Civil initiative “Independent Observation” drew conclusions of monitoring over the presidential elections in Belarus. According to IO around 30% of ballots, ostensibly cast for Lukashenko, were fabricated. It took the “Independent Observation” monitors a fortnight to collect and analyze all data from their regional coordinators and observers. Although the work isn’t accomplished yet, leaders of the “Independent Observation” believe that the processed data (from 70% of polling stations) reflects real picture of falsifications, committed by the authorities.

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Pilots of the Belarusian aviation company “Transaviaexport” are heading to Angola. In October two cargo aircrafts Il-76 belonging to the Russian “Rostang” company and manned with Belarusian flight crews will fly en route to Luanda. This move is a clear breach of the international Lusaka accord, which qualifies any technical aid to this country as a military one. As you know, military confrontation between governmental troops and UNITA insurgents has been underway in Angola for the past 30 years or so. Annually they shoot down some 10-12 cargo jets in the skies over Angola.

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Governments of the six CIS countries have come to a decision to widen cooperation and specialization of the enterprises in design and production of armaments and military means of transportation. It was informed to Interfax agency by Vladimir Belukov, the member of the Russian part of the Inter-State Commission on Military and Economic Cooperation of the CIS countries (ICMEC), the body of which was approved by the government of the Russian Federation.

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Russian company “Lukoil” aspires to take into control Belarusian petroleum industry. In Grodno, Mogilev and Novopolotsk they are waiting for an unprecedented expansion of Russian capital. Yesterday’s inauguration of Alexander Lukashenko was visited by the Russian oligarch Vagit Alekperov, which wasn’t accidental. Ahead of the presidential elections in Belarus the head of “Lukoil” cheered Lukashenko’s economic policy and pledged to attract $1bln. worth investments into Belarus in exchange for the promise of profitable allocation of “Lukoi’s” capital in Belarus.

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During the eight months of the present year 229 billion roubles from different sources were spent on agriculture, which in the equivalent prices is by 12 percent more than for the same period in the last year. As the Ministry of the Agriculture informed BELTA, the proportion of the direct investment into agriculture has reached 26 percent as compared to all investments. It is by 1,2 percent more than within the same period of the last year.

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Last week’s barbaric acts of terrorism against the United States not only challenge us anew to devise a strategy to cope with this global threat, they also provided a moment of clarity about the complexities of international terrorism by exposing the true nature of some of the world’s marginal states which support it.

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“Most of all we are unhappy not about the fact that Belarusian election was neither free nor fair. Although it is not acceptable as well. We are dissatisfied that Belarus has not approached the election freedoms of the civilized society. Belarus rather has made a step in opposite direction. Belarus has almost totally isolated itself from all the European countries, being a part of the European continent geographically”, -- said Josef Precel, the head of the US delegation at the annual OSCE conference “Human Dimension”, held in Warsaw this year, in his interview to Radio Svaboda.

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The head of the OSCE Advisory and Monitoring Group in Minsk, Hans-Georg Wieck has made public the key theses of his report, which he would read in Wien on September 25, in the Swiss publication Neue Zuercher Zeitung. Accused of creating a secret service agents’ network in Belarus, a former BND chief Hans-Georg Wieck explains the words of the Belarusian leader by the fact that the authorities wanted to spoil the image of the OSCE mission in the eyes of the population once more. According to Wieck, Lukashenko had used the following reasoning against the organization he dislikes: OSCE had accomplished its mission in Belarus and its mandate expired, but that does not correspond to the text of the mandate at all. As the head of the OSCE mission said to the ‘NZZ’, the OSCE mission would continue its work in Belarus, and, according to the same mandate, have a right to cooperate not only with the government, but also with opposition and non-state organizations.

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Independent Observation coordinators in Mogilyov region summed up the first results on the electoral code violations. About 400 monitors in various parts of the Mogilyov region have forwarded letters to the Mogilyov regional Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Central Election Commission, regional and local election commissions during the early voting and after September 9. But the Public Prosecutor’s Office and election commissions refused to verify these facts.

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A photo chronicle of the events in Belarus on September 9 and 10 is placed on the site of ZUBR resistance movement www.zubr-belarus.com . There one can also find a chronology of the events on the day of the presidential election and of the night 9 and 10 September when in the October Square of Minsk people gathered, and ZUBR activists stormed and seized the Palace of Trade Unions.

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