Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker MINSK, Belarus (AP) — More workers in Belarus joined a widening strike Tuesday as they press for the resignation of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko who has extended his 26-year rule in an election the opposition says was rigged Lukashenko has bluntly rejected the demands to step down following a harsh police crackdown on peaceful protesters in the days after the Aug In a move intended to secure the loyalty of law enforcement agencies amid the swelling demonstrations and strikes he signed a decree honoring over 300 police officers for their service The opposition denounced the awards as a national insult following the suppression of protests with rubber bullets hundreds were injured and at least two people died The Interior Ministry that oversees police insisted the awards weren't linked to the crackdown that has galvanized public anger and drawn international criticism Lukashenko's actions prompted thousands — including workers at state-controlled factories and plants actors and broadcasters — to walk off the job The prospect of a massive nationwide shutdown was an unprecedented challenge to Lukashenko who has relied on blue-collar workers as the core of his supporters During Monday’s visit to a factory in Minsk he was heckled and jeered by workers shouting “Go away!” The labor action that began Monday quickly grew to several major industrial plants including a huge factory that accounts for a fifth of the world’s potash fertilizer output home to the giant Belaruskali potash factory strike organizer Anatoly Bokun said workers at all potash mines have halted work “They are putting pressure on us and threatening us with mass dismissals but we will not return to work until Lukashenko steps down,” Bokun said as thousands of workers joined a protest rally became the first government official to challenge Lukashenko on Saturday when he posted a video in support of the protests before handing in his resignation He was joined Tuesday by Belarus’ ambassador to Spain he urged authorities to recount the vote and prosecute those who beat peaceful protesters Workers at state-controlled television and the nation's most prominent theater also have joined protests Nearly 1,000 people gathered in front of the Janka Kupala National Theater in Minsk to support members of its troupe who gave notice en masse after its director Culture Minister Yuri Bondar visited the theater to try to assuage concerns a former diplomat and a former culture minister himself He left after being heckled and jeered by the performers who threw a stack of resignation letters at his feet important not to stay silent,” prominent actor Kristina Drobysh told supporters outside the theater Belarusians have changed — which means Belarus will change Several hundred demonstrators also gathered in front of a detention center in Minsk where the husband of Lukashenko's top challenger in the vote was being held to cheer him on his 42nd birthday Tsikhanouskaya joined the race after the jailing of her husband a popular opposition blogger who had wanted to run for president Tsikhanouskaya left the country for Lithuania in a move her campaign said was made under duress On Monday she declared her readiness to act as a national leader to facilitate a new election said that members of an opposition “coordination council” being formed to negotiate the transition of power would meet Tuesday so that the Belarusian society has a legitimate institution to negotiate and make demands,” Kolesnikova told the AP a 65-year-old former state farm director who has been in office since 1994 described the opposition council's meeting as an attempt to grab power and warned that the government will take “adequate” steps to “cool those hotheads.” Western officials refused to recognize the election as free or fair and criticized the violent crackdown Security Council scheduled a closed-door discussion of Belarus on Tuesday and European Union leaders are to discuss it on Wednesday The EU has anxiously watched a response from Russia which has a union agreement with Belarus envisaging close political Lukashenko spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin twice over the weekend and said that the Russian leader promised him security assistance if Belarus needs it Russia has remained tight-lipped and said nothing about possible security assistance Putin on Tuesday had phone calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel French President Emmanuel Macron and European Council President Charles Michel to discuss developments in Belarus Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said she "underlined that the Belarusian government must refrain from violence against peaceful protesters immediately release political prisoners and enter into a national dialogue with the opposition and (civil) society to overcome the crisis.” he underscored the EU’s “determination to play a constructive role at the side of Belarus people so that the violence toward the population stops immediately” and try to help expedite a political solution Terse readouts from the Kremlin said Putin underlined the need to refrain from foreign interference in Belarus' affairs President Donald Trump said “it doesn’t seem like there’s too much democracy there in Belarus.” “But we are speaking to lots of people and we’ll be speaking at the appropriate time to Russia and we’ll be speaking to other people that are involved,” he said Few people in the West know that provincial Salihorsk responsible for around 10% of Belarusian exports annually makes Salihorsk the most economically important town in Belarus the town shares similar problems