Investigator of the Central district court of Minsk Maksim Podzyarei charged on October 28 a 29-year old Oksana Novikova with having committed a crime, envisaged by art.367/2 of the Belarusian Penal Code (libel and heavy crimes’ accusations). Under this article the woman may face up to five years of jail or at least of the freedom restriction.

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The main reason for the terrorist attack in Moscow was the existence of terrorists’ allies in the Kremlin, as well as in the government and Federal Assembly of Russia. Such an opinion was shared on Monday in an interview to “Mediafact” by the deputy chairman of the commission for international affairs and CIS of the Belarusian “house of representatives” Sergei Kostyan. According to him, the terrorist acts will continue for as long as Russians don’t start to control Russia. Speaking of the recent bloody attack on Moscow, the notorious MP declared that “USA are the main terrorist”, while the country’s Congress is its chief ideologist.

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Around 70 people from Russian disputed areas are living in Belarus, including a few Chechen families, “Mediafact” was told on Monday by the counselor for legal affairs of the supreme committee for refugees of UN in Belarus Vitaly Maslovsky. Answering the “Mediafact’s” question, the man said that “the UN representation in Belarus was petitioned by the ethnic Chechen, living here, who said that the law-enforcers took away his passport owing to the missing registration permit stamp”.

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Any claims about Belarus’ self-isolation are concocted by opposition, said Alexander Lukashenko during his today’s conversation with the journalists. As you remember, these days Alexander Lukashenko is on an official visit in the Persian Gulf area. A vivid example of that were his negotiations, conducted by the Belarusian leader in the Kingdom Bahrain and in Kuwait – countries, which, says Lukashenko, developed perfect relations with both Western Europe and USA.

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According to the press-center of the Committee for state control, the department of financial investigation of the CSC initiated 8 legal actions. The defendants are Belarusian and foreign physical and legal entities, as well as the statesmen, who used to lobby the interests of the commercial firms. Such an intermediary result was achieved in course of the “investigative operative activities on revealing and thwarting the shadow turnover of the wallpaper, manufactured in Belarus”.

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On October 29 Belarus celebrates the Day of Komsomol (communist youth movement). On October 29, 1918 the first All-Russian Congress of the Union of working and peasant youth proclaimed the formation of komsomol, which later turned into a massive public organization. Successor of the Leninsky communist youth union of Belarus is a public organization “Belarusian National Youth Union”.

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In the beginning of the week Belarusian Foreign Ministry passed an official statement on the shutdown of the OSCE mission in Belarus. In this connection there arise the following question: Is that position coordinated with the Russian Foreign Ministry? Belarus, under the Treaty on the union state, signed an agreement on the coordination of the foreign policy of the two states. As for the Minsk’s intentions to shut the OSCE mission, there came no reaction to that on Moscow’s behalf.

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Journalists of the closed Grodno newspaper “Pagonya” are now being summoned one by one into the district police station. Police is acting upon the command of the regional procuracy – to draw to responsibility those, who are disseminating in the Internet the on-line version of the closed newspaper “Pagonya”. The lawyers claim that there are no legal grounds for punishing the journalists: under the current Law on press, the Internet resources aren’t considered to be mass media at all. Meantime, police threatens to draw them to the administrative responsibility for that.

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This was announced at the yesterday’s press-conference in Minsk by the chairman of the Belarusian National Bank Petr Prokopovich. According to him, the financial integration is slowed down by Moscow. This was also confirmed by another meeting of the Interbank currency council, held last Saturday in Minsk. The Belarusian statesmen claim that only the Belarusian side is taking serious the negotiations on the introduction of the common currency.

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Three Belarusian nationals, who were among the hostages in Moscow, left on October 28 the hospitals, where they had been delivered after the operation on the release of the seized people. Their names are as follows: Tatiana Tkachuk, Olga Protas, Larisa Kravtsova. On October 29 they will travel home. Three more Belarusians – Anna and Viktor Savitskiye, Olga Zolina – will stay in the Russian hospitals. Ludmila Bogacheva’s funeral will take place in Moscow on October 29.

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Family of a 16-year old pupil of the Gomel secondary school #4 Olga Protas, who was among the liberated hostages in the Theatrical center in Moscow, determined to return to their hometown.

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An interesting action was held by the activists of the Helsinki Committee from “Amnesty International” group in order to attract public attention to the massive human rights abuses in Belarus. On Monday, when the classes just started the students of the local Finnish university could see on their campus a desk with a young woman with duck-taped mouth standing on it. All, who were interested in the sight (there were over two hundred of them) received flyers from the activists. The flyers read that the young girl represented an ideal student for the Belarusian government, for she couldn’t express her opinion.

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