Aleksandr Lukashenko has called on Gazprom not to increase gas prices for Belarus next year, saying that the Belarusians would die for Russia if the West decided one day to attack it.
"If tanks start rolling from there to Russia, we will be dying here for Russia," he told a group of Russian reporters in Minsk on Friday. "And our people should be ready for this."
"Do you have a single military unit between Moscow and NATO's borders westward? You have only one, which is Belarusian," he stressed.
"We are ready to defend you. This is our policy," he noted.
The Belarusian leader complained that the Russian Armed Forces were reluctant to stage joint military exercises in Belarus, suggesting that Russia was fearing that the "West" would accuse it of turning into a military state. "We should communicate with each other on training grounds in order to be ready for signal support in the event of some emergency."
"We give food and drink to Russians that are kicked out of Lithuania as dogs if they fall in discharge there for some reason," he said. "The Chechens that were travelling to Poland via Brest were thrown out of the train cars. Hundreds of people were there. We received and accommodated them, gave them food and drink. They bore children there and named them after me," he said. //BelaPAN
The problem of Russian natural gas deliveries to Belarus and its transit via Belarusian territory in 2007 will be resolved by the end of 2006, the Russian prime minister said Tuesday.
After raising gas prices for several of its other ex-Soviet neighbors, the Russian state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom said it will also pursue a European price formula for Belarus as of 2007.
"Talks are underway, and today this issue was discussed at a bilateral meeting [of the countries' premiers]," Mikhail Fradkov said.
Gazprom is seeking a stake in the Belarusian state pipeline company Beltransgaz, which owns pipelines leading to Europe. It has offered to partially compensate the Belarusian firm for the price hikes if Beltransgaz agrees to sell the Russian energy giant its main gas routes.
Fradkov said: "We expect a valuation of the Belarus gas transit system this November," adding that there was still plenty of time to reach an agreement.
Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky said that several problems concerning starting conditions and rules remain to be negotiated.
A source in the Russian government said earlier the two companies are in talks to create a joint gas transit venture. He said that a contract on gas deliveries to Belarus in 2007 should be signed by the end of the year.
Belarus currently pays $46.68 per thousand cubic meters of Russian natural gas, while average gas prices for European Union countries are $180-200 per 1,000 cubic meters. //RIA Novosti
The Belarusian Council of Ministers is expected to abolish restrictions on the import of beer from Russia, Vladimir Kuznetsov, spokesman for the Russian Union of Brewers, told BelaPAN.
The matter was under discussion at a meeting of the Committee on Tariff and Non-Tariff Regulation under the Council of Ministers of the Belarusian-Russian Union State held at the Russian economic development and trade ministry on Monday.
The discussion was initiated by the Russian delegation, according to Mr. Kuznetsov.
Under a directive issued by the Belarusian cabinet in 2003, Russian beer importers should deliver shipments to Belarus through specially established warehouses. "The rules apply to the import of beer from Russia only," Mr. Kuznetsov said. "They cause logistic problems for Russian breweries, as well as lead to substantial financial loss and increases in the retail price of their beer."
The Committee reportedly agreed that the rules should be abolished. The Belarusian cabinet is soon to draft a directive to this effect.
Mr. Kuznetsov said that the move would be well in line with efforts to establish the Union State, which he noted envisages equal conditions for Belarusian and Russian businesses.
Yelena Yeskova was elected leader of the Belarusian Women's Party "Nadzeya" at the party's 5th convention held in Minsk on Sunday.
Ms. Yeskova replaced Valentina Matusevich who had resigned, pleading a lack of time. Nonetheless, Ms. Matusevich will hold the post of deputy chairperson.
The change of the leader will not entail a change in the party's policy, Ms. Yeskova told BelaPAN. The protection of women's interests remains its main aim, she added.
"The constitution guarantees equal rights to men and women, but things are absolutely different in real life," Ms. Yeskova said. "I believe that if the woman can keep a household, she is able to manage government affairs."
