One of the priorities in the activities of the Belarusian police next year will be fighting against large-scale economic crimes, Interfax was told on Wednesday by the country’s Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov.
Belarusian state procuracy withdrew from the “republic’s council” a petition to deprive its member, former head of the Belarusian railway Victor Rakhmanko of his deputy’s immunity, Interfax was told by the chair of the procuracy press-center A.Taranov. Such a conclusion was drawn on the basis of charges of power abuse and inflicting large damage upon the state, which Rakhmanko faced last week. Such crimes are qualified by the procuracy as heavy ones and so it doesn’t need the consent of the “republic’s council”.
The Ministry of Justice in its December 5 letter confirmed that Alexander Lukashenko openly infringes on the state constitution. “Presidential decree #19 of January 12, 1998 had never been published in official legislation sources, as far as it is a normative act of a limited access type,” – wrote deputy Minister V.Mitskevich.
Deputy chief of the Partyzansky district department “Guard” of Minsk M.Rosum received a stab in the heart with a knife right in his office. At the moment the wounded official is placed in the hospital’s intensive care.
The exhibition “Forbidden by Censorship”, showing dozens of pieces of art, which had been hidden from view due to political censorship during the 1990-2001 period, had suddenly faced closure. Apart from paintings and sculptures, they also exhibit there the book of the poet Eduard Akulin “Radno”, which was severely censored, as well as newspapers with blank gaps.
President of the World Association of Belarusian Jews, a stateside organization, Yakov Gutman forwarded to the Russian Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoi a letter, in which he complains over the signs of increasing anti-Semitism in Belarus.
Two Belarusian handball teams, one from Grodno and another from Minsk refused to play a cup game, due to be held in Gomel. One of the coaches Igor Yudchits explained that both teams are in the direst financial straits. They found themselves totally unable to pay for the travel expenses and accommodation. As a result, both teams were disqualified from the tournament.
Belarusian authorities ruled to launch a broad campaign against the retail trade, first assistant to the Minister of trade Mikhail Sventitsky told “Rosbalt”. Deputy Minister said that it is an absurdity when one third of the whole trade turnover in the country falls on the shadow sector.
Petroleum company “Slavneft” plans to build in Belarus by mid-2003 50 gas stations and 10 petroleum bases. At the moment their affiliated structure “Slavneft-Start” is selling in retail the petroleum products at more than 30 country’s gas stations.
PACE special delegation, set to analyze the political situation in Belarus, will pay a visit to Minsk soon, Radio Svaboda was told by deputy chair of the Committee for foreign affairs of the Lithuanian Parliament Alvidas Medalinskas. A decision to forward a special PACE delegation to Belarus had been passed a month ago in Vilnius.
Alexander Lukashenko refused to pardon incarcerated professor Bandazhevsky, who addressed him with such a plea a month ago. Yuri Bandazhevsky received a negative response to his request in the Minsk colony, where he has already served five months ostensibly for bribery. Bandazhevsky’s relatives assert that Lukashenko’s letter “laconically reads that the pardoning petition won’t be satisfied, not presenting any explanations on the matter”.
US foreign policy after September 11 mostly concentrated on combating terrorism. However, in the near future the American Senate will draw closer attention to Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. As we had previously reported, the American senator J.Helms proposed for consideration a draft law “On democracy in Belarus”. Expectedly its passage will take place in January next year.
The appointment of the new head of the OSCE Advisory-Monitoring Group in Belarus, operating in Minsk, is solely possible after the coordination of the group’s mandate with the OSCE secretariat, said December 11 during the meeting with press Belarusian Foreign Minister Mikhail Khvostov.
Íå èñêëþ÷åíî, ÷òî ïðåäñòàâëåíèå ñ ïðîñüáîé ðàññìîòðåòü âîïðîñ î ëèøåíèè It can well happen that the plea to deprive former head of the Belarusian railway Viktor Rakhmanko of his deputy’s immunity will be withdrawn by the procuracy from the “republic’s council”, which Rakhmanko is a member of. BelaPAN was told this by the well-informed sources from the upper chamber of the Belarusian “parliament”.
In the military hospital of Severomorsk medics identified the dead body of the senior assistant of the “Kursk” atomic sub commander, 2 rank commander S.Dudko, a native of Pinsk, Belarus.
The Ministry of agriculture of Belarus and the Department of food resources of the Government of Moscow signed an Accord on cooperation for the year 2002. The size of the Belarusian provisions consignment to the Russian capital will be significantly increased, for the exclusion of meat products, BELTA correspondent was told by the head of the department of exterior policy and foreign investments of the Ministry of agriculture Tamara Usacheva.
By December 1, 2001 the employment services of Belarus registered 104,5 thousand citizens in need of labor. This index exceeds the analogous last year’s, constituting 1,83% of the total amount of the able-bodied population. The lowest unemployment rate is recorded in Minsk, while the biggest – in Mogilev. There are 3 jobless persons per each available vacancy in the country, reports BELTA.
Transport organizations of Belarus plan to cover 50% of their expenses on their own next year. To do so they will have to step up such an unpopular measure as lifting the travel fares to a new height. Experts calculated that one ride in urban transport must cost roughly 280 rubles, says head of the transportation department of the Minsk city hall Vladimir Sosnovsky. The official adds that this year the real cost of the bus ticket was three times its actual price.
A record lot of the contraband spirits was intercepted by the frontier guards at the Lithuanian-Belarusian border. Over 50 thousand liters of spirits were confiscated by the customs officers as a result of the Saturday operation in the country’s South-East. Interfax reports from the Lithuanian Border Protection Department that the customs services had been notified well in advance about the arrival of smuggled commodity. From the helicopter they spied out the exact location of the consignment – a garden 8 km away from the border. There the frontier police found two trailers with alcohol, which had no proper registration certificate. This is the second big portion of illegal contraband, arrested at the border with Belarus last week. On Thursday there was seized in the same place over 15 thousand liters of alcohol.
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