French Ambassador to Belarus Bernard Fassier left Belarus on July 16 in connection with his diplomatic missions’ conclusion. He is to take a position of representative of the international community to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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15 employees of Zhabinka asphalt and bitumen plant were on a strike for six hours. They demanded timely payments of salary, coupons for free milk and providing with working clothes. Only after receiving a guarantee from Fiodar Sakharchuk, director general of the road building trust, that their problems will be solved, the workers returned to work. The plant’s work is instable, its facilities are often on standstill, and there are problems with production distribution.

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A plant of super large-sized tires belonging to the state enterprise “Belshina” was stopped. At the single plant in the republic the situation is almost revolutionary. As the “BGD” informs, the situation began to worsen in May-June, when the rumors about planned closure of one workshop emerged. Later by the decision of the director general the whole plant was reorganized. 49 unique experts have been fired already. Workers think that everything is made to lessen the value of the plant in order that somebody could buy it at a low price. The time will tell weather it is true or not.

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On July 15 Alyaksandar Lukashenka signed a Law “On Amnesty Of Some Categories Of Offenders”. As a result 1,900 prisoners will be released. Terms of imprisonment for about 25,000 people will be reduced by one year, and for 3,000 convicts their sentence will be shorten by one third. With implementation of the law the state’s expenses will drop by 1.6 billion BLR.

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The Public Prosecutor General of Belarus Viktar Sheiman dismissed his assistant Mikhail Snyahir and public prosecutor of the Minsk region Valyantsin Sirash, as Alyaxej Taranau, Prosecutor General’s assistant said to the Reuters.

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In contravention of the UN sanctions Syria redirects to Iraq the armaments bought in Belarus, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Checz Republic, Russia and Ukraine, inform the newspaper Haaretz with the reference to high-ranking sources in Israeli intelligence. As the sources inform, among the weaponry there are engines and other spare parts for Russian tanks T-55 from Bulgaria and Belarus, military trucks from Russia, anti-aircraft missiles from the Checz Republic, engines and radars for MiG-29 planes from Ukraine. The arms bought by Syria, as the newspaper states, are delivered to Syrian ports and then taken to Iraq by trucks and by railway.

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Considering of a complaint by the Zavadskys at the Supreme Court was scheduled for July 16. The family does not agree to the conclusions of the court in the case of “Ihnatovich’s group”. You must remember that this criminal group was sent to prison for abduction of the ORT cameraman on July 7, 2000, as well as for other crimes.

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On July 10 a meeting of Alyaxandr Dzeraviashka, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Belarus in Libya, and Secretary of the Highest Popular Committee on International Cooperation and External Relations Abd Rakhman Mohammed Shalgam was held in the Foreign Ministry of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahyria

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Next sitting of the court considering the suit of parents whose children died on May 30 in 1999 in a jam in a pedestrian subway at the metro station “Nyamiha” is scheduled on July 17 in the court of the Moscow district in Minsk. Parenst want to recover compensation for moral suffering. During the sitting Hurin, chairman of the city executive committee is to be interrogated. He had issued a permission for carrying out “Magna” party. The court will also inquire an expert of the Russian Police Academy, who arrived at a conclusion that the Belarusian police officers were not responsible for the tragic events of May 30, 1999.

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Minsk executive committee sanctioned a series of pickets in support of the rights of trade unions. The actions are organized by the Belarusian trade union of automobile and agricultural machine building (ASM). Pickets are to take place daily, from 22 till 25 of July, and on July 29 and 30, from 5 till 7 p.m., at the Bangalor Square.

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