All but four phone lines at Brest's Moskovsky district police department have been cut off for about a month now as Brestobltelekom, the region's
state-run telecommunications company, is trying to force the department to pay its debt exceeding 4 million rubels ($2,000).
Only the chief, the deputy chief, the accountant and the duty officer have operational lines. Officers say communication problems make it difficult for them to fight crime in the district that has one of the
highest rates in the city.
Brestobltelekom said customers' debts for phone services total about 1 billion rubels (over $500,000) with private individuals accounting for 15 percent.
A pipe organ has been installed at the Holy Cross Exaltation Church in Brest offering the local Roman Catholic believers the first opportunity in decades to celebrate Christmas to organ music.
The church used to have an organ before, but it was removed after the Soviet authorities turned the building over to the Local Studies Museum, Bishop Kazimierz Wielikosielec told BelaPAN.
Although the church reopened a decade ago, it could not find an organ at an affordable price until recently. Having learned accidentally that a church near Munich planned to replace its instrument, the bishop asked it to hand over the old organ to Brest.
Two Minsk-based organists visited Germany to examine the instrument's condition. The organ was dismantled, repaired and installed at the Brest church. Organists from Minsk and Grodno have already played it. There is no organist in Brest for the time being.
Prosecutors in Stolin, Brest region, have charged a 23-year old resident of the village of Ponizhye with setting fire that reduced to ashes 80 tons of hay worth 10 million rubels.
The arsonist, a man with a criminal record, reported to a police station and confessed to the crime. He said he had set the fire to square accounts with the local farm management.
This was one of few hay arsons reported in the region this year, said the region's Department for Emergency Situations.
In most cases, hay or straw fires start incidentally as children play with matches or when someone throws a burning cigarette. Fires destroyed 1,693 tons of hay in the Brest region in January to November.
The Council of Ministers will soon issue a directive that tolls should be collected from all Belarusian vehicles using the Brest-Minsk-Russian border highway, the press office of the Belarusian transport
ministry's road construction and maintenance department
Belavtodor, told BelaPAN.
Currently, the tolls are collected from foreign vehicles and Belarusian vehicles having more than three axles. The government plans to start collecting the tolls from cars, biaxial trucks and tractors, as well as buses registered in Belarus.
Belarusian drivers are expected to have to pay "no more than 1000 rubels at each road fee collection post," Belavtodor said. The 610-kilometer Belarusian section of the highway has four such posts, according to the department. To avoid paying the toll, drivers will have to
choose other routes, the press office said. The total amount of tolls collected from vehicles with four or more axles for a passage through Belarus by the highway will remain the same, i.e. $50. However, the directive would provide some changes in the collection procedure.
The press office linked the directive to the need to repay a $50-million loan provided by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development between 1994 and 1998 for the renovation of the road. In addition, the government has to repair and properly maintain the highway, secure traffic safety and develop roadside services, the press office said.
Customs officials expect vehicle queue at the Belarusian-Polish border to build up within the next few days and subside after December 23 on Christmas Eve.
The officials noted that traffic usually increases at the end of the year as companies rush to meet their contractual obligations. Some vehicles have to wait in the line up to two days.
Desperate drivers blocked the Minsk-Brest highway in November urging customs officers to speed up traffic. A similar blockage was prevented by police officers in December. Vyacheslav Osintsev, chief of the Zapadny Bug customs service, rejected drivers' accusations of sluggishness against customs officers. "We are working according to the law, as every truck carries $100,000 worth of goods on the
average," he said. Mr. Osintsev also denied allegations that customs officers let too many queue jumpers across the border.
He pointed out that when the line stretches 10 kilometers and longer, trucks are inspected not only at the customs terminal but also at the checkpoint. This helps increase traffic by up to 300 trucks per shift.
The Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Narodnaya Hramada" and Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) in Brest have questioned the reputation of the deputy head of the regional commission for next spring's local election.
The organizations say that Konstantin Bobko actively campaigned for incumbent Aleksandr Lukashenko when he was deputy head of the regional election commission during last year's presidential election. His pro-Lukashenko bias was covered by the local press, documented by Narodnaya Hramada observers and reported to the regional prosecutor and the central election commission.
"We appeal to the governmental agencies, political parties and non-governmental organizations to do their best to ensure free and democratic elections for local soviets," says the statement. Anatoly Levkovich, regional leader of Narodnaya Hramada, told BelaPAN his party will file protests with the regional and central election commissions.
Belarusian border guards have seized two groups of illegal migrants near the Polish border in the last few days, the press center of the State Border Troops Committee said.
Four nationals of Afghanistan were reportedly apprehended while they were attempting to cross the border illegally this past weekend. One man had arrived in Belarus from Poland legally by train and was trying to take several compatriots to Poland, the press center said.
Three Sri Lankans were seized at the Brest Tsentralny checkpoint during an inspection of a Moscow-Berlin train on the morning of December 27. The three were trying to enter Poland, using forged passports of Malaysian citizens.
Poland has imposed a provisional ban on transport of Europe-bound condensed gas from Russia, Kazakhstan and the Baltics. The decision was made on December 11 at a meeting between Polish and Belarusian
railroad officials in Malaszewiczy, Poland.
Polish officials said a large number of gas tanks at the border pose a threat to the region. As many as 1,200 tanks are currently at the border, a spokesman for the Brest Department of the Belarusian Railroads told BelaPAN. The Polish side accepts no more than 70 a day. Experts link the increased traffic of condensed gas to companies' efforts to meet their contractual obligations before the end of the year.
The Internet Platform transboundary information center was opened in Brest on Tuesday. Established in the framework of the European Union's TACIS technical assistance program, the center is part of a
project titled Trans-border Information and Contacts (TRIC) Platform for the Border Region Brest/Biala-Podlaska. The Internet Platform is expected to facilitate contacts between Belarus and Poland in various areas including business, culture, education, travel and sports. Its main
purposes are to supply tourists, businesspeople and the local population with information on the current and future status of the EU border. The center's future mission is to assist in carrying out projects aimed at the development of the border region Brest/Biala-Podlaska.
A vast array of useful data, including border-crossing requirements, customs regulations, and emergency telephone numbers and addresses can reportedly be found at www.tric.info.
Among those supporting the TRIC Platform project were Karlsruhe, Germany, economic development authorities, the German-Belarusian House Karlsruhe-Minsk, the Brest Regional Executive Committee, and the Biala-Podlaska city and povet (district) governments. The project is seen as a complement to the Euroregion Bug project.
On December 10, Brest hosted a final conference on the TRIC project, which brought together Brest regional executives, customs and border control officers, diplomats, managers of the German-Belarusian House, officials from Poland's Lublin province, and leaders of the Belarusian National Academy of Sciences.
The Belarusian government plans to allocate more than $3.5 million for the development of the Free Economic Zone (FEZ) "Brest" infrastructure in 2003, Nikolai Krivetsky, the FEZ chief manager, told BelaPAN.
In 2002 the government spent $1 million for the purpose, an amount insufficient for developing the FEZ new areas, Mr.
Krivetsky said.
The FEZ occupies a total area of 71 square kilometers and includes the electric and mechanical, lamp, electronic, and machine-building factories and the electronic factory Tsvetotron.
The FEZ currently has 95 resident companies: 45 fully owned by foreign investors and 28 involving foreign capital. The companies pledged $120 in investment and have already invested $70 million.
Each $1 invested by the government in the infrastructure generates a return of $7.3, Mr. Krivetsky said.
30 December 2002