with many other smaller towns in Belarus Salihorsk remains overly dependent on just one enterprise The flow of patients going into hospitals surpasses their holding capacities threefold The young generation is leaving as they see no prospects for their own future in town The West should support mass media and NGOs in small towns to make local reforms possible in the future Salihorsk remains one of the most important cities in Belarus. Salihorsk-based Belaruskali is perhaps the most profitable state-run company The average salary in Salihorsk is about $840 per month one and a half times more than Belarus' national average a new supermarket opens in Salihorsk every six months the town remains a prime example of a typical Belarusian province an analytical project of the oppositional Movement for Freedom chaired by Aliaksandr Milinkievič about 50 settlements in Belarus are so-called 'monotowns' This means that more than 25% of the economically active population work at one and the same enterprise with about 20,000 of its 100,000 inhabitants working at Belaruskali Monotowns have their roots in the Soviet Union which created cities to serve a single enterprise be it a heavy machinery production or mineral extraction Salihorsk became much too dependent on its only major enterprise When the Belarusian authorities kicked off an economic war with Russia's Uralkali Belaruskali laid off many of its employees This incident worsened the overall situation of the whole city Each city has its own specific problems, but problems with healthcare remain common to most Belarusian towns The quality of the medical equipment and treatment are themselves not an issue a clinic in Salihorsk received $100,000 from Japan under the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Project to purchase of the new equipment People wait half a day in line to simply make a medical appointment Internet users published a photo of women waiting in front of a gynaecologist's office in a line that reached out into the street The low salaries paid to medical staff make people reluctant to become doctors a doctor in Salihorsk earns about $ 550 per month an electrician after three-months of a vocational education can make the same amount of money while working at a hospital in Salihorsk the editor of the independent Saligorsk.org web-site explained to Belarus Digest the other problem is that "the current medical facilities were designed for 680 visits every day but in fact they receive three times as much." The authorities mention plans to build a new clinic but so far their statements lack any concrete details or firm plans Many young people leave Salihorsk after graduating from school as the 100,000-people town has no university Salihorsk's high-school graduates usually attend universities in Minsk and after five years of study they rarely return to their hometown Salaries in Minsk and Salihorsk are comparable but the young choose Minsk because Salihorsk lacks career opportunities Local Authorities: Loyal to Lukashenka and Corrupt Belarus’ political system works in a way that the head of the state appoints the head of the regional executive committee who then goes on to appoint the heads of district committees the local authorities remain loyal primarily to their superiors and do not have any sense of accountability to local citizens Local politician Uladzimir Šyla has long been fighting against the destruction of a forest park The local authorities essentially increased the city's density by cutting down the forest Salihorsk's population density reaches 11,000 people per square kilometre This is four times more than Brussels or three times more than Paris At the grassroots level, corruption flourishes in Salihorsk. Former Deputy Minister of Forestry Fiodar Lisica, who previously worked in Salihorsk, used state money to build several large houses and is awaiting trial for abuse of power after the authorities decided to act explains the corruption schemes using the example of a pharmacy boom in Salihorsk: The central streets of the town are full of multifunctional pharmacies the state provides land for these kinds of facilities for free but in fact a pharmacy in these multi-storey buildings occupies only one tenth of the space The remaining areas serve commercial purposes Currently Salihorsk is run by Aliaksandr​ Rymašeŭski a rather traditional local leader for Belarus He worked at a state collective farm and remains rather unpopular among residents of the town that he has recently won a car at a raffle organised by a local businessman Local elections have little to do with ruling a town in Belarus. People elect members of the Town Council, but they lack any real competence and elections remain untransparent If Belarusians want to help their towns develop they should elect local officials to carry out the work Although a mayoral election does not automatically result in improvements it can increase transparency and accountability of officials Countries in transition like Poland started to elect the heads of cities in the 1990s and do not intend to return to the previous practise Small towns should promote the development of small and medium-sized businesses to become less dependent on one industry The rise of the private medical centres could provide a solution for the current scarcity of doctors and the opening of private universities would help keep young people in their hometown Proper local elections should be a long-term goal even if it sounds like a dream at this point To make it real local anti-corruption activists independent mass media and grassroots initiatives need serious support That would make make small towns more transparent and closer