Yeltsin returns home

President Boris Yeltsin arrived home yesterday after a Black Sea holiday that provoked a rash of rumours about coup plots and his failing health, AP reports from Moscow.

Boris Fyodorov, the former deputy prime minister, attacked last week's International Monetary Fund agreement to provide a dollars 1.5bn loan to Russia; he said in an article in the Financial Times that, before any money was released, the West should wait for the Russian parliament to approve the budget and for the government's track record on low inflation to be established.