LEBED TOPS PRESIDENTIAL POLL.

Newly retired Lt. Gen. AleksandrLebed topped a presidential preference poll, with 7.9 percentof all respondents saying they would like to vote for him, Kommersant-Dailyreported July 7. Grigoriy Yavlinsky, who had been in firstplace at the end of May, slipped to second by the end of June.Yeltsin at 2.6 percent fell to a tenth place tie with his formervice president Aleksandr Rutskoi. More ominous for Yeltsin, thenumber of those who opposed his reelection continued to rise andis now above 70 percent.

Chernomyrdin on Assistance to Ethnic Russians Abroad.