EARTHQUAKE’S POLITICAL AFTERSHOCKS.

Rescue and clean-up operations in Sakhalin continued May 31 with ever more bodies being uncovered, Interfax reported. Shortly after Russian president Boris Yeltsin said Moscow would not take any aid from foreign countries, First Deputy Premier Oleg Soskovets said that Russia hoped for humanitarian assistance, Itar-Tass said. Yet another country volunteered such aid: Armenia, which suffered terribly from a killer earthquake in 1988. Tass reported that the destruction of oil field infrastructure on Sakhalin was greater than initially reported but said that repairs had already begun.

European Union Refuses To Lift Suspension On Russia.