According to Alexander Lukashenko, the incident over the banishment of leaders of the Russian SPS party Boris Nemtsov and Irina Hakamada will not influence the Belarusian-Russian relations, reports “Interfax”. “We’ve never experienced problems with Russian nationals, who come to visit us as brothers. As for Nemtsov, our special services had been aware of the goal of his visit and knew why he had money and literature with him,” – said Lukashenko yesterday when visiting frontier unit in Lida.

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Zinaida Gonchar brought to the procuracy the clothes, belonging to her missing husband in order to carry out a genetic expertise of the fragments, found on September 16, 1999 on the place, where Viktor Gonchar had been supposedly abducted.

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Interstate financial industrial group “Belrusavto” intends to maintain shipment of the Belarusian vehicles of various kinds to Iraq, “Interfax” was told by the director of the Belarusian company Igor Averkiev. According to him, at the moment they registered the “Belrusauto” representation in Baghdad and opened talks with the interested Iraqi Ministries and state institutions, as well as prepare the transactions themselves.

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“On October 23 at 7a.m. Belarusian KGB duty officer received an anonymous phone call from Moscow. The unidentified caller said that the SPS leader Boris Nemtsov took flight #1983 Moscow-Minsk, carrying on him large sum of money for the Belarusian opposition and literature, targeted at the destabilization of the political and social situation in Belarus. KGB managed to find and seize both the money and literature from the traveler,” – said in an interview to the First national channel the press-secretary of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Pavel Latushko.

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Yesterday the Young Front and Belarusian Liberty Party held joint picket against integration opposite the Minsk-based IBB center, which hosted the conference on the problems of the new Belarusian-Russian integration. The law-enforcers captured five most active picketers, including Young Front’s leader Pavel Severinets.

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The first worldwide index of press freedom was published by the influential international press freedom watchdog “Reporter without frontiers”. Belarus is listed in their rating one of the last – on 124th spot among the total 139. Belarus is only followed by North Korea, Iraq, Syria, China, Burma, Turkmenistan, Bhutan, Libya, Laos, Tunisia, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia.

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Detention and deportation from Belarus of Russian MPs Boris Nemtsov and Irina Hakamada came as an insult to the whole of Russia, said yesterday the head of the “Unity” (Edinstvo) faction Vladislav Reznik, sharing his faction’s vision concerning yesterday’s scandal in Minsk. According to him, such actions on behalf of Belarus are “especially frustrating, for we had been insulted by a country, which we consider our close partner and ally”. Reznik said that Alexander Lukashenko bears full responsibility for the incident in question. Moreover, Reznik stressed that Minsk “will now have to officially clarify its behavior”.

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Austrian ambassador told “Russia” TV channel that he was informed by the terrorists that they intend to release from incommunicado detention into the heads of foreign diplomats the residents of their countries. “Interfax” reports that the ambassador of Austria failed to mention the exact name of the foreigners, which are taken hostage. “Russia” TV channel reports that around 20 foreign nationals are held in the theatre hall. One of the released hostages Mariya Shkolnikova told “Echo of Moscow” that there are 62 foreign citizens in the theatre. According to her, there are the residents of the following countries there: Belarus, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Canada, Australia, Latvia, Moldova, Yugoslavia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, USA, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland and Ukraine.

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