Azerbaijani president Haidar Aliev began a three-day official visit to Moscow yesterday by holding talks with Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin on oil and other bilateral economic issues. Aliev is due to sign with President Boris Yeltsin a framework treaty on interstate relations, which will... MORE

A U.S. State Department spokesman on June 30 described as "very disturbing" an accusation, voiced three days earlier by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, that the U.S. has failed to live up to an agreement to provide money for the dismantling of former Soviet nuclear missile silos... MORE

According to the main Tiraspol daily, Transdniester leaders are "negotiating intensely" with Russian president Boris Yeltsin's plenipotentiary representative in the region, Yury Karlov, and with the Russian ambassador to Moldova, Aleksandr Papkin, in an effort "to persuade them that the presence of Ukrainian peacekeeping troops... MORE

Russia and Iraq continued to strengthen bilateral ties yesterday, as a protocol on cooperation between the parliaments of the two countries was signed in Moscow and the leaders of Russia's two houses of parliament underlined Moscow's long-standing desire for the lifting of UN sanctions against... MORE

In a report to Congress released this week, the Central Intelligence Agency named Russia -- along with China -- as a major exporter of weapons of mass destruction and related technologies over the latter half of 1996. Although China was deemed the more serious offender,... MORE

On route to Baku on July 1, Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov stopped in Makhachkala for talks with Magomedali Magomedov, chairman of Dagestan's State Council. They discussed questions relating to their common border, including the plight of the Dagestani Agriculture Ministry officials and others being held... MORE

President Yeltsin yesterday sacked Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev, embroiled in a sex scandal and accused of mafia links, and appointed Sergei Stepashin in his place. Stepashin, 45, headed the Federal Security Service, successor to the KGB, from 1994 to 1995. He was sacked in the... MORE

Ukrainian prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko resigned yesterday, ostensibly on grounds of ill health. He had been in office only since the end of May. President Leonid Kuchma has appointed First Deputy Prime Minister Vasily Durdinets as acting prime minister, but is expected use the opportunity... MORE

An Internet cafe has opened in the trade center on Moscow's Stoleshnikov pereulok. It offers ten work-stations equipped with Dell pc's linked to the Internet by Sprint. (Newsbytes News Network, July 2) Prime Minister of Ukraine Resigns; Cabinet Reshuffle Predicted.

Local officials revealed yesterday that President Boris Yeltsin had declared the town of Shikhany a closed zone. On the lower Volga some 100 kilometers from Saratov, Shikhany is the site of Russia's main chemical and biological weapons research center. The center was founded with German... MORE