Belarus will not have to buy feed grain from foreign suppliers this year as the crop yield is expected to be high in the country, Nadzezhda Katkavets, first deputy minister of agriculture, said at a news conference in Minsk on Thursday.
At least eight million tons of the crop is projected to be harvested in Belarus this year, with 4.5 million to be supplied to domestic poultry and cattle farms.
The deputy minister said that the grain would be available at "reasonable prices."
She said that the country would however import 100,000 to 150,000 tons of durum wheat for the domestic bakery industry and some feed crops as previously. "But this will anyway be 10 times less than we imported five or six years ago," she stressed.
Imports of protein material are expected to be cut as well. Some 560,000 tons of rape crops have already been gathered in Belarus and 40,000 tons are expected to be harvested more compared with only 200,000 tons harvested in 2007, according to Ms. Katkavets.
Areas sown to soybean have been increased to 3,500 hectares this year from 1,000 hectares in 2007, when 17,000 tons of the bean was gathered per one hectare, with the highest per-hectare yield reported at 27,000 tons.
Ms. Katkavets said that there were plans to increase soybean lands to 10,000 hectares in the next couple of years. //BelaPAN
The central election commission, at its July 31 meeting, cancelled a warning that had been issued to the nomination group of prominent opposition politician Alyaksandr Bukhvostaw.
Mr. Bukhvostaw, leader of the Belarusian Party of Labor that was outlawed by the Supreme Court in 2004, plans to be on the ballot in Shabany District No. 91 in Minsk. His group received the warning from the district election commission for premature electioneering after some printed material about the parliamentary aspirant had been discovered in residents’ mailboxes in the district.
The central election commission established that there was no evidence of the involvement of members of Mr. Bukhvostaw’s nomination group in the distribution of the material. //BelaPAN
The central election commission on July 31 issued rules that will govern campaigning for the forthcoming parliamentary elections in the state media.
Under the rules, parliamentary candidates will be entitled to have their election programs published by one of the government-controlled newspaper Zvyazda, Narodnaya Gazeta, Respublika and Belorusskaya Niva. They also will have the right to have it published by a regional or district government-controlled newspaper in addition. A text should not exceed 4,000 characters with spaces.
Candidates will be allowed to make only pre-recorded statements on radio and television.
Those running in Minsk and the Minsk region will be allowed to appear on the Stolitsa radio station and the rest on regional radio stations.
As for pre-recorded television addresses, candidates in Minsk will make them on the Lad channel, candidates in the Minsk region on the STV channel and those in other regions on regional networks.
Addresses will be broadcast from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on radio and from 5:30 p.m. to 18:30 p.m. on television. An address should not exceed five minutes.
The television channels and radio stations will be obliged to run announcements about the schedule of candidates' addresses.
Lidziya Yarmoshyna, chairwoman of the central election commission, told reporters on Thursday that Belarus seems to be the "last country where air time is given free of charge."
She said that campaigning in the media was only a "small part" of a candidate's election campaign.
"Addresses in the media are not enough for its conduct. Candidates should work on their own with voters," she said. //BelaPAN
Yury Padabed has resigned as commander of the Special Task Police Regiment, a Minsk-based riot police unit notorious for its role in violent dispersals of opposition demonstrations.
Colonel Padabed, who had served in the position for nine years, went into retirement for health reasons and currently stays in the interior ministry’s hospital in Minsk, a source at the Minsk city police department told BelaPAN.
Mr. Padabed is among 41 people on the European Union's list of Belarusian officials subject to a visa ban and an assets freeze in connection with their alleged involvement in a crackdown on civil society and opposition activists in the country. He and Lidziya Yarmoshyna, head of the central election commission, were added to the list a few weeks after parliamentary elections and a constitutional referendum in November 2004.
Yury Karavayew, who formerly served as chief of a police unit in Homyel, has been appointed to succeed Mr. Padabed as commander of the Special Task Police Regiment.
The trial of American lawyer Emanuel Zeltser and his secretary Vladlena Funk, who have been held in custody in Minsk since this past March, will continue on July 31.
The hearing began at the Minsk City Court behind closed doors on July 30. Neither relatives nor American diplomats were allowed to attend the trial.
Mr. Zeltser could face up to seven years in prison and Ms. Funk up to three years in prison.
The pair's defense counsel, Dzmitry Harachka, told BelaPAN that he was "fully satisfied" with how the trial had begun.
When asked about the spirit of his clients, he said that it was psychologically difficult for Mr. Zeltser, a professional lawyer, to be on the dock.
