Two more names were added to a list of businessmen, who were arrested on the order of the Belarusian side outside Belarus. As was found out by “BDG”, two businessmen who were involved in construction of the notorious scientific and manufacturing association “Almazot” were arrested on the case of “Belpromstrojbank”. The question of their extradition will be considered shortly.

---

Information about the arrest of the director general of the Novopolotsk plant “Naftan” Konstantin Chesnovitsky doesn’t correspond to reality, BelaPAN quotes the procuracy press-secretary Aleksei Taranov as saying. According to him, so far they haven’t brought charges against any of the “Naftan’s” leaders and none of them were detained. Legal action was instituted over the infliction of $1,7mln damage upon the company through a deal with some American firm. At the moment police is examining facts of other similar deals, checking the full circle of people, implicated in them. The procuracy representative refused to mention the names of the “Naftan’s” officials, who are considered main suspects on the matter, referring to the investigation’s secrecy.

---

Legal action over the police negligence, resulting in the deaths of 53 people in the “Nemiga” tube station’s underpass, has been passed over to court. There are only two suspects on the matter: deputy head of the police department for public order of the Minsk city hall Viktor Rusak and former head of the mass activity department Mikhail Kondratin. Both men plead not guilty. Viktor Rusak during the investigation proceedings refused to give testimony. Mikhail Kondratin, as former liquidator of the Chernobyl consequences, was amnestied. However, he also denied his guilt and turned down the amnesty proposal.

---

The new trade union organization is currently being set up at the Minsk car-building plant. The initiative of its creation comes from above, said the chairman of the national trade union of the workers of car-building and agricultural machinery Alexander Bukhvostov at the March 6 press-conference in Minsk.

---

In 15 years since the Chernobyl tragedy, not even a single program on overcoming the consequences of the disaster has been accomplished in full, said at the March 6 session of the department for emergency situations and radioactive protection of the Gomel region hall chairman of the Committee for Chernobyl problems of the Belarusian Cabinet Vladimir Tsalko. Both the funding and the scheduled events bear declarative character. Mostly this is caused by the lack of financial resources. For instance, in 2002 out of the necessary 265bln rubles they will earmark only 175bln for the purpose.

---

In order to technically renew the equipment of the Minsk car plant it is necessary to attract every day $40-50mln in course of the next five years, said at the March 6 press-conference in Minsk MAZ technical director Alexander Rakomsin. The plant, he said, is unable to fulfill this task on its own, for even “during the best years we could spend on the technical sophistication of the equipment no more than $20mln a year”. In 2001 the renewal of the main assets constituted 0,6%.

---

Valery Ignatovich, Maksim Malik, Aleksey Guz and Sergei Savushkin are due to be sentenced at Minsk Regional Court in the Belarusian capital on 11 March. Should they be found guilty of several charges of abduction and murder, including that of Russian Public Television cameraman, Dmitry Zavadsky, who went missing in July 2000, they may face imminent execution.

---

Defenders of Alexander Chigir, son of the former Belarus’ Prime Minister, as well as of Anton Yashin and Dmitry Yutskevich, condemned on March 6 to various prison terms, intend to appeal against the verdict in the near future, reports BelaPAN. Yashin’s attorney Svetlana Labokho told the journalists that the defense is dissatisfied with the court’s ruling: “In our opinion it is arbitrary and unjustified and therefore must be appealed against. We will continue to struggle for final victory,” – said she. Larisa Trifonova, Yutskevich’s lawyer, is certain that the defendants are innocent. In her opinion, “the complaint will mention numerous violations of the Code on criminal proceedings, which took place during the preliminary investigation”.

---

ZUBR movement’s activists spread on March 6 in the town of Mosty one thousand announcements, in which they called upon the town dwellers to address their executive committee and demand that the municipal services execute their duties well. Similar actions took place in over 20 towns of Belarus. In Minsk and Minsk region alone there have been glued around 100 thousand analogous announcements. In this way ZUBRs marked one month since the start of their new campaign. Within one month’s time ZUBRs held under the common motto “Can’t live like that anymore” dozens of actions on social themes in various Belarusian towns.

---

ZUBR activists reminded Gomel residents that the KGB agents have led to a suicide their fellow Andrei Zaitsev. Overnight March 5-6 ZUBRs glued over a hundred of portraits of their comrade in the streets, adjacent with the town KGB headquarters. Under the photo there was made an inscription in black frame: “Andrei Zaitsev, ZUBR movement’s activist, led to a suicide by KGB agents”.

---

Strike of the “ambulance” drivers took place on February 6 in Mogilev. Instead of the planned 29 “ambulance” vehicles, there appeared in full readiness only six cardiology medical groups for emergency cases. The rest of the vehicles never left the parking lot, while the drivers notified all directors about the strike and expressed protest against salary payment delays. The people demanded that they be paid wages for January and February. Their demands were upheld by the colleagues, catering for the hospitals and polyclinics of the regional center.

---

The whole board of the spot programs of the Belarusian TV was dismissed on March 6. First, on March 5, Uladzimer Shpitalnikau, the editor-in-chief of the sports programs, who had just returned from Slat Lake City, was fired. Then the directors of the sports programs’ board Uladzimer Isat, as well as Brys Gersten, assistant of the director, were dismissed. The chief artist of the Belarusian channel Henrykh Stradau was among the dismissed too.

---

Following the Saturday speech by the leader of the electoral bloc “Nasha Ukraina” Viktor Yuschenko, the state inspection for electronic communications stopped on Tuesday the broadcasting of the TV “Channel-5” (Nikopol town, Dniepropetrovsky region), reports the “Ukrainski Novini”. During Yuschenko’s visit to Nikipol the man was given extra air time by the nominee for the deputy of the Supreme Rada and candidate for Nikopol’s mayor Konstantin Lyaschenko. The press-service of the “Nasha Ukraina” bloc reported with a reference to Lyaschenko that the town and regional publishing houses refused to publish the “Nikopolskiye Izvestiya” newspaper, owned by Lyaschenko, with the materials on Yuschenko and “Nasha Ukraina” bloc.

---