United Pro-democratic Forces, Belarus' major opposition coalition, intend to set up branches in the provinces.
In particular, the coalition plans to create regional and district chapters, as well as a branch in Minsk.
The Political Council, the executive body of United Pro-democratic Forces, is to decide on the establishment of regional chapters. The latter will be founded at conferences organized by the regional branches of parties and NGOs affiliated with the coalition.
Speaking at the Political Council's meeting on August 30, Alyaksandr Bukhvostaw, leader of the unregistered Belarusian Party of Labor, expressed certainty that the establishment of provincial branches would benefit the coalition.
The Political Council of United Pro-democratic Forces plans to form a commission for providing aid to people subject to pressure from authorities on political grounds at its next meeting in September.
The matter was under discussion at the Political Council's meeting on August 30.
The lineup of the commission, whose activities will be supervised by the Political Council and its Presidium, is to include one member of each party and non-governmental organization represented on the Political Council, as well as activists of human rights groups and other opposition organizations.
Apart from coordinating efforts to protect activists from persecution by the authorities, the commission will create a database of people subject to pressure for their political views and officials involved in the persecution of government critics.
In an interview with BelaPAN, legal expert Ihar Rynkevich said that the commission would include representatives of registered organization and would not need registration.
The Council of Ministers has adopted a resolution that the First Congress of Belarusian Scientists should take place in Minsk in November.
The organizing committee is headed by Deputy Prime Minister Alyaksandr Kasinets. Mikhail Mysnikovich, chairman of the National Academy of Sciences, and Uladzimir Matsyushkow, head of the State Committee on Science and Technologies, have been appointed deputy heads.
The organizing committee has been tasked with drawing up a plan of preparations and establishing criteria for the selection of delegates to the Congress.//BelaPAN
There is not yet any specific plan for offering stakes in the country's petrochemical companies in the international stock market, Uladzimir Volkaw, deputy head of the Belarusian State Petrochemical Concern (Belnaftakhim), said at a news conference in Minsk on Wednesday.
"Currently, I cannot name any companies or point the finger at them," he said.
Uladzimir Syamashka, Belarus' deputy prime minister, said this past May that the sale of a stake in the Beltranshaz gas pipeline network to Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom was the "first serious step" toward the sale of stakes in other Belarusian state-run companies to foreign investors.
He said that the government would put stakes in more Belarusian companies, including petrochemical enterprises, up for sale in the world market toward the end of this year. //BelaPAN
Beltranshaz deputy head Vinery Valchuha noted "defects" in rules for a price of natural gas supplied by Gazprom, which the national gas pipeline operator and the Russian monopoly had agreed upon on December 31, 2006.
He told reporters in Minsk on Thursday that the defects "cannot be felt now" and that they depended on energy prices.
He acknowledged that the sides were at odds over the rules.
"Work has begun and I think that we will complete it by October 1. We already approximately know how the formula outlined in the contract should be used," he said.
The rules are outlined in a deal that Beltranshaz reached with Gazprom two minutes before the midnight on December 31, averting a threatened cutoff of gas supplies.
Under the contract, Belarus pledged to pay gradually increasing prices that will match global market prices of over $200 by 2011. In 2008, it is obliged to pay 67 percent of the price of gas supplied to the European Union.
Mr. Valchuha said that a 2008 price would be set at the end of this year or even in January. He said that Gazprom should cite good grounds for its price.
Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka turned 53 on August 30.
The head of state will have a working day today, Pavel Lyohki, head of the presidential press office, told BelaPAN in the morning.
"It has become a tradition for the president to spend his birthday at work," Mr. Lyohki said. "He will have a number of working meetings and a conference today."
Alyaksandr Lukashenka was born in the village of Kapys, Vitsyebsk region, on August 30, 1954. He graduated from the history department of the Mahilyow Teachers' Training Institute in 1975. In 1975-77, he served with the KGB Border Troops. Then he worked as a secretary of the Young Communist League at a trade enterprise in Shklow, Mahilyow region. In 1978, he became a secretary at the Shklow district office of the Znaniye (Knowledge) association, which propagandized atheism. In 1980-82, he again served with the Soviet Army.
In the period between 1982 and 1985, Mr. Lukashenka was deputy director general of a building materials enterprise in Shklow. He also studied by correspondence at the Horki Agricultural Academy in the Mahilyow region and graduated from it in 1985. In 1985-87, he was chairman of the Communist Party cell in a collective farm in the Mahilyow region. In 1987, he was appointed to head a state farm called Haradzets in the Shklow district.
In 1990, he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of Belarus (parliament). In April 1993, he became chairman of the Supreme Soviet's anti-corruption commission. His reports, full of accusations against high-ranking officials, made him widely popular.
Mr. Lukashenka was elected president of Belarus in relatively free and fair elections in the summer of 1994, when voters warmed to him as a "man of the people" running against an aloof figure from the country's Soviet-era elite. In the first round of the elections, he reportedly won 44.8 percent of the vote, compared with 17.3 percent for second-place Prime Minister Vyachaslaw Kebich. In the runoff round, he received 80.1 percent against Mr. Kebich's 19.9 percent.
