YELTSIN APPROVES LAW PROTECTING SEMIPALATINSK VETERANS.

Boris Yeltsin has signed into law a Duma-passed measure that willextend special benefits to personnel who suffered from radiationas the result of nuclear tests conducted at the Semipalatinskrange (in Kazakhstan) from 1949 to 1963, Krasnaya zvezdareported August 24. The paper did not say whether the benefitswould go only to Russian victims. There may be yet another problemwith nuclear contamination. Russian officials reportedly havedispatched nuclear-contaminated vehicles from Chernobyl to sitesaround the CIS, Trud reported August 23. Meanwhile, Russians willsoon get their first look at a mockup of the first Soviet atomicbomb, Vechernyaya Moskva reported August 23. It will beshown at Moscow’s Polytechnic Museum beginning August 28.

Yeltsin Veto of Press Bill Seen Killing Local Papers.