On September 1 the new Information Minister Vladimir Rusakevich has started executing his official duties. With the former Minister Podgainy in office, the state embarked on an unprecedented campaign on the annihilation of the freedom of speech. Podgainy had personally called a halt to the numerous non-state periodicals, imposed censorship on FM radio-stations, liquidated NTV bureau in Minsk, passed draconian amendments to the Law on media and helped sentence the journalists, critical of Lukashenko, to imprisonment. The new Minister, former ambassador in China, will use Chinese experience instead. Then one could forget about the freedom of speech phenomenon in Belarus.

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The Constitutional court of Belarus proposed to the “parliament” to revise the provisions of the Penal Code, stipulating responsibility for insulting the head of state and other state officials, BelaPAN was told in the court’s press-service.

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Endowing the cultural associations with the national status will free them from taxation burden. Such a viewpoint was shared at the September 2 press-conference in Minsk by Ivan Vashkevich – chairman of the Belarusian Confederation of cultural unions, uniting 8,652 individuals. By the year 1992, he said, none of the cultural unions was exposed to taxation. “This had never been the case even during the Second World War period”. “However, since 1992 our spiritual ministry to the nation was equalized to the material manufacture and therefore the cultural unions had been led to a disastrous condition,” – stressed Vashkevich.

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The students and teachers of the National Humanities Lyceum of Yakub Kolas continue assembling for studies under open sky. None of the officials of the Committee for education attended the territory, adjacent to the “Dynamo” stadium, where 130 schoolchildren have their studies in an improvised classroom.

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The studies at the National Humanities Lyceum of Yakub Kolas are being held daily opposite the building of the Lyceum in Kirova str. 21, under open sky. The lessons start at 10a.m. We call on all those, who care about the fate of the Lyceum, to visit the students and teachers in Kirova str. and manifest personal support to the representatives of the embattled Lyceum.

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Organizing regular trips of the Chinese journalists to Minsk is “our task number one”, said at the farewell party in Beijing the Minister of information of Belarus Vladimir Rusakevich, who ended his career as an ambassador in China and headed on August 29 to Minsk. “The Chinese experience of reforms and transformations is extremely useful for Belarus,” – underscored Rusakevich. “We are actively using the experience of China in the sphere of economic reforms, economic management and maintaining social stability in the country,” – underscored the former ambassador.

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“Belarusians’ Historic Choice” – such will be the title of Alexander Lukashenko’s book, consisting of the series of lectures he delivered over the past year to the country’s students, reports ATN. The themes of the lectures vary from one another – starting from the country’s economic policy and ending with the relations between the state and a creative individual. Almost half of the book is dedicated to Alexander Lukashenko’s answers to the questions, posed to him by the university students and teachers. The introductory speech to the series of lectures had been written by the Russian Nobel Prize laureate Jores Alferov. “Belarus has successfully passed her exam on surviving in the contemporary world. This book testifies to the care, with which Belarusians treat science and education,” – claims the renowned scholar.

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On Thursday Belarus will be visited on a working mission by the delegation of the National Liberation Army of China with colonel-general Chzhan Shutyan (deputy head of the Chief political department of NLA of China) at the head.

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Yesterday Alexander Lukashenko forwarded to the president of Russia his official response concerning the looming circulation of Russian ruble on the territory of Belarus. The content of the letter is not divulged for the time being. However, as one can understand from Lukashenko’s last statements, he still wants to bargain with Russia. “The missive reflects the position of the Belarusian side on the core essence of the problem,” – reports “Interfax’ with a reference to the presidential press-service.

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We have already covered in our previous reports the Penal Code’s amendments, which soften punishments for certain types of misdemeanors. This touched upon the destiny of almost a third of all convicts. Seven hundred people will shortly be set at liberty. However, our prisons will unlikely become more spacious. Simultaneously with that the authorities inserted opposite changes into the Penal Code, which strengthen punishments for such crimes as bribery. We contacted the well-known attorney Garry Pogonailo for his commentary on the matter.

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