The newly elected leader also noted that the party would continue its membership in inter-party bodies, including the Political Council of United Pro-democratic Forces.
Ms. Yeskova had headed the legal department of the Belarusian Union of Automobile and Agricultural Implement Workers (BUAAIW) for many years. Afterward, she was an activist of the Belarusian Party of Labor until it was outlawed by the Supreme Court of Belarus in August 2004. //BelaPAN
Aleksandr Lukashenko on September 22 issued a presidential edict that pensions paid to orphan children and children left without parental care should be increased to the amounts that had been in place before the August 1 enactment of amendments to pension laws.
Following the enactment, it turned out that the amendments deteriorated the conditions of pension support for orphan children and children left without parental care who are under the care of foster and guardian families, the Belarusian leader's press office explained.
The press office noted that the edict took effect retroactively to August 1, 2006, which means that the underpaid amounts would be promptly paid. //BelaPAN
Minsk hopes that the Belarusian orphan girl will be returned to Belarus, Andrei Popov, spokesman for the foreign ministry, told reporters in the Belarusian capital city on Thursday.
"We believe that Italy is a law governed state and that it will finally implement an Italian court's order to unconditionally return our citizen to the Republic of Belarus, her home," he said.
Mr. Popov stressed that the "Belarusian side" does not want tensions sparked by the incident to be "artificially heated."
He reiterated that Minsk would act in strict accordance with the international law and Belarusian-Italian agreements.
Viktoriya Moroz was spending the summer in Italy as part of a program for children affected by the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
She was meant to have flown back to Belarus on September 8. Instead, her seasonal foster parents sent her into hiding. They say that the 10-yea-old child was repeatedly raped and tortured at the orphanage in Vileika, Minsk region.
The couple's lawyers held talks with Italy's deputy justice minister on Tuesday. The talks failed.
"The family's position remains uncompromising," the Belarusian ambassador to Italy, Aleksei Skripko, told Interfax.
"They will take a decision that will allow the girl to stay in Italy for at least one year for medical treatment," he said.
On Wednesday, the Belarusian foreign ministry issued a formal protest against the "deliberate abduction" of the child. //BelaPAN
Sweden's new government is expected to support opposition groups in Belarus more actively, Christopher Fjellner, a member of the European Parliament and of the country's Moderate Party, said in an interview with BelaPAN.
The Alliance for Sweden, a center-right coalition headed by Moderate Party leader Fredrik Reinfeldt, narrowly won Sunday's elections in Sweden, ending 12 years of Social Democrat rule. Mr. Reinfeldt is poised to become Sweden's next prime minister.
Mr. Fjellner said that the new government definitely would not have any political contacts with Aleksandr Lukashenko's "regime."
He said that the policy would not affect ordinary people, noting that Sweden would try to make it possible for the Belarusians to learn as much as possible about the European Union, also by easing visa formalities.
He said that Sweden had actively helped democratization in the Baltic States and would do so in Belarus.
Mr. Fjellner expressed hope that Sweden's embassy would open in Minsk some day. Sweden is currently represented in the country by an office of the Swedish embassy in Russia.
A tug-of-war involving a 10-year-old Belarussian child continued to cause diplomatic tensions between Belarus and Italy on Wednesday.
Belarussian Ambassador to Italy Alexei Skripko renewed his country's demands that the child, who has been hidden away by an Italian couple, be sent back home immediately.
He stressed that the Belarussian foreign ministry regarded the case as a kidnapping.
"Bielorussia wants a full investigation into the circumstances of this prolonged kidnapping including the punishment of all those responsible for carrying out and aiding these illegal acts," the ambassador said.
The child at the centre of the row, who has been given the cover name Maria, was due to return to Belarus 13 days ago after spending the summer with temporary Italian foster parents.
But the foster parents, Maria and Alessandro Giusti from Cogoleto near Genoa, are refusing to hand Maria back after she revealed she had been sexually abused by other children in her orphanage back home.
