek to distance themselves from Russia," Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin burst out to journalists yesterday, evidently alluding to Central Asian... MORE

Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Main Department for International Military Cooperation, led a delegation that included four other Russian generals on a visit to Georgia from January 4-8. The delegation visited Russian military bases in various parts of Georgia and... MORE

In a surprising display of fiscal responsibility, the Ukrainian parliament on December 30 approved the 1998 national budget on its third and final reading. (Unian, December 30) This stands in sharp contrast to parliament's treatment of the 1997 budget, which was passed only in August... MORE

Latvian president Guntis Ulmanis yesterday issued a letter to the cabinet of ministers urging measures to develop the country's defense system and to promote public comprehension of that need. Ulmanis called, inter alia, for: urgent approval of an overdue plan for the development of national... MORE