Today’s’ News

From Belta

The president of Belarus has returned today morning from the United States of America to Minsk. In New York Alexander Lukashenko has made a speech at a special plenary sitting of the 60th session of the UN General Assembly. The president spoke about the Belarusian position on urgent global issues.

The president attracted summiteers’ attention to the negative consequences of the present unipolar world and stated that only diversity of ways to progress can ensure stability in the world. “Freedom to choose the way of development is the main condition for democratic establishment. I hope that the great and mighty will realize that. As finely a unipolar world will turn against them. If we agree with each other we will make principles of multipolarity, variety and freedom of choice a reality and will reflect them in the UN documents we should be guided by. We will protect the world from terrorists, women and children from slavery”, Alexander Lukashenko is convinced.

In this case the UN will become an organization of truly United Nations, Alexander Lukashenko added. “This is the main point of the UN reform, but not just enlarging the Security Council”, the president added.

In New York Alexander Lukashenko considered development of bilateral relations with the presidents of Iran and Iraq.

The president talked a lot to mass media during the visit. The main topics of his interviews were Belarusian vision of the UN reform, cooperation between Belarus and this international institution, country’s position in respect to the UN Security Council extension, president’s impressions and forecasts of the summit results.

Belarus, according to the president, is quite satisfied with its participation and membership in the United Nations Organization. This country has its representatives in 14 UN agencies. The republic is a member of over 50 specialized UN establishments. By 2010 the UN will implement several projects in this republic to the amount of USD 33 million including in the sphere of education and liquidation of consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe.

Speaking about the UN activities on the whole, Alexander Lukashenko said that the Organization should be independent from the mighty of this world.

Belarus confirmed its readiness to make a contribution to tackling one of the main challenges facing today’s world - terrorism - by signing the International Convention for Suppression of Nuclear Terrorism. This country has initially supported drafting of the document.

“Belarus is deeply concerned about the spread of terrorism. It is a barbaric attempt on life, peace and order on the planet. And decisive steps should be taken in this sphere”, the head of state underlined in the course of a signing ceremony of the International Nuclear Terrorism Convention.

By signing the Nuclear Terrorism Convention Belarus becomes a participating state of all anti-terror international agreements signed within the UNO framework, Alexander Lukashenko added. Today only one-third of UN participating states assumed these cooperation commitments. The president is convinced that today the UN states should focus on suppressing nuclear terrorism, which is the main objective of the nation’s commonwealth.

Also while in New York, the President met with his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani. As BelTA was informed by the head of the presidential press service, the leaders agreed on the necessity to continue a dialogue on the mutually beneficial cooperation between Belarus and Iraq. Lukashenko also met with president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

More from the United Nations

From the Washington Post

Clinton Gathers World Leaders
Nonpartisan Conference Focuses on Global Improvement
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 16, 2005; Page A02

NEW YORK, Sept. 15 -- The U.N. General Assembly may have failed this week to come up with a stirring plan to combat the world's ills. But there was former president Bill Clinton -- once said to have harbored an ambition to become secretary general -- assembling his own mini-General Assembly of presidents, prime ministers, kings and other pooh-bahs on Thursday to devise specific plans for addressing poverty, global warming, religious conflict and better governance.
The inaugural meeting of what he has dubbed the Clinton Global Initiative will stretch over three days of seminars and speeches, bringing together 800 movers and shakers who paid $15,000 each for a seat. If the opening session is any guidepost, the meetings resemble the gabfests at Davos, the annual global economic summit held in Switzerland, or the Renaissance Weekends that Clinton attended as president. But Clinton added a catch -- each of the attendees is required to commit to doing something to improve the world.
Full Text

From UN WIRE and the Christian Science Monitor

Editorial: U.S. should welcome international control of the Internet

Though the U.S. Department of Commerce sets most standards for the Internet via its Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, some in the international community have been clamoring for a more international organization to take the reins. The Christian Science Monitor says the U.S. should resist the urge to fight such a handover of control and, rather, seek to play an active role in the creation of such an organization.
Full Text


From the UCPB

CITY COURT SUPPORTED CITIZEN LUKASHENKO
UCP press-room
15 September 2005

Today Minsk city court ruled out to refuse to initiate proceedings on returning previous names to central Minsk streets.

After central Minsk streets have been renamed, a group of Minsk residents – UCP members lodged a complaint to the Minsk Central Regional Court against activities of citizen Lukashenko. This citizen issued an edict on re-naming of Minsk streets, which violated the Law on administrative division. By this Law the head of state can give names only to oblasts, regions and oblast cities. Thus Lukashenko has no right to re-name any street in his own village, or in Shklow, and definitely not in Minsk.

