RUSSIAN, BELARUS PRESIDENTS SIGN MERGER TREATY.

In Moscow today, Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Aleksandr Lukashenko signed a treaty establishing a "Community of Sovereign Republics" comprised of the two countries. The new formation’s title reflects the fact that Lukashenko has signed away far more national prerogatives than the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Blessed by patriarch Aleksy II, the signing ceremony in the Kremlin’s historic St. George Hall blended Slavic with Soviet-type internationalist rhetoric. (Itar-Tass, April 2)

Wage Arrears Unlikely to Be paid Until Late 1997.