President Yeltsin has had an emergency meeting with senior ministers, and has promised that Russian has adequate financial reserves to avoid a financial crash despite the deepening economic crisis.

President Yeltsin also promised measures to seize the property of those owing taxes, and said two or three heads would roll in a continuing government shake-up.

The recent panic selling on Russian financial markets now appears to have eased, after yesterday's trebling of interest rates to one-hundred-and-fifty percent.

But the BBC Moscow Correspondent says the markets may be waiting for the outcome of talks today with the IMF about releasing a seven-hundred-million dollar loan to Russia.