Strained relations with foreign investors and the failure to pass the 1997 state budget have yet to spell the end to Ukraine's financial stabilization or IMF funding. Instead, the introduction of a currency corridor by the National Bank of Ukraine was announced on April 25,... MORE

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma on April 25 inspected the city and naval bases of Sevastopol and chaired there a special meeting of senior officials from all of Ukraine's regions. Responding to the Russian Federation Council's recent resolution calling for joint Russian-Ukrainian administration of the city... MORE

Presidents Suleyman Demirel of Turkey and Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine agreed yesterday in Istanbul on Ukrainian participation in the construction of an oil pipeline connecting the Turkish ports Samsun on the Black Sea and Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. The pipeline is intended to carry oil... MORE

Chinese authorities publicly executed three Uighur activists in the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region on April 24 and are holding four others on death row, Uighur emigre leader Muhidtin Muhlisi announced in Almaty yesterday. Two other Uighurs were killed and four wounded in a clash with Chinese... MORE

Russian president Boris Yeltsin will not attend NATO's July summit in Madrid, Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said on April 26. According to Yastrzhembsky, Russia's top leadership has never seriously considered participating in the summit, and Yeltsin's decision is not dependent upon whether or not he... MORE

The Russian Duma has adopted a bill asserting the supremacy of the Russian constitution and other federal laws over those passed by regional legislatures. If local laws contravene federal legislation, the latter takes precedence. The new law aims to close off loopholes in existing legislation... MORE

Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who ended a five-day visit to Russia over the weekend, visited the Tula region on April 25 in order to hold talks with the directors of several Russian defense plants located in the area. The talks took place at a dinner... MORE

The Russian parliament has ordered an investigation into the financial activities of the regional government in Ulyanovsk oblast. Senior officials in the region are suspected of misappropriating federal funding. (Itar-Tass, April 24) Russia's Young Communists Fall Out with the Party.

The Russian Communist Party's youth wing, the Komsomol, is to cut its links with the party. The two organizations have fallen out over the projected union of Russia and Belarus. The Komsomol is now considering whether to continue as a youth organization or to form... MORE

On April 27 Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin traveled to Voronezh to unveil the first Il-96T cargo plane, built by Ilyushin with engines from the U.S. company Pratt & Whitney. (Reuter, April 27) Aeroflot is to take delivery of the plane in September, and a passenger... MORE