He said that the medical condition of Mr. Zeltser was "stable," but he had difficulty in walking.
Mr. Zeltser and Ms. Funk are facing charges of business espionage and the use of fake documents. The man also is to answer a charge of smuggling illegal drugs into Belarus.
The pair deny their guilt.
Mr. Zeltser and his secretary were charged with using fake documents when they were arrested upon their arrival in Minsk on March 12.
In May, Mr. Zeltser was charged with drug smuggling over medications that he brought into Belarus.
Mark Zeltser, the brother of the American lawyer, claims that self-exiled Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky orchestrated the arrest of Mr. Zeltser over the assets of the late Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili. When Mr. Patarkatsishvili died, his assets became the subject of a dispute pitting the widow backed by Mr. Berezovsky, against his step cousin, Joseph Kay, who is represented by Mr. Zeltser.
In May, the Tbilisi City Court in Georgia recognized Joseph Kay as a legitimate executor of the late Georgian billionaire’s assets.
A team of three representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) arrived in Minsk on July 29, an officer at the Minsk-based OSCE mission told BelaPAN.
The team will provide technical support for the activity of OSCE long- and short-term observers. “They intend to solve organizational matters, deal with issues of security and logistics,” the OSCE officer said.
A team of some 40 OSCE long-term observers will arrive in Belarus on August 17 and 18 while about 300 short-term monitors are expected to fly to the country a few days ahead of September’s parliamentary elections. BelaPAN
The Belarusian economy ministry is considering various scenarios of the country's economic performance for the next year, Deputy Minister Tatsyana Starchanka said at a news conference in Minsk on Wednesday.
The deputy minister was asked whether the ministry was planning to revise its draft economic forecast for 2009 in the context of uncertainty about prices that Belarus would have to pay.
"Such calculations are being carried out," Ms. Starchanka said. "But I also should say that the year 2007 was a difficult year for Belarus. Many experts were predicting a decrease in output and even shocks and an economic crisis. However, you know the results of the previous year."
The deputy minister acknowledged that a higher natural gas price would "lead to the worsening of the financial situation," but expressed the opinion that the current economic "potential" and efforts to use new technologies and launch new products would help avoid "critical situations." //BelaPAN
International experience shows that the legalization of prostitution does not solve all problems, Uladzimir Yemyalyanaw, a senior official at the interior ministry, told reporters on July 29.
A great many illegal night clubs and brothels emerge in the countries where prostitution is legal, Mr. Yemyalyanaw explained. Such businesses eventually become dominant in the sex industry, he added.
According to him, the legalization of prostitution leads to an influx of illegal migration and human trafficking.
By legalizing prostitution, Belarus, currently the country of origin, could become the country of destination, Mr. Yemyalyanaw warned. He predicted that the legalization of prostitution, “a serious factor feeding organized crime,” would also give rise to new human trafficking rings and illegal brothels, which would enable organized crime to “take control of shadow business” and flourish.
“We believe that administrative culpability for prostitution is entirely appropriate for our state,” Mr. Yamyalyanaw said. “The interior ministry has never advocated criminalizing this activity. This is a negative social phenomenon.”
There are 1,516 women in Belarus who were ever convicted of prostitution, Mr. Yemyalyanaw said. //BelaPAN
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has affirmed Belarus' 'B+' foreign currency, 'BB' local currency long-term and 'B' short-term sovereign credit rating with a stable outlook, BelaPAN reports.
The international credit rating agency says that the ratings reflect unusually large contingent liabilities for the sovereign, due to the state-dominated nature of the economy, while external liquidity is weaker than that of its peers.
Standard & Poor's notes that the country’s centralized political system reduces the predictability of policy choices.
At the same time, the agency points to comparatively high wealth and development levels, low general government debt, relatively strong external balance sheet and significant economic potential.
A sharp rise in energy prices so far has not led to as much severe consequences for the Belarusian economy as expected and a rise in non-energy exports and considerable investment growth have helped sustained high economic growth, according to Standard & Poor's.
Deputy Prime Minister Uladzimir Syamashka has expressed certainty that the Belarusian economy will “withstand” a possible rise in energy prices thanks to its high profitability, BelaPAN reports.
While speaking at a meeting of the Council of Ministers on July 29, the vice premier said that the economy had a profitability of 17.8 percent from January through May, while a 13-percent rate had been expected.
“Today next year’s price of energy resources is not yet clear, but if there’s a pessimistic scenario our companies’ profitability will be the economy’s crucial absorber that will make it possible to withstand another blow by energy prices,” official information sources quoted him as saying.
31 July 2008