
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 18, 1990                   TAG: 9007180512
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BRIEFLY

Two cosmonauts who walked in space to fix their spacecraft had to use an emergency hatch to re-enter the Mir space station when the normal hatch failed to close completely, Soviet media reported today. They had spent seven hours outside the spacecraft Tuesday repairing thermal insulation that had partly ripped apart and threatened to interfere with their safe return to Earth, Tass reported.

The KGB is searching Moscow cemeteries for the unmarked mass graves of people executed during the purges of dictator Josef Stalin, the Tass news agency said today. An estimated 20 million people died in purges during Stalin's rule from the late 1920s to the early 1950s.

by CNB