Volozhin Region
Executive Committee

The Belarusian national airline Belavia will resume regular flights on the route Minsk-Yerevan-Minsk on 30 July, BelTA learned from Belavia's Facebook account.

Flights will be operated daily. Departure time from Minsk is at 22.40, arrival time in Yerevan is at 2.45. The return flight from Yerevan is scheduled for 3.35 with the arrival in Minsk National Airport at 5.45 (local time).

Tickets are available at the website of the airline www.belavia.by.

Belavia reminds travelers that entry restrictions are in place in Armenia. The airline recommends checking the information before buying a ticket.

Belarus is taking the first steps to train its own cosmonaut, BelTA learned from Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Vladimir Gusakov in an interview.

The official said: “In my opinion, we should definitely expand the country's presence in outer space. The plan to train and send the first cosmonaut of sovereign Belarus into outer space may seem overly ambitious. However, the first steps towards this goal are already being made.”

Vladimir Gusakov met with Director General of the state corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin in January 2020. The sides reached an agreement that Belarusian scientists will visit the Gagarin Research & Test Cosmonaut Training Center in order to get familiar with its operation. The Russian side received a list of the NASB employees the academy intends to send there. The organizations include the Radiobiology Institute, the Central Botanical Garden, the Applied Science Center for Bioresources, and the Physiology Institute. These NASB representatives can be later viewed as potential Belarusian candidates, who can be trained in the Gagarin Research & Test Cosmonaut Training Center and participate in space flights. The possibility of evaluating their fitness for space flights is being discussed.

The Belarusian scientists will visit the Gagarin Research & Test Cosmonaut Training Center once all the restrictions caused by the spread of the coronavirus infection are lifted. The possibility of participation of NASB representatives in Roscosmos' ground experiments using research products of Belarusian scientists will be discussed during the visit as well.

Vladimir Gusakov pointed out that sons of Belarus had already been to outer space. The cosmonauts Piotr Klimuk and Vladimir Kovalenok completed their space missions during the USSR times. Oleg Novitsky is a Russian pilot-cosmonaut. Other cosmonauts have Belarusian roots, too – Valentina Tereshkova, Oleg Artemyev, Anton Shkaplerov, and Georgy Grechko. “Belarusians, who work as design engineers, technical engineers, scientists and heads of organizations and enterprises, have contributed and keep contributing to the development of the space industry in the USSR and Russia,” the chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus stressed.

The Belavia national air carrier has extended suspension of flights to a number of destinations, BelTA learned from the official website of the airline.

Flights to Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn will be suspended till 28 July, to all destinations in Russia, as well as Tashkent and Larnaca till 31 July, to all destinations in Georgia and Kazakhstan, as well as Vienna till 15 August and Ashgabat till 1 September.

Customers who purchased tickets for these travel dates will be able to apply for a refund or to reschedule the flight till 31 December 2020. Tickets can be refunded and flights can be rescheduled at company's offices and customer service centers. Customers will be able to change the date of travel only once.

Belarus is carrying out international research on Elenagen, a plasmid (supercoiled circular DNA) encoding gene, the DNA vaccine to treat cancer, Director of the Alexandrov National Cancer Center, Doctor of Medicine Sergei Polyakov said, BelTA has learned.

“Belarus is carrying out international clinical trials of Elenagen, a DNA vaccine that is meant to enhance the effect of chemotherapy in treating late-stage cancer resistant to standard treatment modalities,” Sergei Polyakov said.

In his words, Belarusian cancer specialists have studied the most promising immune therapies around the world and chose the Elenagen DNA vaccine. “They assessed hundreds of potential anti-tumor drugs using the following criteria: a high degree of safety, ability to enhance the effect of chemotherapy, economic feasibility and accessibility of the future product and its novelty. The DNA vaccine meets all these criteria,” the director of the research center said.

Preclinical testing has revealed that the drug can reduce/revert the tumor grade. Extensive safety research has been conducted. The administration of the vaccine has not resulted in any substantial side effects. The extended phase I clinical trials showed that even if used alone, Elenagen halted the progression of cancer pathogenesis for more than two months in patients who have exhausted all standard treatment options. It is expected that Elenagen can enhance the effect of standard treatment modalities.

Professor Sergei Krasny, MD, PhD, DSc, Deputy Director of the Alexandrov National Cancer Center, Belarusian doctors developed a research protocol that got a peer review of leading cancer centers – New York University and MD Anderson Cancer Center (USA). The study was unanimously approved by the Belarus Healthcare Ministry.

Elenagen was developed by CureLab Oncology, Inc., a Boston-based biotech startup which provided the product to Belarusian counterparts. According to Dr. Alex Shneider, CEO of CureLab Oncology, there were plans to start Phase II clinical trials of Elenagen in the USA and many other countries. However, after studying the research protocol presented by Belarusian scientists and after assessing Belarus' cancer research capacities and competencies, a decision was made to start trials in Belarus, with other leading cancer centers joining later.

The project to study the effects of Elenagen was launched by the Alexandrov National Cancer Center and Minsk City Cancer Center in April 2020.

