Meanwhile, senior politicians, including Communist leader and presidential runner-up Gennadi Zyuganov, have demanded the president stand down. A chain reaction in the defunct Chernobyl nuclear reactor last week has offcials searching for ways to make it safer. The reaction took place 10 years after the reactor caused the worst nuclear accident in history. Two people died when a Russian helicopter carrying wounded men to a field hospital crashed and caught fire on the outskirts of the Caucasian city Vladikavkaz, Sept. 22. The ten remaining passengers and crew were wounded and burned.
Investigators are tr ying to establish the cause of the crash.
Russia's Foreign Minister, Yevgeni Primakov, remains against the expansion but agrees with NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana that international troops should st ay in Bosnia through this year. The unnamed man, a driver at the Sibirskaya mine, had not been paid for the last several months. An inquest found his suicide was in protest of chronic wage delays. The Vladivostok News has a new copy editor. She plans to stay in Vladivostok for a year.