20:08
GEORGIAN GOVERNMENT GOES, PRESIDENT STAYS
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has said he is not going to resign in the current "difficult situation" in the country. More details...

20:00
RUSSIA'S PARLIAMENT: GEORGIA DEVELOPMENTS TESTIFY TO EXECUTIVE POWER INAPTITUDE
Recent developments in Georgia are an indication of A progressing paralyse of power there, believe Russian MPs. More details...

19:57
ALEXANDER GOROBETS: MILITARY GAMES TO SAVE UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT’S IMAGE
Cape of Opuk in the Crimea, which became known after the crash of the Russian Tu-154 passenger airliner, is now a place to gather a lot of military men today. This time there are both Russian and Ukrainian military men there. General Kuzmuk, the former Defense Minister of Ukraine, is absent More details...

19:50
WHAT IS SHEVARDNADZE TO DO?
The political crisis, which the Republic of Georgia’s President Eduard Shevardnadze so hoped to avert, has broken out after all. At today’s extraordinary parliamentary session, Mr. Shevardnadze has announced the Georgian government’s resignation. More details...

19:10
INTERNATIONAL OPERATION FOR CLEARING BALTIC SEA OF WWI, WWII MINES ON IN TALLINN GULF
The last, 10th phase of an international operation to sweep mines remaining from the 1st and 2nd world wars in the Baltic Sea waters began in the Gulf of Tallinn in Estonia on Thursday. More details...

18:34
INTERNATIONAL AIR DEFENSE EXERCISE KICKS OFF IN LATVIA
An international air defense exercise involving 110 servicemen from Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden kicked off on Thursday on Latvia's Baltic coast. More details...

18:00
SHEVARDNADZE'S POLICY MAY LEAD TO DISAPPEARANCE OF GEORGIA AS STATE
Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of the Politika (Policy) Foundation, fears that as a result of doings of President Eduard Shevardnadze "Georgia may disappear as a state". Commenting on developments in Tbilisi, Nikonov voiced this perspective at a RIA Novosti press conference. More details...

17:40
GEORGIA'S PRESIDENT EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE SAYS HE HAS NO INTENTION OF RESIGNING
Georgia's President Eduard Shevardnadze has said he is not going to resign at a time when the situation in the country is "grave". Speaking on national television on Thursday, Shevardnadze confirmed that "resignations have been tendered by the parliamentary speaker, the interior minister, and the prosecutor-general". More details...

17:34
ANTHRAX AGENTS FOUND IN LITHUANIA
Anthrax agents have been found in one of 5 mail bags sent by mail to the address of the US embassy to Lithuania, reported a microbiological laboratory in Vilnius. More details...

17:23
TAJIKISTAN READY TO HELP IN HUMANITARIAN EFFORT
During a Thursday meeting with Belgian Foreign Minster and Chairman of the EU Council of Ministers, Louis Michel, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmonov said that his country was prepared to co-operate with the international community in the humanitarian effort in Afghanistan. He said that Tajikistan was ready to allow aid to pass through its borders. More details...

16:53
MOSCOW DOES NOT EXPECT MASSIVE INFLUX OF AFGHAN REFUGEES TOWARDS CIS BORDERS
Russian frontier guards who are serving on the Tajik border do not register "a landslide increase" of the number of refugees from inner regions of Afghanistan moving towards the northern borders of the country. This was disclosed on Thursday by one of the commanders of the Federal Frontier Service (FPS) of Russia Nikolai Reznichenko. More details...

16:39
RUSSIA WILL HELP TAJIKISTAN IF AFGHAN BORDER SITUATION DETERIORATES
Chief of the Russian Federal Frontier Service Headquarters Nikolai Reznichenko announced on Thursday that units of the 201st motorised division, which is based in Tajikistan, would mount operations to protect the country if the situation on the Tajik-Afghan border were to deteriorate. More details...

16:24
CHECHEN MILITANTS IN AFGHANISTAN COULD BREAK THROUGH TAJIK-AFGHAN BORDER
The command of the Federal Frontier Service (FPS) has admitted the possibility that gunmen from Afghanistan could cross the Tajik-Afghan border. More details...

16:17
AFGHANISTAN OPERATION MAY AFFECT TAJIK-AFGHAN, RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN BORDER SITUATION
The current military operation in Afghanistan may affect the situation on the Tajik-Afghan and Russian-Georgian border, a RIA Novosti correspondent quoted Colonel-General Nikolai Reznichenko as saying at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday. Reznichenko is the first deputy head of the main HQ of the Federal Frontier Service /the FPS/. More details...

16:01
ARMENIA'S DEPUTY DEFENCE MINISTER DECLARES THAT RUSSIA PLAYS A TANGIBLE ROLE IN ENSURING HIS COUNTRY'S SECURITY
Russia plays a tangible role in ensuring Armenia's security. A statement to this effect was made Thursday by Major-General Artur Agabekyan, Armenia's deputy defence minister, at a seminar on "Civilian and Military Aspects in Planning Armenia's National Security" held in Yerevan. More details...

