Before the results of the presidential elections scheduled for March 19 are known, Alyaksandr Lukashenka has informed that the former chief of the presidential administration and the present head of Lukashenka’s election headquarters Viktar Shejman would head the State Secretariat of the Security Council of the country. “Viktar Shejman is and would remain a military man, and would head the structure once created on the order of the president, the State Secretariat of the Security Council,” A. Lukashenka said, presenting the new leadership of the presidential administration.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka has underlined the necessity of ideology work being intensified by the presidential administration, and expects that the new leadership of the administration would deal successfully with this task.
A political prisoner, former deputy and the leader of the deputy group “Respublika” Syarhei Skrabets has announced a hunger strike of protest, informs his assistant Syarhei Halahaniuk. On January 16 the case of Syarhei Skrabets is to be examined in the Supreme Court of Belarus.
“On Saturday, when I was passing by Kamarouski market in Minks, I was stopped by police. They asked to show the contents of by rucksack,” a reader of the “Komsomolskaya Parvda v Belarusi” told on the phone. “When I fumed because of that, policemen explained that they have received such an instruction, to search big bags. They said they are looking for some printed materials, and in case I would disagree to open the bag, they would take me to a police department to search there. Is it legal? And what is the reason for all that? Is it connected with the elections?”
On January 10 the court of the Pershamajski district of Minsk dismiss a complaint of Uladzimir Myaleshka, who had asked to change a measure of restraint for his grandson Anton Filimonau, a son of Veranika Charkasava, a journalist murdered in October 2004. (Uladzimir Meleshka is a legal representative of the 16-year-old teenager). As said by Anton’s grandmother, Dyiana Charkasava, they are to take an appeal from this court decision in a higher court.
An internet source for Homel students www.studgomel.com has received an email from a student of passenger traffic administering faculty of the Belarusian State University, who lives in a hostel. “Today I was on my way from studies to the hostel. At a reception desk a dean of our faculty was waiting for students. He strongly recommended signing in support of Lukashenka’s nomination. Students were not very active, that is why deans of different faculties entered every room and insisted on coming out with a passport and give a signature. To be more exact, they simply herded us like farm animals. I could not but submit. After all, I do not want to be thrown away to the street tomorrow… Yet, the way the things are going, I will go out to the streets to protest…”
A print run of the independent newspaper “Narodnaya Volya” was arrested at the Russian-Belarusian border. 27,000 copies of the newspaper are now at Dubrouna Internal Affairs Department.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Monday met the main opposition runner in Belarus`s March presidential election, saying Paris backed efforts to bring democracy to the former Soviet state. The meeting in Paris with Alexandre Milinkevitch "higlights France`s support for democracy in Belarus," said a ministry source.
As the Middle East Newsline agency informs, Algeria has been discussing the prospect of a $1.5 billion arms deal with Belarus. Algeria`s Defense Ministry has been examining the purchase of the MiG-29 aircraft of Belarus. Algerian defense sources said Belarus has offered a lower price for the aircraft than that of Russia.
Alain Guillemol, a journalist of the French newspaper “Le Croix”, who covered Orange Revolution in Ukraine and wrote a book “Even the snow was orange”, told to the Radio Svaboda that he and about a dozen of French journalists are going to visit Belarus during the presidential elections on March 19. Most of these journalists were at the press conference held yesterday evening in Paris by the candidate of the united opposition Alyaksandr Milinkevich. Mr Guillemol shared his impressions with the correspondent of the Radio Svaboda.
One of the candidates for the presidency of Belarus has announced his decision to withdraw from the elections. Member and an ex-president of the Belarus Academy of Sciences Alexander Voitovich was quoted by RIA-Novosti as saying he did not want to contribute to “create illusions for electors that the participation of (current Belarus president Alexander) Lukashenko in the election is legal and that the election is held in correspondence with the Constitution and the Electoral Code.”
The main Belarus opposition candidate for president said on Friday millions of his countrymen would flood the streets in protest if presidential polls on March 19 are not free and fair. Alexander Milinkevich, an independent, is backed by leading liberal and nationalist opposition parties to challenge incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko, accused by the West of crushing dissent, abusing human rights and rigging elections.
Alyaksandr Milinkevich is the main challenger to incumbent Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in the 19 March 2006 election. Milinkevich is hoping to rally opposition to Lukashenka and to win the support of middle-of-the-road voters in a bid to end what US President George Bush has described as "the last dictatorship in Europe".
The Senate of Poland on January 5 adopted a special resolution in which it expressed serious concern about the situation of the Polish minority in Belarus and called on the Belarusian authorities to respect civil and human rights, reported Radio Polonia.
The issue of CIA secret prisons in the EU states is put on the agenda of the January session of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), chairman of the State Duma Committee for International Affairs Konstantin Kosachev told Russian journalists after the Paris session of the PACE Bureau on Monday.
Ask a silly question and you get a silly answer. In the latest of its audience-participation exercises, the Today programme asked listeners to vote on “Who Runs Britain?” The result was a mind-boggling top vote for Jose Manuel Barroso, the embattled President of the European Commission, whom few feel has much power and even fewer believe is using it with much authority.
Situation in Belarus was the topic of talks between the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Philippe Douste-Blazy and the leader of Belarusian democratic forces, Alyaksandar Milinkevich, who was on a one-day visit to Paris on January 9.
Aleksandr Lukashenko, by his January 9 presidential edict, altered the list of members of the National Selection Commission for Purchases of Medical Equipment and Medical-Purpose Goods by appointing Lyudmila Postoyalko to head the Commission, reported to the Belarusian leader`s press office.
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