DUMA’S MAJORITY SAID TO SIGN UP FOR EMPIRE.

Russian Duma CIS Affairs Committee Chairman Georgy Tikhonov reported yesterday that as many as 320 deputies have joined forces as a cross-party association named Soyuz [Union]. That number amounts to more than two-thirds of the Duma’s total membership. The association pursues the “restoration of the great Union state” and has recently been legally registered, Tikhonov said. He termed this Soyuz a successor to the identically named, cross-party group of deputies in the USSR Supreme Soviet during the final years of the USSR. That grouping had branch organizations in the then-Union republics and militated against their aspirations to be independent (Russian agencies, October 1).

RUSSIA SEEMS TO OFFER SEPARATE SECURITY DEAL TO LATVIA.