Chubais's reiteration of Yeltsin's claim to sack disobedient governors comes at a time when the Kremlin appears to have painted itself into a corner in its campaign to oust Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko of Primorsky krai. Recently, the Kremlin has begun to float rumors that the... MORE

President Boris Yeltsin's office has reacted with scorn to allegations by his former friend and bodyguard, Aleksandr Korzhakov, that the president is senile and has made several suicide attempts. But, rather than denying the claims, published in Britain's Guardian newspaper last week, the Kremlin merely... MORE

The Yeltsin administration has again asserted the president's right to dismiss popularly elected regional governors. First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais told a press conference late last week that governors whose regions default on payments to the federal pension fund risk dismissal. Chubais is the... MORE

Leaders of the Communist Party of Kazakstan and other opposition groups charged at a news conference that the authorities were being "unfair" in refusing to re-register the Communist daily Rabocheye delo. The Communist Party has been seeking re-registration in order to change the newspaper's name,... MORE

Baku police on June 28 broke up the congress of the Azerbaijani Communist Party and arrested party chairman Ramiz Ahmedov, a former editor of the party journal Kommunist. More than 400 delegates, plus guests from Russia and some CIS countries, were attending the congress when... MORE

The Azerbaijani parliament voted on June 27 to declare June 15 a national holiday as Day of National Salvation. On that date in 1993, Haidar Aliev was elected chairman of the parliament upon his return from Nakhichevan to Baku amid general anarchy, defeat in Karabakh,... MORE

A lieutenant general just retired from the Ministry of Defense and ten other generals headed the list of more than 50 officers who have applied to the Moscow Center for Employment of Reserve Servicemen in its first week in business. Funded by the Moscow city... MORE

By a vote of 165-92, Romania's Chamber of Deputies ratified on June 26 the Romanian-Ukrainian framework treaty signed on June 2 by Presidents Emil Constantinescu and Leonid Kuchma. Representatives of the pro-Western governing majority, supporting the treaty, pointed to Ukraine's key role in regional security.... MORE

Russian police believe the explosion on a passenger train between Moscow and St. Petersburg that killed five people and injured 13 on July 28 was probably not a terrorist act. Although terrorism has not been ruled out, police say the blast was likely caused by... MORE

Russian parliamentarian Galina Starovoitova has called on the Federation Council and on President Boris Yeltsin to reject the law on religion approved by the Duma last week. She said the wording adopted in the third reading on June 23 bears virtually no relation to the... MORE