The Political Council of Pro-democratic Forces is working on its campaign for the next parliamentary campaign scheduled for 2008, Anatol Lyabedzka, leader of the United Civic Party, told BelaPAN.
The Council is co-chaired by the leaders of three major opposition political parties and the acting head of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Hramada" who replaced former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Milinkevich as a single leader of the opposition coalition as a result of the second Congress of Pro-democratic Forces held this past May.
Mr. Lyabedzka said that every party had started preparing for the parliamentary campaign.
He emphasized the need for the coalition to distribute tasks and responsibility between its members to ensure that all understood who was in charge of what.
He also said that it was important for all parliamentary candidates representing the coalition to use one message to voters during the campaign.
"If the elections are called as required by law it will mean that we have started preparations in good time. This may give the pro-democratic forces several points. However, we do not rule out the possibility of the elections being called for the beginning of 2008. But anyway, the preparations began in time," Mr. Lyabedzka said.
Earlier this month, the Political Council of Pro-democratic Forces adopted the principles of participation in the next parliamentary elections scheduled for the fall of 2008.
The Council decided that the member organizations of the coalition and their nominees should launch their campaigns on September 1 and should press for amendments to the Electoral Code, inform voters about violations of their rights and try to encourage them to defend their rights. Candidates for the House of Representatives would be nominated on a "one district-one candidate" basis.
The opposition coalition unites the United Civic Party, the Belarusian Popular Front, the Belarusian Party of Communists, the Belarusian Women's Party "Nadzeya," the Belarusian Social Democratic Hramada, the Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Hramada," as well as the organizing committees for the Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Narodnaya Hramada," the Belarusian Party of Labor and the For Freedom organization. It also includes the Belarusian Environmental Party of Greens that is facing closure.
The Russian government has approved the proposal for drafting a program on the development of the infrastructure at the border of the Belarusian-Russian Union State in 2007 through 2011, Russian media outlets reported on Monday.
The proposal was submitted by the Federal Security Service (FSB) and approved by Minsk.
The Russian government ordered the FSB to submit the proposal to the Union State Council of Ministers and recommended selecting the service as Russia's ordering party under the program.
Priorities of the new program were discussed in Belarus this past June at a meting of the Union State's Border Committee. Vladimir Pronichev, deputy director of the Russian border control service, then said that the program was estimated to cost three billion Russian rubles.
Under a similar program implemented between 2002 and 2006, 26 facilities were built on Belarus' border with Latvia and Lithuania alone.
Bernd Stange, the newly appointed head coach of the Belarusian national team, said that the squad would develop its own style of play.
"Brazil and Germany are a distance away from Belarus, so it would be a mistake for Belarus to borrow their experience. Our goal is to create a Belarusian style of play including the traditions of Belarusian soccer that have developed since the Soviet era," the 59-year-old German said at Monday's meeting of the Belarusian Soccer Federation's Executive Committee.
The coach said that the Belarusian team's formation would include a four-player defensive line, while the number of midfielders and strikers would vary. "Former head coach Yury Puntus also used different styles of play," he added.
Mr. Stange noted that he had already watched videos of Belarus games, lauding Belarusian players' technical skills. "However, new, young players should be added to these," he stressed.
"If an experienced player failed to qualify for the European Championships or World Cup several times, I don't believe that he will manage [to qualify] next time," the coach went on to say.
Mr. Stange revealed that he would pick players with good ball handling skills, good speed and "high personal qualities" to the squad. "Our goal is to create a team composed of such players. Time has come to create a new face of the team," he said.
The coach stressed that the level of discipline would be extremely high in the team. "We will sharply criticize players while talking to them, but we will protect them from journalists. We will not wash our dirty linen in public," he added.
Two Belarusian trade and logistics centers will be built in the Moscow province, Prime Minister Syarhey Sidorski told reporters in Moscow on July 30 after his meeting with Boris Gromov, governor of the province.
The centers will be located in the cities of Odintsovo and Ramenskoye.
Mr. Sidorski said that the important agreements reached in September 2006 during Days of Belarus in the Moscow province had given a new impetus to the development of bilateral economic relations. Trade between Belarus and the Moscow province reportedly rose 38 percent in the first six months of 2007. "The dynamics are very good," Mr. Sidorski said.
Mr. Gromov said that Belarus was the "closest country" for the Moscow province. "It is unmatched in terms of growth pace or volume of trade," he noted, adding that Belarus had made some very interesting proposals regarding cooperation in the construction sector.//BelaPAN
The National Bank of Belarus (NBB) will lower its base refinance rate by 0.25 percentage point to 10.50 percent on August 1, one month after the previous reduction.
The NBB raised the base refinance rate from 10 to 11 percent earlier this year to make interest rates on rubel deposits more attractive amid surging demand for foreign cash but cut the rate to 10.75 percent on July 1.
Belarus' consumer prices rose by 0.6 percent a month on the average between January and June 2007, the NBB press office said.
The reduction of the base refinance rate is aimed at making bank loans cheaper and access to them easier, as specified in the country's monetary policy guidelines for this year, the press office explained.
Following the move, the refinance rate will still remain higher than the inflation rate and allow rubel deposits with banks to be more profitable than deposits in foreign currencies, the press office added.
The government projects the base refinance rate to be lowered to nine percent toward the end of the year.
The Belarusian police plan to crack down on alcohol-related crime by working with vulnerable families, Interior Minister Uladzimir Navumaw told reporters last week.
"The biggest problems in the country today are what happens in families with alcohol problems, which then leads to grave crimes," the official said.
General Navumaw acknowledged that the police had failed to tackle the problem properly. "We identified a set of measures at the beginning of the year, but this translated into a small-scale campaign of two or three months, although such work should be done on a permanent basis," he added.
