RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY REACHES OUT TO RUSSIANS ABROAD.

Moscowwill establish 18 more consulates over the next three years, primarilyin the former Soviet republics, the director of the Russian foreignministry’s policy planning department told Kommersant-DailyJuly 29. Given the ministry’s budget problems, this decisionsuggests that Moscow now plans to register as many of the ethnicRussians living abroad as citizens, rather than waiting for othercountries to agree to dual citizenship for them, as it had inthe past. The Russian embassy in Estonia, for example, has alreadysent embassy officers around that country to sign up ethnic Russianswho would like to become citizens of the Russian Federation.

New Commission to Examine Foreign Ministry.