Today the Vice-Speaker of the Supreme Soviet, chairman of the National executive committee, member of the Academy of sciences Gennady Karpenko would have turned 53. Karpenko was the leading and most outspoken contender of Alexander Lukashenko. We believe that his death wasn’t natural yet alone accidental. On March 31, 1999 he was hospitalized with a “brain hemorrhage”. On April 1 he was operated upon. All those days he was staying unconscious in the intensive care. At 7a.m. April 6 Gennady Karpenko died. His wife and children had later to flee to Germany as political immigrants, being in danger at home.

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The Cabinet of Ministers of Russia and Belarus determined to prepare by December proposals, touching upon the status, functions and tasks of the common emission center of the “union state”. To do this they also plan to set up a joint working group, which will come up with concomitant proposals. The group will include heads of the Russian Central Bank, Belarusian National Bank, the Ministers of finances of the two states and some other high officials. Apart from that they already embarked on preparing soil to adopt Russian ruble as the only legitimate means of payment on the territory of the “union state”.

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September 18 will see another extra-curricular congress of the federation of Belarusian trade unions, which will finalize Lukashenko’s victory over the independent trade union movement. The preceding enforced resignation of FTU head Frants Vitko, dismissal of the editor-in-chief of the trade union’s mouthpiece Alexander Starikevich, crackdown on the adherents of trade unionist independence in provinces were all supposed to fertilize soil for tomorrow’s farcical event.

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State’s attempt to solve social problems at businessmen’s cost makes the former infuriated. September 15 turned out a decisive moment for many of them. On that very day there expired a deadline for paying mandatory sums into the social protection fund. A range of businessmen instead preferred to lose their status, as far as the social burden looked unbearable to them.

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The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) - a New York–based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide - is outraged by today’s conviction of Viktar Ivashkevich, editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Rabochy.

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On Monday the United Civil Party held a traditional “Chain of those who care” action in memory of the third anniversary since the disappearance of the Vice-Speaker of the Supreme Soviet Viktor Gonchar and his companion businessman Anatoly Krasovsky. Around 80 people with portraits of the missing people in hands stood for one hour on the central Minsk square Oktyabrskaya in the vicinity of Lukashenko’s residence.

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Painter Dmitry Ivanovsky (deputy chair of Grodno BPF Council, head of the “Grodno Choice” coalition) is holding a seven-day long hunger-strike in the Grodno confinement center. On Friday Ivanovsky was allowed to meet in jail with representative of the Grodno Helsinki Committee Alexander Antonuk. “Dmitry feels fine. They every day bring something to him and ask to pass over the gifts to Zavadsky. That’s because during the arrest Ivanovsky was holding Zavadsky’s portrait,” – says Antonuk.

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An action, dedicated to the Day of journalistic solidarity, was held on September 15 in Vitebsk by the activists of the ZUBR. movement. At the central town’s streets there appeared graffiti: “Where’s “Rabochy”?”, “Where’s “Nasha Svaboda”?”, “Where’s “Pagonya”?”, “Freedom to Markevich!”, “Freedom to Mozheiko!” and “Freedom to press!”. ZUBRs protested against the aggravating situation around the freedom of press in Belarus.

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Dozens of females approached the town hall’s building, demanding resignation of the “Kupalinka” tissue factory director Oleg Grabek. According to them, the factory’s leadership proves unable to organize manufacture and provide personnel with the work to do.

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