President Boris Yeltsin yesterday relieved Gen. Viktor Prudnikov from his post as commander in chief of the Air Defense Troops and named the service's chief of staff, Col. Gen. Viktor Sinitsin, to serve as its acting commander. Yeltsin also dismissed two deputy commanders of the... MORE

The Russian government met yesterday and approved a long awaited pension reform program that is intended to come into force in 2000. The program calls for a gradual transfer from the existing system, whereby all pensioners receive broadly similar sums of money, to a differentiated,... MORE

The speaker of Russia's Duma yesterday accused U.S. president Bill Clinton of attempting to intimidate Russia into ratifying the START II treaty, and warned that pressure from the U.S. could lead the Duma to reject ratification. The comments by Gennady Seleznev followed a press conference... MORE

Russia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement yesterday criticizing an operation by the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia that earlier in the day resulted in the arrest of two Bosnian war crimes suspects. The Foreign Ministry statement described the operation, which was carried out by Dutch... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin met yesterday in the Barvikha sanitarium with Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to discuss a range of economic issues and said his first priority on returning to work will be to get the 1998 federal budget passed by parliament. (Itar-Tass, December 18) Chernomyrdin... MORE

The IMF declined to comment yesterday on an article that appeared in Nezavisimaya gazeta claiming that the Russian government had taken the decision to bankrupt two tax laggards -- the Omsk and Angarsk oil refineries -- after receiving two letters urging such a move from... MORE

The parliament of Azerbaijan voted on December 16 to deprive its former chairman, Rasul Guliev, of his mandate as a deputy. Initiated by the ruling New Azerbaijan party, the resolution cited Guliev's absence from parliament sessions for more than a year. Guliev, currently in the... MORE

The Ministry of Labor of Kazakhstan recently organized a roundtable on philanthropy in the Republic, attended also by representatives of the Tax Commission, the International Red Cross, and a number of social, charity, and religious organizations. The attendees lamented that the activities of the charity... MORE

Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze has been awarded the Richard Nixon prize by the U.S.-based Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom. The Center's board and award committee, chaired by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, highlighted Shevardnadze's "merits in reshaping the former Soviet Union's foreign policy... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin yesterday cabled an invitation to his Belarusan counterpart Alyaksandr Lukashenka to visit Russia's Yaroslav Oblast "whenever convenient to him." Yeltsin added assurances that he has instructed the government to "fully support the visit," which, Yeltsin said, "advances the goals of our... MORE