In addition to signing the arms control documents on September 26, Russia also reached agreement that same day with Western leaders on an action plan for the Russia-NATO Permanent Joint Council. The meeting was the first for the council at the ministerial level, and representatives... MORE

Ingushetia's president, Ruslan Aushev, says the federal government's inconsistent nationalities policy is to blame for delays in repatriating Ingush refugees to North Ossetia. Aushev was addressing 300 delegates to a congress of the Ingush people in the republic capital, Nazran, last week. He charged that... MORE

The Chechen delegation to the Russian-Chechen commission on drafting a full-scale treaty returned to Grozny on September 27 without an agreement having been reached. In effect, negotiations have broken off. The main bone of contention between Moscow and Grozny remains the same: Chechnya's representatives insist... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin has sacked his representative in Kemerovo oblast, Anatoly Malykhin. Yeltsin has complained that Malykhin failed to keep him informed about problems in Leninsk-Kuznetsky, a town in Malykhin's Siberian bailiwick, but the immediate cause for the sacking is believed to be Malykhin's statement... MORE

Legislation recently submitted to parliament by the Ministry of Economy and Trade would subject natural monopolies in Kazakhstan to the special regulatory regimes developed for these industries in developed market economies. (Russian, Kazakh agencies, September 26) If the legislation is passed into law by the... MORE

Moscow rolled out the red carpet yesterday for visiting French president Jacques Chirac. In a Kremlin ceremony President Boris Yeltsin described relations between the two countries as a "privileged partnership," and he conferred on Chirac a Russian decoration "For Services to the Fatherland." Chirac was... MORE

According to a recent poll by the Public Opinion Foundation, 47 percent of Russians hope that Chechnya will remain Russian territory, but only 13 percent would favor sending in troops to restore Russian control. While 31 percent of respondents still consider Chechnya to be a... MORE

U.S. astronaut David Wolf yesterday received the go-ahead from NASA to blast off aboard the space shuttle Atlantis for the Russian space station Mir. Wolf is scheduled to spend the remainder of this year on the troubled Russian station. He will replace U.S. astronaut Michael... MORE

Russian trade with China in the first half of 1997 fell by 32 percent compared to the same period in 1996. China's share of Russian foreign trade fell from 4.7 percent to 3.3 percent: Russia exported goods worth $1.6 billion to China and imported $450... MORE

The lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, on September 24 overrode a presidential veto of a controversial Land Code that outlaws the free sale of arable land. The Duma needed 300 votes to override the veto. In the event, voting was 304... MORE