The European Commission yesterday decided officially to recommend inviting Estonia and five other countries, not including Latvia and Lithuania, to talks on accession to the European Union in a first round of eastward enlargement. The second round lies years ahead. Latvia and Lithuania's initial reaction... MORE

Andrei Vavilov, the former government official at the center of Russia's latest banking scandal, returned to Moscow from holiday yesterday to deny allegations leveled against him by the chairman of Russia's Central Bank, Sergei Dubinin. Earlier in the week Dubinin accused Vavilov, who was First... MORE

British and Russian police are to share information and expertise to combat the growing number of Russian criminal groups operating across international borders. "Our criminals are learning to work together, that's why it's important for our governments to work together to beat them," Foreign Secretary... MORE

Meeting yesterday with Russian Security Council secretary Ivan Rybkin, Ingush president Ruslan Aushev called on the Kremlin to impose direct presidential rule in the Prigorodny district of North Ossetia. He said all other means have failed to enable Ingush refugees to return to the homes... MORE

A Russian General Staff officer announced yesterday that 214,000 conscripts had been inducted into the military during the Spring draft, thus meeting the goal set by President Boris Yeltsin. Maj. Gen. Valery Astanin said that, as a result, the armed forces are now manned at... MORE

A Vilnius court yesterday sentenced pro-Soviet activist Valery Ivanov to one year in prison and a 70,000 litas fine for moral damages, on charges brought by the families of seven Lithuanians killed in the January, 1991, Soviet crackdown. Ivanov had repeatedly claimed in articles and... MORE

The Ukrainian parliament yesterday declined to vote on a set of anti-NATO bills submitted by Communist and other leftist deputies. The bills would have prohibited the holding in Ukraine of military exercises sponsored by NATO or conducted by units of NATO member countries with Ukrainian... MORE

The Supreme Court of Azerbaijan yesterday sentenced Salman Ibrahimov to 11 years in prison on charges of espionage for a foreign power. The State Security Ministry established that Ibrahimov, an ethnic Azeri resident of Georgia, was an agent of the GRU (military intelligence) section of... MORE

Turkish president Suleyman Demirel, accompanied by six cabinet ministers and a large business delegation, paid an official visit to Georgia on July 14 and 15. Demirel and his Georgian counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze, finalized a plan to build a railroad link from Kars in Turkey to... MORE

Uzbekistan has commissioned new installations which will boost to 4.5 million tons the annual output of the country's largest oil and gas condensate deposit, located at Kokdumalak in Kashkadaria region. The recovery rate of condensate is also being boosted from 25 percent to 70 percent.... MORE