COMMUNIST ELECTED SPEAKER OF CRIMEAN PARLIAMENT.

The leader of Crimea’s Communist Party, Leonid Grach, has been elected Speaker of the peninsula’s Supreme Soviet. (Ukrainian Television, May 14; UNIAN, May 15 ) Grach’s first move was to dismiss the government of Prime Minister Anatoly Franchuk, a moderate and a relative by marriage of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. In a move to conciliate the opposition, Grach said he would nominate Sergei Kunitsyn, mayor of Krasnoperekopsk and the man he defeated for the post of speaker, as premier.

IS THE MOLDOVAN ECONOMY ABOUT TO CRASH.