One week after he concluded an unprecedented round of talks with Japanese prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, Russian president Boris Yeltsin is to arrive in China this weekend for a summit meeting -- the fifth -- with Chinese leader Jiang Zemin. The Russian delegation for the... MORE

Chechen deputy president Vakha Arsanov, who is serving as acting president while Aslan Maskhadov is on vacation, has deplored the dismissal of Security Council deputy secretary Boris Berezovsky. (See yesterday's Monitor) "It is good that [Security Council secretary Ivan] Rybkin is staying on. There are... MORE

About 500 people demonstrated on the outskirts of Khasavyurt to protest the worsening crime situation in the areas of Dagestan bordering Chechnya. According to Dagestan's Security Council secretary, Magomet Tolboev, the protesters' main demands were to make the border regime as tough as possible and... MORE

Russian deputy premier and interior minister Anatoly Kulikov has prepared a draft decree for President Yeltsin's signature that would sharply restrict border crossings by citizens into Chechnya. Kulikov told a press conference in Moscow this week that such restrictions are necessary to reduce the incidence... MORE

There were further signs yesterday of a power struggle developing in Chechnya. Selim Beshaev, first deputy speaker of the Chechen parliament, denied the assertion made earlier in the week by President Aslan Maskhadov, who is holidaying in Turkey, that Ichkeria would from now on be... MORE

In a decree signed on November 4, President Yeltsin has lifted restrictions on foreign ownership in Russian oil companies. Until now, foreign partners were restricted to a maximum of 15 percent of the shares in such companies. Now they will be able to acquire up... MORE

Demonstrations took place in many Russian cities this morning to mark the 80th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Communist Party and other leftist organizations marked the day with marches and demonstrations and, in the economically troubled Far East, the ranks of marchers were swelled... MORE

It took some workers at a clock factory in Penza, a city 340 miles southeast of Moscow, three days to carry their salaries home. That's because the bonus was paid in toilet paper. Each worker got about 150 rolls. But workers had trouble "spending" the... MORE

At a Stockholm international conference on Baltic security, attended by U.S. and Russian diplomats, Latvian foreign minister Valdis Birkavs expressed astonishment that Russian experts had recommended to President Boris Yeltsin to propose a Russian-Baltic security pact. "Russian advisers had no basis to even hope that... MORE

The political and cultural activities of the Uighurs pose one of the most serious contemporary challenges to the governments of Central Asia and China. Creators of a large empire in the eighth century in what is now Mongolia, the Uighurs were subsequently conquered by the... MORE