USA, alongside with the European Union, Canada and OSCE expressed deep concerns over the freedom of press in Belarus after the recent sentencing of Viktor Ivashkevich of “Rabochy” over alleged insult of the incumbent. “The sentencing of Mr. Ivashkevich is a violation of Belarus’ OSCE commitments to freedom of expression and freedom of the media,” – said the US diplomat Douglas Davidson during the September 26 Session of the Permanent Council of OSCE in Vienna. Following comes the full text of his statement:

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The “house of representatives” declined on October 2 the proposal of the “deputy” Valery Frolov to set up special commission to investigate into the circumstances, surrounding the disappearances of the prominent opposition figures.

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Practically all legal entities already received notifications that they must donate resources for the construction of the new National Library building. Today the ONT channel opened a TV marathon “Let’s build up library together:: the journalists of the “Nashi Novosti” newscast will march along the country’s main towns with the special boxes for collecting the means. Meantime, the sum, needed for the campaign remains unclear. The draft budget of the project will be drawn in a month’s time.

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In course of the September 3 working trip to the Gomel region Alexander Lukashenko exposed to harsh criticism the leadership of the Svetlogorsk company “Himvolokno”. Having listened to the report of the “Himvolokno’s” director general Nikolai Markov about the state of affairs at his company, Lukashenko pointed out some shortcomings in their work and reminded them about the institution of legal proceedings against some of the “Himvolokno” staffers, who contributed to a large degree to the waste of state funds. According to BELTA, Lukashenko also instructed the controlling bodies to examine the “Himvolokno’s” financial expenditures on the purchase of raw materials, as well as to analyze the effectiveness of their performance.

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Belarus and Iran are building “consecutive and constructive” trade-economic relations, declared on Friday the Minister of industry of Belarus Anatoly Harlap, opening in Minsk another session of the inter-governmental Belarusian-Iranian commission on trade-economic cooperation.

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Alexander Lukashenko will head the state delegation of Belarus, which will set off for Kishinev on October 6 to engage in the meeting of the CIS heads of states’ summit and the Council of collective security.

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“Belneftehim” concern established by its October 2, 2002 order #475 new wholesale prices on petroleum goods, sold via the “Belneftehim” concern and retail prices on gas, supplied via companies, which are part of the concern. “Belneftehim” reports that the new price-increase is linked with the growth of prices on oil at the world market and Russian Federation. Its main purpose is to augment raw oil supplies to the country’s oil processing plants and make their operation in Belarus more attractive and lucrative.

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The Belarusian national library`s charitable account will receive 500,000 dollars. The Iraqi government will allocate this amount for the construction of the new library building in Minsk, reports BBC Monitoring with a reference to the Belarusian Nationwide Channel (ONT).

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Relatives of the missing oppositionists and their advocates addressed the deputies of the “house of representatives” with a call to help them in clarifying the destiny of the disappeared political figures of Belarus: Yuri Zakharenko, Viktor Gonchar, Anatoly Krasovsky and Dmitry Zavadsky. The text of the address reads that though the issues, put for consideration at the autumn session are important for the country, the disappearance problem is really a top priority.

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Yesterday’s passage by the “council of the republic” of the law on the freedom of faith will seriously affect the immigrant moods among the Protestants, said in an interview to Radio Svaboda the editor of the evangelic magazine “Blagodat” Sergei Kornushko. “The law seriously restricts the ministry of the evangelical churches. In fact, the state legitimizes the dominance of one religious organization over the rest. Regrettably, the state didn’t pay heed to our appeals and statements. And so, if previously there used to be immigration for economic reasons, then now there will appear another reason: present-day religious situation. What we see is a discrimination for religious views,” – noted Sergei Kornushko.

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Today the National Television ONT unleashed a TV marathon on the collection of means for the construction of the new building fir the National Library of the Republic of Belarus. The authors of the project claim that offerings for the construction of the pointlessly huge book reservoir must be voluntary. Meantime, on the Internet there emerged the following message: “Gentlemen, how do you like it? My daughter returns from gymnasium and says: Dad, they order us to pay 500 rubles for the construction of library…”, “The librarians have to donate 20% for the construction of the new building”. Such information pieces come by dozens. Following are some of them.

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