GAIDAR TEAM ACTING AS YELTSIN’S SPEECHWRITERS.

President Yeltsin’s address to the Russian parliament has been postponed by one day, from March 5 to 6. The Monitor has learned from reliable sources in Moscow that staff at Yegor Gaidar’s institute are actively engaged in drafting the text of the presidential address, which will concentrate on social reform and regional issues. The involvement of the Gaidar team was reported last week by the newspaper Moskovsky komsomelets but denied by the institute. The participation of the Gaidar team bears out Gaidar’s own assertion to the newspaper Segodnya last fall that the return of his friend Anatoli Chubais to the Kremlin meant that Gaidar had acquired even "more influence" than he had when he was acting prime minister in 1992.

Russia Posts Economic Growth for the First Time Since 1992.