QUESTION MARK STILL HANGS OVER YELTSIN’S HEALTH.

Yeltsin looked well enough in television footage of his September 2 meeting with Chernomyrdin, held at the hunting lodge 100 km (60 miles) north of Moscow where the president is on holiday. (BBC World Service, September 3) A Kremlin source was quoted as saying the president has completed a course of "diagnostic and preventive" treatments and that rest is now what the 65-year-old president needs most. The source said the president has nothing on his schedule but his upcoming meeting with German chancellor Helmut Kohl, scheduled for September 7. (Itar-Tass, September 2) But the Washington Post reported on September 1 that the Kremlin is using all the old tricks to hide the president’s ill-health from the public. The newspaper quoted a Russian source as saying that the camera-crew that taped the pre-election speech by Yeltsin that was broadcast on July 1 found Yeltsin pale and weak and breathing heavily, though his spokesman said at the time that he was "in good form." In fact, Yeltsin could barely get through the brief speech, which had to be taped three times and edited heavily to produce the footage eventually broadcast. There was further editing of film footage when Yeltsin went to cast his vote on July 3, the newspaper reported, including the cropping out of white-coated doctors visible in the background. (Reuter, September 2)

Russian Airliner Crashes in Norway.