A group of four illegal migrants from Asia, a fourth one within four months, was apprehended by police near the village of Bystritsa near Kobrin, Brest region, on Thursday. The illegal migrants, who proved to be natives of Pakistan, were traveling by car from Moscow to
Belarus' Ukrainian border, Viktor Vasilevsky, spokesman for the regional police department, told BelaPAN.
The Pakistanis, believed to be heading for European Union member countries, were charged with a minor civil offense and deported to Russia.
Eight nationals of India were apprehended by road police officers in the area on July 17. A day before, police officers and officers of the Brest border control unit seized a group of three Pakistanis and an Indian. Ten illegal migrants from Afghanistan were rounded up there on July 10.
Brest has a new city government head.
On October 27, the City Soviet (elected council) unanimously voted to approve the appointment of Aleksandr Palyshenkov as chairman of the Brest City Executive Committee.
Mr. Palyshenkov, 55, was formally appointed by Konstantin Sumar, chairman of the Brest Regional Executive Committee, after Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko gave his consent to the candidacy.
Mr. Palyshenkov had served as first deputy chairman of the Brest City Executive Committee prior to this new appointment. He replaced Nikolai Gordiyevich who had been in the position for three years. While speaking before the City Soviet on Wednesday, Mr. Sumar described the appointee as a principled and responsible administrator with good organizing skills and economic competence. Born in the Brest region's Zhabinka district, Mr. Palyshenkov was educated as a building engineer. He is married and has an adult daughter who resides in Moscow.
It was not immediately clear what position his predecessor will occupy.
A group of officials from Coevorden, in the Netherlands, paid a visit to Brest earlier this week to revive contacts between the communities and explore local opportunities for investment.
The delegation's stay in the southwestern provincial center concluded with a meeting with senior Brest government officials on Tuesday.
The sides discussed ways to promote the exchange of expertise in local self-government and infrastructure development and contacts between branch agencies and businesses. "We have high interest in their expertise in planting green areas and supplying the population with
vegetables," Nadezhda Yashchuk, head of the Brest city council, told BelaPAN.
She said that both cities could benefit from closer ties between health establishments, development and law-enforcement agencies, life-saving organizations and creative groups. Coevorden Mayor Bert Bouwmeester expressed interest in boosting rail transit through Brest, promising to send a business mission to the city to study investment conditions in the local enterprise zone. The delegation visited Brest's university, which maintains contacts with the Drenthe province in the Netherlands, home to Coevorden, to discuss students exchange and the funding of research projects. The guests took a tour of the city, visiting its landmark old fortress and World War II memorial before leaving
Brest. Brest and Coevorden signed an agreement on cooperation back in 2000, but contacts have been slow due to various reasons, such as a change of government in the Dutch city.
Hordes of herons and cormorants are overrunning Lake Selets near Beryoza, Brest region, prompting the local fishery to take drastic measures to save the fish population.
A record number of birds have gathered around the lake this year, 3000, each consuming up to three tons of fish per day, Selets Fishery Director General Yury Bazhenov said.
Shooting the birds is the only chance that Selets is left with if it is to remain commercially viable, he noted. "We are not shooting egrets, which are a protected species, but we have formed a task force of 18
people to shoot the herons and cormorants," Mr. Bazhenov told BelaPAN. "They've shot down 800 cormorants and 1,700 herons this year."
Migrating birds amass around Lake Selets starting August to feed before flying on down south. The largest numbers can be seen in the area in October. The Selets Fishery is one of the largest in Belarus with an area of 2,600 hectares. The company sold 680 tons of fish last year and this year the yield is projected at more than 1000 tons. It currently stands at 830 tons. The fishery supplies fish packers to Minsk and the Brest and Grodno regions.
One of the eight candidates for the Council of Republic (upper chamber) put up at joint meetings of the presidium of the Brest regional soviet and the Brest regional executives committees will run for reelection.
That is Aleksei Skakun, head of the Ostromechevo agricultural cooperative.
The remaining seven candidates are Konstantin Sumar, chairman of the Brest regional executive committee; Vladimir Shishko, chief executive of the Brestenergo regional electricity and heating supplier; Zinaida Berezina, finance director with the Pinskdrev furniture factory; Valery Stramuk, head of the Zhabinka district department of Belarusian Railroads; Svetlana Obloukhova, deputy chief physician with
the Brest Regional Number 1 Dental Hospital; Tamara Shukalo, head of the number 5 gymnasium; and Nadezhda Nikitina, head of the Belagroprombank branch. The candidates are to be approved at general meetings of members of the base-level local soviets of the region during the election phase scheduled to take place between October 25 and November 13.
Twelve icons were stolen from a church in the Kamenets district, Brest region, on Saturday night.
The pastor of the Blessed Virgin Mary's Nativity Church in the village of Indychi called the police on Sunday saying that someone had torn padlocks off the church door stealing 11 contemporary icons, a
double-faced 18th-century icon and a bronze cross, a source with the provincial police department told BelaPAN.
Police opened an investigation into the burglary. Earlier this month, Brest regional and Minsk city police in cooperation with the Almaz anti-terror unit captured two icon thieves in the Lyakhovichi district and recovered two out of three icons they stole back in 2001 worth a total of $75,000. A search is underway for the third valuable icon.
Jewish community leaders, local government officials and students were expected to gather at the foot of a monument outside the village of Bronnaya Gora, near Baranovichi, Brest region, on Friday to mourn the inhabitants of a Jewish ghetto massacred by Nazis during World War II.
Between 50,000 and 100,000 Jews are believed to have been shot outside the village of Bereza Kartuzka, 70 miles northeast of Brest, on October 15, 1942.
Archival records suggest that Nazis built a special rail line to transport those marked for death to a trench, where they were executed. The monument at Bronnaya Gora is located about halfway along the railroad between Minsk and Brest.
The election commission of the number 2 Tsentralny district in Brest cancelled the registration of two candidates, reducing the number of contenders on the ballot to six.
As Lyudmila Kapustina, the district's top election official, told BelaPAN, the commission on Thursday dropped Dmitry Shimansky, a member of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF), for attracting funds for electioneering from sources not specified by the Electoral Code.
Independent candidate Andrei Sumar was removed from the ballot the day before for allegedly misreporting his incomes.
The law entitles both candidates to appeal the decision to the central election commission within three days.
Over 34,000 anti-Lukashenko leaflets were discovered in a pro-democracy candidate's apartment in Brest this past weekend.
The leaflets, printed in Russia's Siberian city of Tyumen, were seized by police officers who searched the apartment rented by the Belarusian Popular Front's Dmitry Shimansky after being tipped off, the press office of the Brest regional police department told BelaPAN.
Mr. Shimansky reportedly explained that he had nothing to do with the printed matter, which he said was given to him for safe keeping.
The election commission of a district where the candidate is on the ballot is expected to handle the case in the near future.
31 October 2004