15:52
HURRICANE IN LATVIA KILLS ONE RIGA RESIDENT
A broken tree killed a man in Riga and two houses were destroyed in the seaport of Liepaja. In other parts of Latvia roofs of houses were torn away and trees and electricity pylons were blown down. This was the initial damage caused by the hurricane raging in Latvia. More details...

15:43
GEORGIAN INTERIOR MINISTER ANNOUNCES RESIGNATION
While appearing at an extraordinary session of parliament on Thursday, Georgian Interior Minister Kakha Targamadze announced that he was resigning. More details...

15:42
ANDREY LUBENSKY: TU-154 CRASH INVESTIGATORY EXPERIMENT TO TAKE PLACE TODAY
The investigatory experiment will take place in the Crimea on Thursday. The experiment will be held within the framework of the criminal case pertaining to the crash of the Russian Tu-154 passenger airliner, which fell into the Black Sea after being hit by a Ukrainian missile More details...

15:34
GEORGIAN SPEAKER CALLS FOR EARLY PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
Speaker of the Georgian parliament Zurab Zhvania has expressed his willingness to leave his post and thereby refute accusations that he is using the present events in Tbilisi to seize power. More details...

15:22
GEORGIAN PRESIDENT EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE DISBANDS GOVERNMENT
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze announced the resignation of the country's government. Zurab Zhvania, chairman of the Georgian parliament, told this an extraordinary session of the legislative body on Thursday. More details...

15:20
PUTIN: RUSSIA ATTENTIVELY FOLLOWS EVENTS IN GEORGIA
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia is attentively following events in Georgia. He held a Kremlin meeting on Thursday with representatives of foreign constitutional courts, including Chairman of the Georgian Constitutional Court, Dzhoni Khetsuriani. More details...

15:08
MOSCOW HAILS THE DESTRUCTION OF LAUNCHING SILOS FOR INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILES IN UKRAINE
Moscow has welcomed the news about the destruction in Ukraine of the last two launching silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles. The statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on this score says that this step taken by Kiev is in full conformity with the Lisbon protocol of 1992 to the Russian-American START-1 Treaty. More details...

14:55
RUSSIAN DEPUTY: LATEST EVENTS IN GEORGIA TESTIFY TO PARALYSIS OF EXECUTIVE
Deputy leader of the Yedinstvo (Unity) faction in the State Duma, Vladislav Reznik, announced on Thursday that the latest events in Georgia testified to the progressive paralysis of the executive branch in the republic. More details...

14:20
TURKMENIA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION HAVE EXCHANGED VIEWS ON THE SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN
Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov and Chairman of the European Union Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belgium Louis Michel discussed the political situation in Central Asian region and the future of Afghanistan after the anti-terrorist operation at their meeting in Ashkhabad on Thursday. More details...

14:08
RUSSIAN SENATOR: RELATIONS WITH CIS COUNTRIES ARE RUSSIA'S FOREIGN POLICY PRIORITY
Relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries are Russia's foreign policy priority, said Federation Council (upper house of parliament) CIS affairs committee chairman Vadim Gustov. More details...

13:30
PASSIONS ABOUT FREEDOM OF SPEECH ARE RUNNING HIGH IN GEORGIAN PARLIAMENT
Passions are running high in the Georgian Parliament, which is discussing the freedom of speech. The extraordinary parliamentary session gathered on Thursday to address the recent attempt by special services to conduct a search at the independent television company Rustavi 2. More details...

11:29
TAJIK PRESIDENT CALLS ON ADB TO STEP UP ELABORATION OF ITS PROJECTS
Tajik president Emomaly Rakhmonov has pronounced for a sped-up elaboration of projects of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), first of all, in transport, power engineering, agriculture, water supply and micro-financing in the agrarian sector. More details...

10:30
FREEDOM OF SPEECH THE GEORGIAN WAY
In Georgia, a cabinet crisis has broken out. Yesterday, Eduard Shevardnadze accepted the resignation of the state security minister, Vakhtang Kutateladze. The reason for the crisis was the Georgian State Security Ministry’s decision, taken the day before, about carrying out a search in Rustavi-2 TV company’s building. More details...

20:21
RUSSIA, BELARUS HOLD CONSULTATIONS ON EUROPEAN SECURITY AND OSCE
Russia and Belarus emphasize their readiness to actively cooperate in coordinating draft documents of the Council of the OSCE foreign minsters which is going to hold a meeting in Bucharest, on December 3-4. More details...

19:41
ALEXANDER GOROBETS: UKRAINE NEEDLES RUSSIA TO PLEASE WASHINGTON
11 months have passed since the Ukrainian parliament declared the involvement of the top officials to the disappearance of an opposition-oriented journalist. This was actually a break in the official relations between Kiev and Washington More details...