to ordinary people Belarus is running out of money as only priority expenditures receive budget financing Security forces will get a raise in their wages this bump will simply compensate for inflation Russia still wants to get an air force base in Belarus Drone manufacturers are fighting for the Defence Ministry's orders The internal troops are suffering from staff shortages Possible Russian Air Force Base in Belarus The creation of a Russian air force base in Belarus may create problems for the Belarusian air force Russian officials remain the only source of public information about the prospects of creating an air force base in Belarus said that they would open an air force base in Baranavichy after the signing of an intergovernmental agreement there is a high probability that the Belarusian fighter jets Moving the Belarusian air force fighter jets' base of operations from Baranavichy threatens to negatively affect the staff of the domestic aviation: the big question is whether the authorities will be able to provide housing to airmen at the new duty station and jobs and schools for their family members some officers may refuse to move to the new duty station and to abandon their already established way of life Alexander Lukashenka received State Secretary of the Security Council Alexander Miazhujeu They discussed the situation on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border Lukashenka demanded from the Belarusian border guards to avoid receiving "any legitimate claims from Ukraine" implying that any conflict should be avoided he agreed with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko that all security agencies of the two countries "should be in permanent contact" The objective is to avoid any misunderstandings with its southern neighbour Alexander Lukashenka received reassurances that all of the security agencies of Belarus and Ukraine had established contact among themselves and informational exchange was constantly ongoing said at a press conference that Belarus would not allow for aggression from third parties to be committed against Ukraine from its territory Belarus is in favour of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and against its federalisation The active pro-Ukrainian rhetoric of the Belarusian authorities in August could be a reaction to the information that Russia was preparing a large-scale operation to enforce peace Moscow could promptly concentrate forces capable to address not only (and not so much) humanitarian but also combat The CSTO exercises "Inviolable Brotherhood-2014" and "Interaction-2014" practised to prepare for such a scenario The deployment of Russian forces with their staff and weapons over long a distance preceded the actual drills themselves The exercises included the use of artillery these were not designed to be stricty peacekeeping missions but rather large-scale military operations that have a complementary humanitarian aid component 'Irtyshia' Falls to Western Perfidy The Belarusian authorities made these reassuring statements right on the first day of the "Interaction-2014" exercise of the CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Forces in Kazakhstan two simulated states were created: 'Karania' which was experiencing an acute political crisis provoked by a separatist movement against a backdrop of ethnic tensions the crisis in 'Irtyshia' originated with the support of "some leading Western countries" 'Karania' asked the CSTO for military assistance and the member states provided such assistance following a decision of the Council for Collective Security the participants also practised cyber operations on the Internet as well as psychological warfare they talked about the threat of destabilisation in Afghanistan and spreading of instability to the CSTO neighbouring member states the use of cyber warfare suggests that a more developed state was its real objective The exercise scenario strongly hinted at the ongoing events in Ukraine An increase in security expenditures is not possible at present due to budget problems The situation with the budget's performance remains difficult The budget surplus from January – July 2014 was abnormally low for this period of the fiscal year at 0.6% of the GDP and this was only because of the spending restraints on low-priority expenditures This situation seriously challenges the reality of the Government's plans to achieve a balanced budget in 2014 Security forces will certainly be recipients of budgetary funds the service members of the Belarusian security agencies received a raise in their wages The average increase was 17% of the official rate of pay which has already exceeded 11% since the beginning of the year they were told unofficially that the next raise would happen only on the eve of the presidential election Struggle for military procurement orders escalates The situation with Belarus' security agencies equipment has had some rather interesting developments few of them have passed the first stage of official trials and are operational the Belarusian defence industry has the UAS-100 the official trials of which ended on 30 June 2014 on the premises of the 927th Centre for Setup and Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems of the Air Force and Air Defence Forces the tactical unmanned aerial vehicle 'Grif-1' with a range of up to 100 kilometres in the future The main purpose of this model is air reconnaissance Belarus is a leader among the CIS countries in this category: currently no other post-Soviet country has a model which is ready for serial manufacturing The Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Staff Shortages The Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are