"We need to concentrate on early prevention beginning from the formation of a family. There should be no situation where one member starts abusing alcohol, then he is followed by another and then kids follow them," the minister noted.
General Navumaw pointed to a decrease in the number of deaths caused by the consumption of fake liquor and the number of people caught drunk in public places. However, he stressed, it is yet early to speak about the improvement of the culture of drinking in the country.
The interior minister said that Alyaksandr Lukashenka's decree that requires "uncaring" parents to compensate the state for the maintenance of their children "gives us full rights to both reform and punish a person." "We will discuss today that many don't want to engage in prevention and reformation. They want to impose strict punishment without doing this work. In our view, this won't lead to the desired effect," he said.
Christiane Hohmann, the European Commission's external relations spokeswoman, said on July 27 that the recent arrests of opposition activists in Minsk defied an EU offer for Belarus to join its European Neighborhood Policy (ENP).
"These politically motivated arrests are in contradiction to the EU's offer to the Belarusians to engage in a full partnership" in the program, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty quoted Ms. Hohmann as saying.
However, the spokeswoman said, the arrests will not affect the European Commission's work to open its office in Minsk.
"In our view, it should not affect the ongoing talks about establishing a full-fledged EU delegation in Minsk which started in the spring," Hohmann said. "[The talks] are not finalized yet, they will continue after summer -- because in our view it's very important to be present on the ground, not only to have firsthand information, but also to be there as a permanent partner in dialogue with the Belarusian authorities."
The jailing of opposition youth leaders Pavel Sevyarynets and Alyaksey Shein earlier this week drew a critical reaction from the European Union's external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
"I am dismayed at the arrest and detention of several members of the Belarus democratic opposition over the last days, including Pavel Severinets and Aleksei Shein," the official said in a statement issued on Thursday, urging the Belarusian authorities "to release all those detained on political grounds without delay."
More than 60 opposition activists were arrested across Belarus in the days leading up to July 27, the date when opposition forces planned to mark the 17th anniversary of the State Sovereignty Declaration. Several activists were handed down jail sentences. Messrs. Sevyarynets and Shein were sentenced to 15 days in jail each.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev expressed certainty that the issue of Belarus' outstanding debt for Russian gas supplies would be "settled on economic principles in the near future."
"Belarus has a debt, there's nothing dramatic about this. Talks are underway and there're a number of proposals," the ITAR-TASS news agency quoted him as saying on July 27.
The vice premier would not elaborate on what proposals he was talking about but expressed hope that "this knot will be undone in the near future."
Mr. Medvedev said that Moscow had done much to secure "more rational and economically effective trade relations" with ex-Soviet countries.
Belarusian Prime Minister Syarhey Sidorski and his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Fradkov, are to meet in Moscow on July 30 to discuss Belarus' gas debt. Belarusian Energy Minister Alyaksandr Azyarets and Valery Golubev, deputy chairman of Gazprom's board, began talks on the matter in Moscow on July 23. The talks continued in Minsk on July 25 but ended in a failure.
Under a contract signed on December 31, 2006 between the Belarusian government and the Russian natural gas giant, Belarus has to pay $100 for 1,000 cubic meters in 2007 compared with $46.68 in the previous two and a half years. However, Gazprom allowed Belarus to pay 55 percent of the contractual price in the first six months of 2007 and Minsk promised to pay off the accumulated debt by July 23. Belarus ran into a $450-million debt but failed to repay it by the date.
Opposition activists who were grabbed by police at the center of Minsk on July 27 as they attempted to celebrate the 17th anniversary of the adoption of the State Sovereignty Declaration soon started being released with no charges against them.
In particular, Anatol Lyabedzka, chairman of the United Civic Party, was allowed to go three hours after his arrest.
As Mr. Lyabedzka told BelaPAN, he was captured by plainclothesmen while he was approaching Independence Square to attend a meeting with former lawmakers who adopted the Declaration in 1990. He was then handed over to police officers who forced him into a car and drove him to the Zavodski district police station.
According to Viktar Ivashkevich, a leader of the Belarusian Popular Front, he and all those who were arrested together with him and taken to the Tsentralny district police station were released after about three hours with no charges brought against them.
As he said, policemen indicated that there was an order not to charge and jail oppositionists that day.
However, Franak Vyachorka, the 19-year-old son of Belarusian Popular Front Chairman Vintsuk Vyachorka, was not released but was taken to the detention center on Akrestsina Street where he expected to be held until his trial on July 30. Police had reportedly found on him some stickers advertising the rally on Independence Square.
According to Mr. Ivashkevich, there were several dozen people, mostly youths, held captive together with him in a police bus following his arrest at about 4 p.m. near Hotel Minsk.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka on July 27 inaugurated an ice hockey arena in Pruzhany, a city of 25,000 residents in the Brest region.
The Belarusian leader expressed confidence that arenas similar to the Ice Palace in Pruzhany would soon appear in each district center in the country.
"This is not an entertainment facility, this is a facility of our economy," he said. "By developing the sports infrastructure, we boost our economy."
"I by no means regret having spent money on the construction of such palaces," Mr. Lukashenka said. "Experience shows that such ice rinks are in demand among people."
According to him, the government considers manufacturing gear for ice hockey and other sports domestically. He said that he devotes much attention to ice hockey not because he loves this game but because this is a very expensive and complicated sport. "If the state had not paid attention to the construction of ice palaces, then we, our people and our children would not have been able to play this game all the year round," he explained. "The children who are standing here before me will receive a big dose of health here. Our Pruzhany residents will be the healthiest people."
Mr. Lukashenka noted that Belarus currently has about 500 sports schools that provide training for more than 200,000 boys and girls.
31 July 2007