“Belarus is a European country, which can and must occupy its place among other European nations,” – said in Minsk head of the department of Eastern Europe of the German Foreign Ministry Rolf Shutte, who delivered a report on “Belarus-German relations” on Wednesday in the European Humanitarian Institute. However, said the diplomat, the state of current relations leaves much to desire.

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Belarusian Prime Minister Gennady Novitsky deems it necessary to urgently work out and introduce the real mechanisms of redistribution of living quarters in the country. According to him, despite “annual stable construction of 2,5-3mln square meters of living space, 280thsd families are still in line for the improvement of living conditions – one fifth of the country’s population.” At the same time there appear more empty apartments, many own two-three flats.

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The “house of representatives” of Belarus allowed to send the soldiers outside of the country in order to get them engaged in peacekeeping operations, provided they give written consent. Under the new law on defense, passed by the “house” on June 26, the decision on the involvement of Belarusians in the peacekeeping operations, can be taken by the president of Belarus.

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Deputy Interior Minister of Belarus, head of the Investigation Committee, police major-general Leonid Glukhovsky deems it pointless to curtail the number of investigators. Instead, he said, they need to reorganize the work in order to concentrate more attention on protection from criminality, guarding public order, investigation and interrogation. The staff curtailment is taking place at the expense of the additional services, says Glukhovsky.

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Deputy Minister of labor and social protection Lokis said that in order to rise the pensions’ size they need some objective prerequisites: economic growth, rise in the population’s incomes, which form the basis for the pension fund. Under the conditions when there are no additional resources, one could increase pension only through the interior redistribution of means, that is by lifting pensions to one group of pensioners and decreasing them to another, which can hardly be justified.

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The Grodno region prosecutor Vasily Litvinov, who acted in capacity of an accuser at the “Pagonya” journalists process and demanded 2 and 2,5 years of jail for them, is promoted to the general’s rank, while judge Tatiana Klimova, who was placed in charge of the process, is appointed deputy chair of the Oktyabrsky district court of Grodno, reports Russian newspaper “Izvestia”.

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Close relatives of the ORT cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky, who disappeared in Belarus in 2000, turned for help to the Russian president Putin, reports RIA “Novosti”. Zavadsky’s mother and wife forwarded their letter to Vladimir Putin with a request to set up an independent commission to investigate into the crime.

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OSCE secretary general Oliver Spenser intends to shortly pay a visit to Minsk to help solve the OSCE AMG conflict and make them resume operation. Radio Svaboda quotes the OSCE chairman-in-office, Portuguese Foreign Minister Antonio Martinez da Cruz as saying that after yesterday’s meeting of the OSCE “troika” in Lisbon. He noted that “the problem isn’t solved yet”. During the Lisbon meeting the OSCE “troika” set the organizations priorities for the second half of 2002.

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The “lower chamber” had to postpone till autumn the second reading of the draft law “On the freedom of conscience and religious organizations”, which infringes on the rights of the Protestant and other confessions. Formally the deputies refused to consider the law due to the schedule violations, but in reality they were pressured into not passing it by strong public resonance.

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Pickets in support of the journalists of the newspaper “Pagonya” Nikolai Markevich and Pavel Mozheiko were staged in three spots in Grodno. Pickets in the downtown lasted for 1,5 hours. None of the picketers was detained as a result.

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Russian cellular operator MTS launched its activities on the territory of Belarus today. This will be announced at today’s press-conference in the MTS office later in the day. Today they also subscribed first clients to their network. The first competitor of a GSM monopolist “Velcom”, which remained such for many years, pledges to ensure permanent communication network in Minsk and get over to the regions. As concerns the expectedly low prices on their services, these expectations never came true. MTS tariffs only slightly differ from those of “Velcom”.

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Private companies reluctantly react to the official requests to donate funds for the construction of open tennis grounds in Minsk, the first part of which must be put in operation by September 1 at the latest, said the Minister of sport and tourism of Belarus Evgeny Vorsin at the June 26 press-conference.

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