The couple have taken Maria to a secret hiding place with the help of their own parents and are defying threats of arrest in their determination to prevent the child being sent back to Belarus.
They now want to adopt Maria.
Skripko said he was "extremely worried for the life and health" of Maria, whom he said needed urgent psychological assistance.
He said the Belarussian government insisted that the Italian authorities "guarantee respect for Italian law and public order".
Meanwhile, thousands of Italian foster parents fear the Giustis' actions could jeopardise the annual temporary adoption programme of which Maria was part.
Every winter and summer, thousands of Belarussian children travel to Italy to stay with temporary foster parents in a programme which was first launched after the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in neighbouring Ukraine.
Belarus has suspended the programme until the Maria case is resolved.
A Genoa juvenile court has ordered the Giustis to hand back Maria but the couple told reporters last week: "The child has been subject to terrible violence in her home country and has threatened to kill herself if she is sent back".
"The Italian State has to deal with this case. Our Constitution guarantees people's right to life, health and physical well-being," they said.
Attempts by Italian Justice Undersecretary Daniela Melchiorre to mediate in the affair have so far failed.
Melchiorre said on Tuesday that she was having difficulties in arriving at a solution because of the "intransigence of the parents".
"The family is refusing to respect international accords and we can only invite them to rethink their position and obey the law," she said.
The Giustis and their parents are all under investigation for child abduction by the Italian judicial authorities. //ANSA
The Ministry of Justice is considering suspending the activities of the Belarusian Party of Communists (BPC), reported to the ministry's press office.
According to the press office, the grounds are that the BPC leadership fails to meet the requirements of the Political Parties Law. In particular, the party allegedly refused to provide the ministry with information about its membership and received an official warning from the ministry for that. The ministry ordered that the BPC should provide the required data until September 15, but the party never did it.
In Wednesday's interview with BelaPAN, BPC leader Sergei Kalyakin accused the ministry of blackmail and said that the requirement was absolutely unfounded from a legal viewpoint. The information that the ministry has spread is false, he said. "Under regulations, we have one month to appeal to the warning to the Supreme Court," he noted. "We have notified the Ministry of Justice in writing that we will appeal against its decision in accordance with the established procedure. Under the law, the warning may come into force only if the Supreme Court upholds it. Only after the Court does it, the ministry may decide on initiating judicial proceedings to suspend the party's activities."
Earlier reports had it that the ministry issued the warning over the BPC's failure to provide data regarding the membership of its chapters, in particular the names and addresses of all members. But the party leadership argued that the order was illegal, as regulations require the central committee to provide the justice ministry with information about only the head, deputy head and secretary of a cell and the number of its members. "The BPC Central Committee does not have to present the party's membership list to the justice ministry because it is the grassroots organizations that should maintain such lists under the law," Valery Ukhnalyov, secretary of the Committee, told BelaPAN in late August.
A Belarusian student whose body was found in Chicago on September 7 may have died from stab wounds, a source with the Medical Examiners Office of the Chicago Police Department told BelaPAN.
According to the source, the body of the young woman aged between 20 and 21 was found with multiple stab wounds to the chest and the back at a private apartment on West Greenleaf Avenue at 10 p.m.
The press office of the Chicago Police Department would not comment on the investigation.
According to Andrei Kozhan, consul at the Belarusian embassy in Washington, the student had arrived in the United States under the Summer Work and Travel Program sponsored by the US State Department.
Her body is to be delivered to Belarus this week.
The young woman was one of two students from Belarus who were killed in the United States this past summer and a third was the victim of an armed robbery.
In a strongly worded statement issued last week, the Belarusian foreign ministry accused the US government of the inability to ensure the safety of arriving Belarusian citizens.
The ministry urged Belarusian students to refrain from participating in the program, noting "extreme and absolutely unacceptable" conditions of stay.
The US State Department responded that the deaths were tragic but urged continued involvement in the study programs.
"The deaths of the two Belarusian citizens are terrible, albeit wholly unrelated events,"' said spokesman Edgar Vasquez.
29 September 2006