Laureate of the National human rights award, 13th Supreme Soviet deputy, journalist Valery Schukin will go to jail. March 15 the central district court of Minsk ruled three months of imprisonment for Schukin, the verdict entering into force today. A 60-year old Schukin was incriminated hooliganism charges – violating art.339/1 of the Criminal Code for a failed attempt to get through to the conference, run by the Minister for internal affairs Naumov.

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The EU would in response to the announcement by Belarus to hold presidential elections on September 9 like to reiterate its support for a democratic development in Belarus and underline the importance of free and fair elections.

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General procuracy started enthusiastically refuting yesterday’s sensational information about the “disappearance cases” investigation, as revealed by the procuracy detective Dmitry Petrushkevich. Yesterday the procuracy stated that Petrushkevich was “in charge of technical issues” and could know nothing of the investigation. However, journalist Gennady Barbarich claims that it was namely this Petrushkevich, who summoned him for interrogation purposes after “Narodnaya Volya” came up with an article “Dima: new occurrences.”

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Lukashenko’s regular lapses seem to be seriously annoying Kremlin. “Emotional utterances of the Belarusian leader, voiced by him in Grodno, do not strengthen the “union’s” prestige internationally,” – Interfax quotes a high-ranking Moscow official “related to the Security Council” as saying. Last week Lukashenko publicly complained that Russian confederates make too small a contribution into the “state budget” and urged Sseleznev to report to Putin of sabotage.

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Armenian president Robert Kocharyan considers it premature for his country to join the union of Russia and Belarus, reports RIA “Novosti”. The news was shared by the Russian Duma Spokesman Gennady Seleznev at the press-conference, which followed his meeting with Kocharyan.

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During the recent meeting of the “union state” government, Russian PM, who’s also acting chair of the union’s Cabinet Mikhail Kasyanov and his Belarusian counterpart Vladimir Ermoshin were arguing over the tax policies. The argument, as calculated by the Belarusian side, may cost them $200mln.

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Alexander Lukashenko declared about his intention to participate in the presidential ballot. “I don’t need to promote anything, create smoke and fire,” – the man said and hinted at some 30 trustees, whom he hasn’t defined yet, and a 3 thousand people strong initiative crew.

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At mass festivities in Minsk, marking the 55th anniversary of the Minsk tractor plant, the owners awarded the delegation of the Novolipetsk metallurgic factory of Russian with an honorary diploma “MTP’s Top Supplier” with gratitude for long cooperation. In year 2000 the factory provided 50% of the needed amount of metal for the production of 28 thousand tractors.

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