DUMA RAISES MINIMUM WAGE.

At Yeltsin’s personal insistence,the Duma passed, with 294 votes in favor, an increase in the minimumwage to 55,000 rubles a month, Interfax reported July 19. Thenew figure, about $12 a month at current rates of exchange, representsonly one-fifth of what Moscow says is needed for a subsistencestandard of living, but the money for even this increase–whichYeltsin claimed was more than the rate of inflation for the firsttime ever–may not be there, Duma leaders said.

Intellectual Level of Troops Falling.