Streets can be renamed only by Local Councils. And, according to the Law, such decision must be adopted taking into the consideration opinion of people living in that territory.

So citizen Lukahsenko exceeded his powers.

But regional court did not make any decision on Lukashenko’s activity. The Court dismissed the case on the reason that it had no power to judge Lukashenko’s edicts.

Anatolij Lebedko, Valerij Karbalevich and Vadim Kaznachejev submitted an appeal to the City Court. Today the Court bench headed by judge S.Taperkina decided to dismiss the complaint without explanation.


Commentary:

From Belarus Cevodnia

Will a Spatter of the Golden Rain Make Us Richer?

Without its own rich oilfields Belarus is obtaining such good profits from exporting processed oil products that was difficult even to imagine back ten years ago. Now we are like those countries that explore oilfields and are therefore rich. This paradox makes us think about our prospects. For instance, does the 2006-2010 Export Development Programme that is being worked out by the government take into account the trends in the word economy?
The fact is that we brainwash ourselves with the idea that we export large amounts of staple goods. The extraordinary growth in export is just good fortune which was long awaited for by the post-Soviet countries, primarily Russia. Some time ago it could only be a dream: billions of dollars are pouring into Russian banks. It became easy to pay the debts back to the international organizations and to increase living standards. The average monthly wage in Russia has reached 300 US dollars. It also gives a possibility to increase social benefits and provision for the military. The Russian draft budget had expenditures increased by billions for the next year. However, the GNP is not going to double by 2010.
Full Text

Culture:

From the MOSTIMES

t.A.T.u.’s New Album to Feature Sting
Created: 13.09.2005 14:17 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:17 MSK



Russian pseudo-lesbian pop duo t.A.T.u. are due to release a new album this fall that will feature a track with Sting.

The 12-track album Dangerous and Moving will be released on Oct. 11 via Interscope. The new album’s first single, “All About Us,” is due to begin hitting dance clubs this month and will be released to top 40 radio in October, Music-News.com website reported.

Sting is playing bass on the track “Friend or Foe”. Richard Carpenter of The Carpenters is arranging and conducting the strings on “Gomenasai”.

In 2002, t.A.T.u. released their breakthrough album “200 km/h in the Wrong Lane” that sold over 760,000 copies in the United States. They first became popular for their sexually charged video for their single “All the Things She Said”.

“Our first video was about love between two girls,” the website quoted bandmember Lena Katina as saying. “We do not pretend to be lesbians —- we’ve never said we were. Julia (Volkova) just had a baby and currently has a girlfriend, and we’ve both always had boyfriends. We share a special bond.” However, at the peak of their career, the girls often stressed their lesbian contacts.


Sports

Results of last week’s Belarusian premier league:




"Locomotive" (Minsk) - "Dnepr-Тransmash" (Mogilyov) - 0:1
(Ogorodnik, 4), "Darida" (Zhdanovichi) - "Dynamo" (Minsk) -0:1
"Naftan" (Novopolotsk) - "Torpedo" (Zhodino) - 0:2
"Neman" (Grodno) - "Shahkter" (Soligorsk) - 0:3
"Slavia" (Mozerie) - MTZ-REPO (Minsk) - 0:5
"Zvezda BGU" (Minsk) – BATE (Borisov) - 2:2
"Dynamo" (Brest) - "Gomel" - 1:0

Last year’s champion. Minsk "Dynamo" has won seven in a row.

Current Standings:
"Shahkter" - 47 points
"Torpedo" - 39,
"Dynamo" (Minsk) - 36,
"Dnepr-Transmash" - 32,
MTZ-REPPO - 31,
BATE - 30,
"Gomel" - 27,
"NAften" - 26,
"Dynamo" (Brest) 21,
"Darida" - 21,
"Neman" - 20,
"Locomotive" - 19,
"Slavia", - 10
"Zvezda BGU " - 10.

The following round will take place on September, 17th.


From the Washington Post

Speedskater From Belarus Banned Two Years

The Associated Press
Friday, September 16, 2005; 12:56 PM

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Speedskater Anzhelika Kotyuga of Belarus was suspended for two years on Friday for failing a drug test at the World Cup finals.
The International Skating Union found that Kotyuga's urine samples showed "sufficient evidence" of anabolic steroids. She tested positive Feb. 19 at Heerenveen, Netherlands.
She will be stripped of her 500-meter victory, with runner-up Sanyuri Yoshii of Japan moving into first place. Manli Wang of China gets second place and Tomomi Okazaki of Japan, third. Kotyuga's fourth-place finish in the 1,000 also was annulled.
The Belarus skating union has indicated it plans to appeal, the ISU said.