trying to solve a staffing problem The issue of staff shortages in the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs remains a rather acute one a new concept for the personnel policy for the Internal Troops until 2020 was adopted in July The concept has not yet been released and will most likely will not be made public the real level of staff shortage in the Internal Troops has become well known the most efficient mechanism is conferment with officers after short-term refresher courses Those servicemen were not trained for the posts of unit commanders (the most pressing of all shortages facing the Internal Troops) They were trained for officer positions in the EOD and pyrotechnic and canine units and services for the protection of state secrets One can only hope that the future officers have attained a sufficient level of qualification during their 1.5-month training Andrei is the head of “Belarus Security Blog” analytical project This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page The NHL star’s girlfriend has turned out to be a sister of famous Belarusian metal musician Ales Tabolich Euroradio occasionally came across a photo of Syarhei Kastsitsyn hugged by an attractive blonde in a social network We decided to find out who the girl was and how she was connected with the star of “Nashville” The stranger’s face seemed familiar to us… Indeed the girl who was immediately called the hockey player’s fiancée by sentimental Euroradio journalists was found in photos taken at the wedding of the leader of ZNICH – Ales Tabolich She was born in Salihorsk and spent a lot of time at her relatives’ in Palesse She is a few years older that Syarhei Kastsitsyn and she is Ales Tabolich’s second cousin The musician was embarrassed: who is Syarhei Kaststitsyn “They got acquainted in “Reactor” when it was still open She came to a disco with a friend and they joined some young men at their table - Alena started dancing with Syarhei but she did not know who he was Then one of the guys said:  it is Kastsitsyn She did not believe him and thought that they were playing a trick on her She understood that he was the real Syarhei Kastsitsyn a week later when everyone started saying that” Euroradio found Alena in the USA but she refuted the information Alena’s mother told Euroradio that she had seen Syarhei in Minsk only once she said that he had asked her daughter to come to the USA The girl settled in New York where her elder sister lived.  It is 1000 kilometres away from Nashville where Syarhei Kastsytsyn’s club is situated.. Alena’s mother did not find anything bad in the fact that her daughter’s boyfriend was a professional hockey paler she says that it is too early to speak about the wedding Syarhei Kastsitsyn’s parents have not even met Alena "When I was at Syarhei’s place and left for Canada to visit Andrei - she arrived later Photo by: Alena Tabolich's pages in social newtworks Become a journalist!Report topic! Support usDonate The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com Bahrain take on Belarus tonight in an international friendly that will mark the conclusion of the senior men’s national football team’s latest training gathering in the Kingdom The contest is scheduled to take place at the Shaikh Ali bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Stadium at Muharraq Club in Arad and it will kick off at 7pm Bahrain have already played two exhibition games in the past week first defeating India 2-1 and then edging past Burundi 1-0 They will be looking to make it three in a row in these warmups which are being held in preparation for their upcoming qualification campaign for the AFC Asian Cup 2023 Belarus have also already played a match in the Kingdom this past week They met with their Indian counterparts and won 3-0 Belarus head coach Georgy Kondratiev has called up 23 players for their games in Bahrain They include goalkeepers Egor Khatkevich (Dinamo-Minsk) Borisov); midfielders Vladislav Klimovich (Gyirmot Russia) and Dmitry Bessmertny and Valery Gromyko (both BATE Borisov); and forwards Ivan Bakhar (Dinamo-Minsk) and Andrei Solovey (Shakhtar Solovey and Gromyko were all on target for the Belarusians against India Bahrain head coach Helio Sousa has named a 26-player squad for this training period The national team’s training roster includes Ali Madan Bahrain are in Group E of Asian Cup qualifying along with Turkmenistan The games are set to be hosted in Kuala Lumpur The AFC Asian Cup is scheduled to kick off on June 16 next year in China Bahrain are looking to secure their seventh appearance in the tournament proper and have qualified for the last five tournaments in 2004 The Bahrainis’ best finish in the competition was fourth in 2004 but did not make it past the group stage the other times and Waleed Al Hayam stretch before the start of training A young man from Salihorsk spent $5000 to build a racing car and wants to sell it for $39000 has constructed a replica of Mclaren f1 on his own The young man is selling the car at onliner.by for $39 thousand now There are no documents because it is a self-made car,” the Salihorsk inhabitant told Euroradio Danila used a Peugeot 806 for it and founded the body himself The young man has already found the place where he can register this car and fill in all the necessary documents Acquaintances are asking him to let them test the car every day Nobody believed that he could make a Mclaren f1 at first Danila does not know how to name his first self-made car The car is called Lamborghini Diablo on the website Danila used to work in Salihorsk Resource-Saving Institute until recently He will keep constructing cars if it is profitable