MINERS’ STRIKE CONTINUES DESPITE GOVERNMENT EFFORTS.

Miners in Primorsky krai are continuing their strike, now on its twentieth day, despite the Russian government’s urgent delivery of nearly $8 million to pay their overdue wages. The miners say they are owed at least three times that much. However, the government’s worst nightmare was averted yesterday, when the union representing all the coalworkers in the region (not just the workers currently on strike) decided not to declare a general strike — yet. (Interfax, July 31; BBC World Service, August 1) But miners in Vorkuta inside the Arctic circle did threaten yesterday to go on strike, and the danger remains that the unrest may spread to other parts of Russia.

Chechnya Fighting Continues…