A large meeting of some 20 Chechen political parties and movements was held in Djohar-gala last week. Convened by the "Islamic Order" league led by Chechen first deputy prime minister Movladi Udugov, the forum was billed as an attempt to unite Chechnya's squabbling parties and... MORE

Russia appeared over the weekend to alter its stance slightly on negotiations aimed at brokering a peace settlement between North and South Korea, as Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov indicated Moscow's support for talks on the issue to be held in New York early next month.... MORE

Andris Skele resigned yesterday as Prime Minister of Latvia amid irreconcilable differences with the country's political parties and in the aftermath of warnings by the main parties in the governing coalition that they were going to withdraw their confidence in him. The three largest parties... MORE

Last week a British newspaper published a story about a group of dolphins that had been trained by the Soviet Black Sea Fleet to perform suicide missions against enemy submarines. The maritime mammals were later turned over to the Ukrainian navy -- which is said... MORE

The bosses of 14 Russian regions have missed President Boris Yeltsin's July 21 deadline for handing in their income declarations. They include the Altai krai's Aleksandr Surikov (elected last year with Communist support), Kursk oblast's Aleksandr Rutskoi, Pskov oblast's Yevgeny Mikhailov (of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal... MORE

The number of homeless and vagrant children in Moscow is increasing rapidly and currently equals over 50,000, according to the Moscow city authorities. They say they have facilities to house only 400 of them. (Podmoskovnye izvestia, July 24) Russian-Chinese Border Demarcation Woes.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said on July 25 that it is working diligently to resolve disputes with Beijing over sections of the Russian-Chinese border not settled in a 1991 Soviet-Chinese border treaty. Two islands at the juncture of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers in the Khabarovsk... MORE

Thousands of Belarusan opposition supporters took part in a rally and procession in central Minsk to mark Independence Day on July 27. The Popular Front and the Social-Democratic party called the demonstration, and leaders of the forcibly dissolved parliament addressed the crowd. The authorities managed... MORE

The value of contracts to export Ukrainian military equipment and services signed during the first six months of this year was 2.5 times greater than during the same period in 1996. According to the deputy general director of Ukraine's Ukrspetsexport company, Ukraine earned $185 million... MORE

The government-supported candidate, Boris Govorin, was elected yesterday as governor of Irkutsk oblast in east-central Siberia. Govorin, presently mayor of the city of Irkutsk, won between 40 and 50 percent of the vote, according to initial results. He defeated the local Communist Party leader, Sergei... MORE