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Russia

Chechnya to rise from ruins, says new Premier

RIA Novosti

Chechnya needs stability more than anything else before an upcoming constitutional referendum, says Anatoli Popov, newly-appointed republican Prime Minister. "Things are not to take a turn in which people come to the polls, and see later on that life is getting back to normal-that ought to go parallelly, in the worst case, if improvements do not outrun the referendum," he remarked to the Moscow-based Rossiiskaya Gazeta, which carries his interview in tomorrow's issue.

The Premier is determined to go on doing what he can to raise Chechnya from the ruins-"I'll do on my new job what I was doing before, though there will be more headaches and responsibilities." Social and economic matters will be in the foreground, alongside construction and housing and industrial repairs. "The Chechen public is not to feel government crises and suspended work. That is all over now, at last. Pension and grant payments, and new job opportunities will be the first I shall attend to," he said.

Anatoli Popov, D.Sc., Economics, previously headed the republican Construction and Repair Board.

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