Ukraine will import 5 million tons of oil from Kazakhstan in 1998, more than double the 2.3 million tons contracted for in 1997. Kyiv announced the agreement yesterday upon President Leonid Kuchma's return from Central Asia. Earlier this week, Ukraine's Oil and Gas State Committee... MORE

The Ukrainian parliament on October 15 amended the law on parliamentary elections, which it had adopted on September 24. (See Monitor, September 25) Acting in response to President Leonid Kuchma's observations and reservations to the law, the parliament adopted 12 of the changes proposed by... MORE

In the predawn hours of October 16 an unidentified armed group attacked the presidential guard regiment in Dushanbe, killing at least 14 officers and men and wounding at least 20. The battle lasted one and a half hours on the premises of the presidential guard... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin has today followed up on yesterday's promise to consult more closely with the opposition (for details, see below) by inviting parliamentary leaders to a meeting next Monday. Duma speaker Gennady Seleznev said the talks will focus on the government's proposed austerity... MORE

Delegations headed by Russian deputy foreign minister Georgy Mamedov and his British counterpart, Kevin Tebbit, held consultations in Moscow yesterday on a broad range of European security issues, including disarmament, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, amendments to the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE)... MORE

Singapore television yesterday reported that the Singapore Air Force has purchased an undisclosed number of Igla (SA-16) air defense missile systems from Russia. The Igla is an advanced man-portable missile based on the earlier SA-7 Grail. It uses an infra-red seeker head and has a... MORE

Nigeria's defense spokesman, Col. Godwin Ugbo, said in Laos on October 14 that Ukrainian ships were carrying food and fuel to the military junta in Sierra Leone in contravention of UN sanctions. Nigeria is leading a West African peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone. (Xinhua, October... MORE

The Russian parliament yesterday postponed for one week its threatened vote of no-confidence in the government. The decision came after Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin declared that he would resign if the vote were adopted, and President Boris Yeltsin made a last-minute appeal for the vote... MORE

On October 10 the Russian Duma passed a law on the minimum subsistence level, stipulating indexation of the poverty line every three months and differential payments to the poor based on the price level in each region of Russia. Welfare payments would be aimed at... MORE

In an interview published yesterday by the Russian daily Nezavisimaya gazeta, a top Foreign Ministry official said that Russian diplomacy is guided by a conception of a multi-polar world, and that Moscow is in no way interested in the creation of military alliances in Asia.... MORE