YELTSIN GIVES GOVERNMENT A WEEK’S REPRIEVE.

The Russian government won a reprieve yesterday, when President Boris Yeltsin gave Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin an additional week in which to prepare a report on the government’s work. Last week, Yeltsin announced that he was ordering the government to give him an account of its stewardship on December 1, and that he would sack "bad ministers" responsible for the country’s economic woes. Yesterday, however, Yeltsin’s press spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said the president had postponed the meeting for a week. He named Yeltsin’s state visit to Sweden, due to start tomorrow, and a trip by Chernomyrdin to Belarus as reasons for the delay. Yastrzhembsky said also that the government is preoccupied with preparing for a parliamentary debate on the 1998 federal budget. The Duma is scheduled to debate the latest draft — fruit of months of bargaining between parliamentarians and government officials — in the first reading on Friday, December 5. (Reuter, November 30)

Yeltsin Says Chubais to Remain in Cabinet — for Now.