Inoperable late-stage cancer patients with triple-negative breast cancer, ovarian cancer, stomach cancer and pancreas cancer are randomized and subsequently receive either standard chemotherapy or chemotherapy combined with Elenagen. For each disease, the experimental and control groups are compared using a number of parameters. One can also expect a reversal of a tumor grade to an operable stage, which would make the tumor surgically removable.

The number of observers at polling stations during the current election campaign will be reduced due to the epidemiological situation.

Such a decision was adopted at a meeting of the Belarusian Central Electoral Commission (CEC) on 22 July, BelTA has learned.

CEC head Lidia Yermoshina proposed to reduce the number of observers to five on the main voting day, and to three during the early voting time. “The matter is about presence. The accreditation of observers does not stop,” she said.

She recalled that the Healthcare Ministry has developed recommendations to prevent the spread of respiratory infections (including COVID-19) during the presidential election. The recommendations include social distancing at a polling stations. Charis and tables of the precinct commission members, places for observers should be at least one meter apart.

The changes do not apply to international observers, proxies of presidential candidates, members of the House of Representatives and members of the Council of the Republic, members of local councils who can observe the election in accordance with their status, and also registered media. Journalists will be able to visit polling stations.

As of 21 July, the CEC accredited 29 international observers from the CIS Executive Committee.

BelTA reported earlier that the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus scheduled the presidential election for 9 August. According to the timetable, early voting is scheduled for 4-8 August. The Central Election Commission is supposed to sum up results of the election on 19 August at the latest. If the second round of the election is necessary, it will take place within two weeks of the first one, that is on 23 August.

The CIS observation mission will be led by Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee - Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev. His nomination was approved during a meeting of the CIS Council of Permanent Plenipotentiary Representatives in Minsk on 21 July, BelTA has learned.

The CIS is forming the mission. The CIS Executive Committee has sent out invitations to the CIS countries requesting to nominate their representatives to the CIS observation mission. CIS observers are expected to work in all regions of the country. On the election day, the observers will be present at the polling stations from the moment they open until the counting of votes is completed.

The mission will release its findings on the results of the monitoring of the election campaign in Belarus on 10 August.

The presidential election in Belarus will be held on 9 August. The Central Election Commission has registered five presidential candidates on 14 July.

As told in the Agriculture and Food Office of Minsk Oblast Executive Committee, as of the morning of July 21, the agrarians of Minsk Oblast threshed more than 121 thousand tons of rapeseed.

The yield was 21.9 kg/ha.

In total, rapeseed was harvested from 55 thousand hectares of areas - this is 62.5% of the plan. In general, this crop must be removed from 88.4 thousand hectares.

Also, work continues on the areas where winter barley is sown. As of July 21, 96.6% of this crop was harvested in the region. But grains and legumes (without corn, buckwheat, millet) in the region harvested 12.6 thousand hectares - 2.6% of the plan.

The Belarusian national air carrier Belavia will perform a one-time charter flight from Minsk to Tashkent and back on 28-29 July, BelTA learned from Belavia's Instagram account.

“Seeking ways to return citizens home amid the situation with the coronavirus Belavia will perform a flight from Minsk to Tashkent and back. The departure from Minsk is at 20:10 on 28 July. The departure from Tashkent is at 03.50 on 29 July (local time),” the company said.

Tickets are available on the website belavia.by, in the offices of the air company and agents.

The airline recommends checking with travel companies for issues related to self-isolation and quarantine.

There are many areas where Belarus and the United States can cooperate, where their interests coincide, Oleg Kravchenko, who has been appointed Ambassadress Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Belarus to the United States, told BelTA.

“The areas where our interests coincide, first of all, includes the cooperation in attracting financial resources, economic and energy dialogue, international security, law enforcement cooperation,” Oleg Kravchenko noted.

“The fact that we belong to various military and political blocs does not exclude, but rather necessitates developing contacts between the military,” the ambassador is convinced.

"Of course, we do not see eye to eye on everything. A dialogue on those issues where we diverge remains an important element of our bilateral relations,” the ambassador said.

“I would like to see our relations normalized and stable,” Ambassador Oleg Kravchenko noted.

According to the information of the economy committee of the regional executive committee, in the first half of the year, agricultural enterprises of the central region produced agricultural products in current prices in the amount of 1,760.4 million rubles, the growth rate in comparable prices to January-June 2019 amounted to 105.4 percent.

During the same period, 260.7 thousand tons of the main types of livestock and poultry were grown, which is 106.8 percent compared to last year. Livestock and poultry sold for slaughter in live weight of 247.1 thousand tons or 107.6 percent.

Agricultural organizations produced 963.700 tons of milk (109.5 percent), the average milk yield from a cow is 2875 kilograms, which is 225 kilograms more than in the first six months of 2019. 870.100 tons of milk were sold, or 90.3 percent of the production.

As of July 1, the number of cattle in agricultural organizations amounted to 958.700 heads (100.6 percent as of July 1, 2019), of which 332.6 thousand cows. The number of pigs and poultry has increased. Now there are 690.800 and 16.9 million heads, respectively. Compared to the level of six months of last year, these are 102.7 and 106.1 percent.