1.   Poor governments throughout the former Soviet Union have been plagued by chronic wage debts, with teachers, doctors and soldiers going months and sometimes years without pay.

2.   Although the overdue wage debt is growing, it is doing so at a slower pace than in the past, the committee added.

3.   Before starting his vacation on Sunday, Yeltsin gave his government three months to pay wage debts to millions of Russians nationwide.

4.   But government wage debts to state sector workers remain huge.

5.   But it was the Chinese who incited the protest over the wage debt, ITAR-Tass said.

6.   Economics Minister Yevgeny Yasin on Wednesday blamed the overall wage debts on bad money management by regional officials, it said.

7.   He promised last month that all wage debts would be paid by the end of the year.

8.   In another development, Primakov announced Thursday that the government had chipped away at massive wage debts to state workers, paying off all late salaries to scientists.

9.   It was not clear where the money had come from, although Primakov has said he would authorize limited printing of new money to pay off wage debts.

10.   It was unclear whether the entire wage debt had been met.