The leading European news channel EuroNews has prepared a series of programs on Belarusian topics. The Russian service of the EuroNews, which is available in Belarus, is to broadcast them. Belarusian civil activists, politicians and culture personalities have taken part in these programs. We offer you the timetable for the next week, from September 30 to October 6.
On September 28 “Narodnaya Volya” managed to issue a current number. However, issuing of the newspaper is still at risk, the representatives of the editorial office of the newspaper told to the “Belarusian Association of Journalists”. The property of the newspaper is distrained, paper is arrested, and the bank is to transfer 100 mln Belarusian rubles from the account of the newspaper. (The court of Lenin district of Minsk fined the newspaper for moral damages for publishing an article about the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Syarhei Hajdukevich and his alleged cooperation with the regime of Saddam Hussein).
The unified Belarusian opposition will put forward a single candidate for the 2006 presidential elections on October 2, a Belarusian party leader told a news conference in the Russian capital on Wednesday. The Charter’97 press center is to cover the work of the Congress from the moment of its opening and until the single candidate would be elected.
The court of Lenin district of Hrodna fined a member of the independent trade union Ivan Roman 1 mln 275 thousand Belarusian rubles. He was sentenced to 50 milimal units of fine for alleged activities on behalf of an unregistered organization.
An attempt to recruit the head of Mahilyou branch of the youth public association “Young Social Democrats – Maladaya Hramada” Paval Usau has taken place on September 23, the press service of the NGO Assembly informs. The activist has just returned from his trip to Poland. He visited Poland on invitation of the brotherly organization to study the course of the campaign before the parliamentary elections. A representative of the KGB (State Security Committee) was interested by this trip.
The “Northwest Strategic Command forces command staff exercises” began in Belarus near the borders with Lithuania and Latvia yesterday. About 4500 troops and 50 pieces of armored equipment are involved. The Belarusian military will work on the interaction of strategic command organs and military units “in the organization and implementation of the antiterrorist struggle.” Military units from the Northwestern Strategic Command, the 103rd Independent Mobile Guard Brigade, territorial defense department organs, including district defense staffs and subdivisions of territorial forces of the Verkhnedvincky District of Vitebsk Region (on the border with Latvia) and the Vileisky District of Minsk Region (near the border with Lithuania), subdivisions of the 5th Independent Special Forces Brigade, an Air Force helicopter detachment and air defense forces.
Issues on the forthcoming meeting between the presidents of Belarus and Ukraine were discussed today in Kiev. As BelTA has been informed in the foreign ministry of this republic, in the course of the talks between foreign minister of Belarus Sergei Martynov and his Ukrainian counterpart Boris Tarasiuk the sides agreed that in the near future (at the end of September – in early October) prime minister of Ukraine Yuri Ekhanurov will pay a visit to Belarus to prepare a meeting between two leaders Alexander Lukashenka and Viktor Yuschenko.
China is satisfied with the growth of its ties with Belarus and regards it as a reliable friend and sincere partner, a senior Chinese communist party leader said on Tuesday in Minsk. In a meeting with Belarus President of Alexander Lukashenka, Wu Guanzheng, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC), said China is ready to work with Belarus to push bilateral ties to a higher level.
The European Parliament has nominated Reporters without Borders, a group defending press freedom, for its annual Sakharov Prize. The group is also critical about press freedom in the European Union. The president of the Parliament`s foreign affairs committee, Elmar Brok, on Tuesday (27 September) announced the three nominees for the prize, which seeks to promote freedom of thought around the globe.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, rejected calls to run for a third presidential term yesterday by saying that he would not change the constitution to allow him stay in power after 2008.
Another hearing of the Belarusian question by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is likely to be timed to the presidential elections in Belarus. Radio Svaboda was told about it by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s Rapporteur on the situation in Belarus, Azerbaijani deputy Azim Mollazade. At the spring session of the Assembly the report prepared by him is to be presented. “We are studying the situation in the country carefully, and the report prepared in the political committee of the PACE, would embrace the situation with functioning of all institutions in the country. The problem of political prisoners, their state of health, the problem of the disappeared are the problems of supreme importance for us,” the PACE Special Rapporteur said. “We think that the country which is situated in the center of Europe must not have political prisoners. It is the most painful question for the Council of Europe”.
Ahead of Turkey starting accession talks with the European Union on 3 October, the BBC`s Nick Thorpe is travelling towards Istanbul down the EU`s eastern border to find out how people live and what they think on either side of the present divide.
On September 22, 2005 Alexander Lukashenka, President of the Republic of Belarus, signed the Decree On HiTech Park. According to the Decree, the enterprise is aimed at stimulating Belarusian science development, and information and communication technologies in particular. The HiTech Park will be situated in Minsk area, occupying some 50 hectares of land.
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