CABINET POST FOR YABLOKO MEMBER.

Oksana Dmitrieva, an economist and member of the State Duma from the Yabloko faction, has been appointed minister of labor in the new Russian government. Dmitrieva earned widespread respect as chair of the budget subcommittee of the Duma’s finance committee. (The finance committee was chaired, until last fall, by another Yabloko-member, Mikhail Zadornov. Zadornov is now finance minister in Sergei Kirienko’s government.) Yabloko greeted Dmitrieva’s appointment with disapproval, calling her decision to accept the post “wrong in principle” and saying it was expelling her from its ranks. (Itar-Tass, April 30) Yabloko opposed Kirienko’s appointment as prime minister. It said that Dmitrieva should not have joined his cabinet since it is “almost identical to the previous government.” Meanwhile, Yuri Maslyukov, a member of the Duma’s Communist faction and a former chairman of USSR Gosplan, the state planning body, announced that he had turned down Kirienko’s offer of a cabinet post. No other communists have so far been named to the government.

YELTSIN’S REPRESENTATIVE TO CHECHNYA ABDUCTED.