As a result of a constitutional referendum in November 1996, he extended his presidential term by two years to 2001.
In September 2001, he was reelected president for a new five-year term. The central election commission announced that he won 75.6 percent of the vote, compared with 15.4 percent for the united opposition's candidate, trade union leader Uladzimir Hancharyk, and 2.5 percent for Liberal Democratic Party leader Syarhey Haydukevich.
In 2004, he initiated a national referendum on the removal of the two-term constitutional limit on the presidency. According to the central election commission, Mr. Lukashenka won a sweeping victory, with 79.4 percent of all registered voters saying "yes" to allowing him to stand for reelection for a third term.
In March 2006, Mr. Lukashenka was declared the winner with 83 percent of the vote in a presidential election condemned by his opponents as a farce.
Opposition candidates Alyaksandr Milinkevich and Alyaksandr Kazulin reportedly gained 6.1 and 2.2 percent, respectively, and Mr. Haydukevich was said to have received 3.5 percent. An independent survey revealed that Mr. Lukashenka won 63.6 percent of the vote and Mr. Milinkevich received 20.6 percent.
The country's two oil refineries, located in Mazyr and Navapolatsk, are to increase the yield of light products to up to 92 percent by 2011, which will be close to a maximum possible limit in oil refining, Uladzimir Volkaw, deputy head of the Belarusian State Petrochemical Concern (Belnaftakhim), told reporters in Minsk on Wednesday.
Currently, their yield totals between 70 and 75 percent.
Under a modernization program for 2005 through 2010, the Mazyr refinery is to start producing paraxylene, using modern isomerization technologies in production of gasoline and modernizing the diesel fuel hydrofining unit to make fuel complying with the European Union's Euro-5 emissions standards.
The Naftan refinery is to start producing gasoline in compliance with the EU's Euro-4 standards and diesel fuel with a lower content of sulphur.
Between $5 and $6 billion is to be spent on the modernization projects that are to increase the output capacity of the refineries to 12 million tons a year. //BelaPAN
Former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Milinkevich, leader of the Movement for Freedom, has appealed to the Maskowski District Court in Brest and the chief of the district police department to drop the charges against local opposition activists who were arrested on August 19.
Prominent opposition leader Pavel Sevyarynets and 28 other people were rounded up in a police raid on the Brest office of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) on that day. The police entered the office, alleging that there had been an unanimous telephone tip of a gathering of criminals there. Mr. Sevyarynets was telling those present about his new book, Letters from the Forest, at the moment.
On August 22, a judge of the Maskowski District Court sentenced him to 15 days in jail, finding the meeting at the BPF office to be an unauthorized rally. Mr. Sevyarynets was convicted of repeatedly violating regulations governing mass events within a year under Part 3 Article 23.34 of the Administrative Offenses Code.
The other 28 people arrested together with him are yet to stand trial.
Members of opposition parties, human rights activists and lawyers have drawn up a charter for a commission for the exoneration of victims of politically motivated prosecution, legal expert Ihar Rynkevich told BelaPAN.
The commission would be formed and controlled by the Political Council of United Pro-democratic Forces. It would be accountable to the Political Council when the latter were in session and to its board in the interim.
The Political Council's members on the commission would be able to vote, while activists of other pro-democratic organizations will only be allowed to give non-binding opinions.
The commission would coordinate the opposition coalition's efforts to defend the rights of persons victimized for their political beliefs.
Mr. Rynkevich also said that the commission would create a database of victims, with people who claim to be under pressure from authorities for their political views invited to fill out a form that should contain information about their affiliation with a political party or a non-governmental organization. Documents proving the claim, including police charge sheets, detention reports and court papers, should be attached to the form. "Apart from this, we have decided to respond to information concerning persecution on the part of the employer, that's why school expulsion and job dismissal orders also will be accepted," Mr. Rynkevich said. "Those who consider themselves to be subject to political persecution may send their applications to reabilitacia@gmail.com."
Papers submitted by political persecution victims would also reveal the names of those involved in exerting pressure on opposition activists, Mr. Rynkevich said.
Mr. Rynkevich noted that the plans would be considered at a meeting of the Political Council. "The commission will be composed of members of registered organizations, that's why it won't need registration," he said.
He added that the Belarusian Helsinki Committee would cooperate with the commission.
The Supreme Court of Belarus on August 29 ordered the liquidation of the Belarusian Environmental Party of Greens.
The justice ministry filed the liquidation suit, claiming that the party had in fact ceased party activities. The ministry cited its failure to move chapters to offices as required by July 2005 amendments to the law on political party, amend its charter and set up a sufficient amount of cells.
The chairman of the party, Mikalay Kartysh, accepted the claims. In a letter unveiled during the hearing, Mr. Kartysh said that he did not oppose the suit and asked the Court to try it in absentia.
The Belarusian Environmental Party of Greens was established on October 28, 1998 as a result of the merger of the Party of Greens and the Belarusian Environmental Party. At a session in March 2007, the party decided to go into liquidation, but the justice ministry declared the decision illegitimate because a small number of delegates participating in the session. //BelaPAN
31 August 2007