By presidential decree of January 23 56-year old Yuri Sivakov was appointed new Minister of sport and tourism. He replaced Evgeny Vorsin, who occupied the post for 3,5 years. On January 30 Vorsin will turn 55. According to BelaPAN, at 10a.m. Alexander Lukashenko met Sivakov, who will be presented to the Ministry’s apparatus at 5p.m. today.
The Belarusian Helsinki Committee considers the decision of the Minsk procuracy detective Vladimir Chumachenko to terminate preliminary investigation into the disappearance cases of Yuri Zakharenko, Viktor Gonchar and Anatoly Krasovsky to be absolutely untimely and unjustified.
The European institutes will be thoroughly watching the work of the new OSCE mission in Minsk and the fulfillment of democratic transformation standards in Belarus in the future, said former head of the OSCE Advisory-Monitoring Group in Belarus Hans-Georg Wieck in an interview to BelaPAN.
On January 23 the court of the Central district of Minsk recognized unjustified the lawsuit, filed by the leader of the United Civil party Anatoly Lebedko against KGB’s arbitrariness. Politician, in his turn, demanded to nullify the official reprimand, passed against him by KGB on November 5, 2002. Its text read that Lebedko maintained confidential contacts with the foreign surveillance.
I am a mukha (fly) on the wall in Vladimir Putin`s Kremlin office when in walks the chief of Russia`s security police, Nikolai Patrushev. They have been buddies since their days in the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) KGB. No offer of a shot of Stolichnaya (Mr. Putin is not a big drinker). Straight to the serious stuff.
Brutally beaten on January 17 academician Radim Goretsky doesn’t doubt that the attack had been masterminded under the analogous scenario as other assaults on representatives of the Belarusian intelligentsia. The attack, says the victim, has been carried out in a similar style as the street beatings of filmmaker Valery Mazynsky, professor Adam Maldis, politician Aleksei Korol and other representatives of the Belarusian national elite. Goretsky’s neighbors noticed a suspicious vehicle with a few persons in it, who stood on watch at his house in the Kulman str. in the evening of January 17 and drove away shortly after the incident. The scholar is now hospitalized with a brain concussion and severe head trauma in the surgery department of the 9th Minsk hospital.
Today the wife of the missing businessman Anatoly Krasovsky, who disappeared off the street in 1999, received official notification and ruling from the procuracy of Minsk on the cessation of preliminary investigation on the criminal action, instituted on the disappearance of Anatoly Krasovsky and Vice-Speaker of the 13th Supreme Soviet Viktor Gonchar, The notification was signed by the senior investigator of Minsk procuracy Vladimir Chumachenko, responsible for cases of high importance.
“There are no human rights abuses in Belarus. It’s a totally democratic country,” – said Pavel Borodin, answering one of the questions of the on-line press-conference on the alleged “flagrant human rights violations in the totalitarian Belarus”. “We oftentimes, - said the state secretary: start criticizing Belarus without even visiting it, yet alone engaging in the work of the union bodies”. Pavel Borodin recommended to the young person to pay visit to Belarus and talk to normal people there rather than those, whom they pay dollars for carrying anti-Lukashenko’s banners”.
This conclusion can be drawn from the information, voiced on January 22 by the chairwoman of the Central Electoral Committee Lydia Ermoshina. In Minsk there are six candidates for one mandate, while competition for the seats in the regional councils is significantly lower – two persons per seat. At all other levels, for the exception of large towns, elections will practically present no alternative. According to Ermoshina, the average number of nominees for one mandate constitutes 1,1.
Individual entrepreneurs announced pre-strike state at the leading markets of Belarus. Such a decision was passed on January 21 at the general meeting of representatives of entrepreneurial structures, who organized protest actions in September-October last year.
That’s the first outcome of a weekly action of protest of the female workers of the Soligorsk company “Kupalinka”. Director Oleg Garbak said that he intends to leave Belarus and open knitted goods business in Russia.
Belarusian companies are still slow to see the benefits of the internet to raise awareness of their business and connect with companies, but e-mail and electronic accounting systems are well-established.
Today’s activities of the Belarusian law-enforcers still fail to meet the real needs of the population, deems the Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov. He told the journalists about that in Gomel, where on January 22 he engaged in the session of the committee of regional police department. Liquidation of this drawback is one of the fundamental tasks of this police body. And so, the police divisions, said he, must do everything in their power in order to make their work meet the demands of the population and government.
The first lady of Belarus Galina Lukashenko wasn’t included into the club of the wives of the country’s top leaders, set up on January 12. Galina Lukashenko lives in a village and seemingly they simply forgot about her very existence.
The journalists were told this by the chief of the engineer troops of the military forces of Belarus Sergei Luchina. The arsenal of the Belarusian army now includes 4,5mln landmines. There are also 3,5mln special cassette mines with liquid explosives, whose term of validity expired in 1999.
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