ENERGY CRISIS LOOMS, DUMA PROPOSES SOCIALIST CURE.

The first deputy head of Russia´s Single Power Engineering System, Viktor Kudriavyi, reportedly told a senior staff meeting in Russia´s Fuel and Energy Ministry October 10 that most power generating units "have almost no fuel reserves and are on the brink of shutdown." Kudriavyi said that the situation is particularly serious in Russia’s outlying areas, most urgently in central Russia where Gazprom has reduced deliveries despite the fact that most power there is generated by gas. Consumers´ debt to the energy industry reached 27 trillion rubles as of October 1, the meeting noted.

On the same day, the Duma passed in its first reading a draft law mandating: the government to establish within a week a list of enterprises entitled to an uninterrupted power supply; all debts to fuel and power suppliers, incurred by the Defense Ministry and its units, collective farms, and "socially important sectors of the economy" to be taken over by the state and converted into internal state debt; the government to set single electricity rates as of January 1, 1996, and sell electricity to collective farms and for general household use at privileged rates. The Agrarian, New Regional Policy, and Russia´s Women factions proposed this bill. (7)

Savisaar´s Role in Taping Scandal Rocks Estonian Politics.