Talks begun last evening between Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov and NATO secretary-general Javier Solana were unexpectedly carried over into a second day and resumed this morning behind closed doors. The two sides apparently remain deadlocked over Moscow's insistence that NATO provide assurances it will... MORE

Nuclear weapons figured heavily in yesterday's Pentagon news conference by U.S. defense secretary William Cohen and visiting Russian defense minister Igor Rodionov. In response to a question about the recent report that equipment malfunctions had accidentally put Russian nuclear missiles on alert, both men voiced... MORE

Russian Security Council secretary Ivan Rybkin insisted in a radio interview yesterday that "none of the points in the peace treaty between Chechnya and Russia signed on May 12 contradicts Russian legislation." Moreover, he said, the document does not discuss the status of Chechnya. "The... MORE

Russian commercial interests have already raised $1 million to build a cement factory in Chechnya and the LogoVAZ corporation is giving Djohar-gala 50 automobiles "to help the fight against terrorism," Security Council deputy secretary Boris Berezovsky told a briefing at Interfax's central office in Moscow... MORE

Arrears in social welfare payments were at the top of the agenda during First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais's visit to Krasnoyarsk on May 13. At the beginning of the year President Yeltsin pledged to clear all pension arrears by July 1. Chubais told the... MORE

Ukraine's Security Council head, Volodymyr Horbulin, told a Washington gathering yesterday that the national leadership recognizes the gravity of official corruption in Ukraine and considers it to be the main reason for the stoppage of economic reforms. Horbulin, who is President Leonid Kuchma's closest lieutenant,... MORE

The chiefs of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's legal affairs and border affairs departments told a briefing yesterday that Russia remains the only one among Ukraine's neighbors not to have recognized Ukraine's borders in a bilateral treaty and not to have begun related delimitation and demarcation... MORE

The presidents of Ukraine and Belarus, Leonid Kuchma and Aleksandr Lukashenko, and senior officials of the two countries conferred on May 12-13 in Kiev on the full range of bilateral relations. The presidents themselves signed an agreement on the mutual border and its delimitation, recognizing... MORE

Japanese conglomerates intend to invest in the construction of the trans-Georgia pipeline for Caspian oil and the expansion of oil export terminals in Supsa and Batumi. The managements of Itohu and Marubeni have discussed details of these projects with Georgian International Oil Corporation chairman Georgi... MORE

Several hundred demonstrators brought traffic to a halt in the main street of Vladivostok yesterday. They were protesting power cuts of up to 18 hours a day that are plaguing the Far East region. Several cars were wrecked by the protesters. (Interfax, May 12) Newspaper... MORE