Russian deputy prime minister Alfred Kokh says the projected union of Russia and Belarus is unworkable. "Any union that is declared to be an international legal entity and whose members have their own currencies, central banks, armies, and presidents is not, in my view, viable,"... MORE

Italian photographer Mauro Galligani, who was kidnapped in Chechnya on February 23, was released late in the evening of April 12 and returned home to Milan on a special flight from Moscow the following day. At a press conference in Moscow prior to his departure,... MORE

Today's issue of Nezavisimaya gazeta publishes what it claims are leaked details of two secret presidential decrees, drafted by President Yeltsin's staff in anticipation of his visit to Germany later this week. One decree reportedly concerns the return to Germany of works of art captured... MORE

According to Lt. Gen. Vladimir Durnev, the deputy commander of Russia's Military Space Forces, construction work on the facilities for launching the heavy liquid-fuel "Angara" rocket from the new Russian Svobodny cosmodrome in Amur oblast and the necessary infrastructure will cost no less than $1.5... MORE

At this past weekend's Cambridge conference, a team led by Bill Miller of Glasgow University unveiled the results of surveys conducted between 1993 and 1996 into political values in Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The results undermine the conventional view that attitudes... MORE

The Ukrainian press published yesterday a decree by President Leonid Kuchma which institutes a Consultative Council to look into ways of attracting foreign capital investment. To be chaired by Kuchma himself, the council will include senior presidential administration officials, cabinet ministers, and a secretariat as... MORE

The Supreme Court of Azerbaijan yesterday sentenced Party of Islam leader Alikram Aliev to 11 years of severe-regime imprisonment, and three other prominent party figures to 10 years each. The Court upheld the prosecution's case -- based in turn on the State Security Ministry's investigation... MORE

Azerbaijani president Haidar Aliev's senior adviser, Vafa Guluzade, yesterday rejected the verbal assault just delivered in Moscow by Iranian parliament chairman Ali Akbar Nateq-Noori against Baku's Western orientation. Guluzade stated that the Azerbaijani leadership's strategy to expand relations with the U.S. and the West in... MORE

Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky predicts that there will soon be another reshuffle in the Russian government and that Yabloko members will be invited to take senior posts. "However, we shall cooperate with the government only if there is agreement on an action program to get... MORE

Viktor Ott, Russia's first deputy minister of fuel and energy, has been appointed acting minister in place of Petr Rodionov, who resigned last week. (Itar-Tass, April 11) Lebed and Yavlinsky in Britain.