said the chairman of the Minsk union of entrepreneurs and employers Vladimir Karyagin. According to him, at present there are over 8,5thsd incarcerated businessmen in the country, including top managers of the state and private entrepreneurs. They amount to more than 10% of the total number of inmates, while the famous directors of industrial state giants are but a peak of iceberg, deems Karyagin.

---

The program of the away session of the juridical comission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which is to take place in Saratov from 13 till 14 June, is accepted now. On June 13 the commission sitting is scheduled. It is be headed by Edward Lintner. The delegation of the Russian State Duma will be headed by Dmitry Rogozin, chair of the committee on international affairs. At the session the problems of human rights respecting in Belarus and Chechnya will be discussed. On June 14 the PACE members are to visit a local pre-trial detention center and a colony, and participate in founding an obelisk in the Council of Europe Square, as, according to the ombudsman on human rights in Saratov region Alexandr Lando, the square in front of the airport was called.

---

Alyaksandr Lukashenka has cancelled his visit to Saratov region, which was scheduled for June 9-10. It was said by the ombudsman on human rights of the Saratov region Alexandr Lando. As said by him, one of the reasons of the visit’s cancellation was a planned sitting of the juridical commission of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly scheduled for June 13. The situation with the human rights in Belarus would be discussed there. Mr. Lando, after Lukashenka had cancelled his visit, sent a letter to him personally with recommendations for making the situation better. He advises the head of state to introduce a post of ombudsman in Belarus.

---

13th Supreme Soviet deputies intend to hold special parliamentary hearings on the destiny of the missing famous Belarusians – Dmitry Zavadsky, Viktor Gonchar, Anatoly Krasovsky, Yuri Zakharenko. A decision to hold hearings was passed at the June 1 Supreme Soviet’s session. The MPs ruled to invite parliamentarians from various countries, especially neighboring ones, along with the representatives of the international human rights organizations.

---

The Moskovsky district court of Minsk had to hold on June 11 the first session of the resumed civil case, opened by the relatives of the young people, killed on May 30, 1999 during the bloody Nemiga stampede. Defendants in court will be the Minsk city hall police, the Minsk city hall itself, as well as the “Class Club DK Ltd.”, which were responsible for maintaining public order there. The third persons will be the “Olivariya” brewery and “Mir” radio-station.

---

Former head of the Minsk OSCE AMG mission Hans-Georg Wieck said in an interview to Radio Ratsya that all attempts, undertaken by the OSCE leadership to get Russians involved in finding solution to the problem with AMG in Belarus, bore no result. According to Wieck, OSCE will start considering the demands, set forth by the official Minsk not until they invite back into the country head of the Minsk mission Ebergard Haiken and his co-workers, who had been denied visas. Wieck also said that “despite any obstacles OSCE will continue to uphold the civil society and opposition structures in Belarus”.

---

“Employee of the OSCE Advisory-Monitoring Group in Minsk Andrew Carpenter will stay where he is now until the Belarusian authorities pass an official decision on him,” – Interfax was told by the press-secretary of the Portuguese OSCE Chairmanship-in-Office A.Sapinya.

---

Belarusian soccer fans intend to launch an action of protest tonight in central Minsk, being stripped of the right to watch World Cup-2002 games. The rally of the deceived soccer fans will take place tonight at 6.30p.m. on the Yakub Kolas square. Visit the indignant fans’ web-site athttp://wcby.by.ru/ for more details.

---

A group of the Belarusian soccer fans addressed the ORT and RTR leaderships with an open letter: “We are indignant by your attitude to the viewers, who are deprived of the possibility to watch WC-2002 soccer games on TV. You knew well in advance about the contract conditions with the German company – sole proprietor of the broadcasting WC rights. You launched numerous commercials, advertising the forthcoming championship. You led astray a multi-million army of fans. Now we demand that you apologize before us, for we haven’t heard any excuses from you so far. Don’t think that you bear no responsibility before the non-Russian citizens,” – reads the letter, the full variant of which can be found at http://soccer.agava.ru/letter.htm.

---

NTV+ TV company accused Belarusian television of stealing their report about the WC-2002 opening game France-Senegal. In case they repeat it one more time, Russian channels can be stripped of the right to televise the games. For the time being the national channel ceased stealing the reports from the NTV+, pledging, though, that it would all the same broadcast the most interesting games. They don’t mention how this will be done though.

---

June 1 saw the expiration of the Belarusian visa of the head of the OSCE AMG political council Andrew Carpenter. Contrary to the expectations, he did not leave the country. According to BelaPAN, they didn’t prolong the visa, although the diplomat’s accreditation is pending until August 14, which means that under the international norms Carpenter has every right to stay in Belarus up until then without any visa prolongation.

---

Half-year after the scandalous cessation of the TV-6 broadcasting the same channel reappeared on air under the new name “TVC” – it is televised by the non-commercial partnership “Media-Socium”, set up by the leading Russian tycoons and Evgeny Kiselev’s team of journalists. The long awaited event went unnoticed by the Belarusian auditorium. The TV channel won’t be televised on the territory of Belarus.

---