OSCE Parliamentary Assembly official delegation, headed by the chair of the special OSCE PA group for Belarus Uta Tsapf, will stay in Minsk for two days. BelaPAN was told in the OSCE press-center that among those delegated to Minsk would be Urban Alin (Sweden), Fred Ponsombi (Great Britain), Gabor Hars (Hungary) and program employee of OSCE PA Paul Legendre.
Chairman of the Striking committee of Belarusian entrepreneurs Valery Levonevsky was denied registration as candidate for the deputy into the city and regional council of deputies. Valery Levonevsky was nominated through a signature collection motion. According to the entrepreneur himself, he was denied registration under formal and trumped-up reasons: in his income declaration he didn’t put the word “none” in a paragraph on incomes, credits and subsidies. Instead, Levonevsky left empty spots.
Belarus upholds peaceful ways of the Iraqi problem’s solution, said during the January 21 press-conference Alexander Lukashenko. “If the incident is all about oil, Americans will manage to reach consensus with Saddam, I’m sure. He doesn’t care to whom he sells it. Russia doesn’t need it, for she sells oil herself. We can’t buy it there too. One forth of their oil is used by the States. And so Iraq will sell it to them. Why waging wars, I wonder? Can this problem be solved only by means of armed conflict? So we support peaceful resolution within the UN format,” – said Lukashenko.
Alexander Lukashenko strongly criticized the US ambassador in Minsk Michael Kozak for his alleged “intervention into the internal affairs of Belarus”. Speaking at the January 31 press-conference, Lukashenko accused the ambassador, not mentioning his name though, of visiting Gomel on Wednesday and signing with the local authorities a cooperation agreement on rendering US aid for the restoration of regional hospital. The ambassador also met there with a few candidates, balloting at the local elections.
Newly appointed OSCE head of mission in Belarus Ebergard Haiken raised hopes that relations between official Minsk and OSCE, which deteriorated over the past years, will turn better. Haiken said that in an interview to the “Deutche Welle” last Friday.
“Upcoming elections into the local councils will be undemocratic, whereas the elected bodies of local power will not have due legitimacy,” – IA “Rosbalt” was told by the representatives of the United Civil Party of Belarus, commenting on the local elections campaign, which is currently underway in the country.
International Confederation of free trade unions demanded from the European Union to investigate into the trade unions’ rights violations in Belarus. RIA “Novosti” reports that world’s leading trade union association, enrolling 158mln workers and civil servants in 150 countries of the globe, addressed with a concomitant official letter the European commissar on trade Pascal Lami.
In Moscow there finished negotiations between RTR channel of Russia, National TV of Belarus and leadership of the National radio-television transmission center, RTR press-service reports that in course of the meeting the sides solved all problematic issues on two Russian channels’ broadcasting on the territory of Belarus. In particular, they reached an agreement on providing Russian RTR channel with 20 hours of daily air, which is more than before, reports RIA “Novosti”. They will also fully resume the radio broadcasting of “Radio Russia” and “Mayak” on the territory of Belarus.
Chairman of the Striking committee of the Belarusian entrepreneurs Valery Levonevsky addressed with an open letter the deputies of the “national assembly” concerning Alexander Lukashenko’s recent decree “On single tax, due to be levied from entrepreneurs and some other measures on regulating entrepreneurial activities”. According to the businessman, the decree is legally unsophisticated and strongly restricts the rights of citizens, as envisaged by the Constitution. Valery Levonevsky called on deputies to either review the document or cancel it.
The Belarusian trade union of aviation dispatchers, member of the Belarusian Congress of democratic trade unions, intends to file a complaint to the ILO, in addition to the one, submitted in 2000, over the state’s interference in their trade union’s sovereign affairs.
For the very first time the Ministry of statistics and analysis frankly mentioned the basic reasons for the fall in the labor payment level: increase in the amount of ready goods’ reserves at the warehouses, slowdown in the production process and, consequently, increase in the duration of involuntary holiday-leaves, as well as organizations’ transition to a shorter working day and/or week.
Belarus takes the lead among the CIS and European countries as to the level of price-growth. According to the Ministry of statistics and analysis of Belarus, over the first three weeks of January prices on consumer goods in the country rose by 2,6% (over the first week – by 0,4%, upon the results of the two weeks – by 1,1%). In the first three weeks of December 2002 prices went 2,5% uphill, while over the first three weeks of January 2002 – 4,2%. In the year 2003 the government and the National Bank of Belarus forecasted 18-24% price-increase. Though their forecast for the year 2002 amounted to 20-27%, in reality the prices skyrocketed by 34,8%.
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