Volozhin Region
Executive Committee

 Belarus' Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko has presented state awards to more than 60 Belarusians from various walks of life. The solemn ceremony was held at the Palace of the Republic, BelTA has learned.

“We have gathered here to celebrate people whose labor achievements deserve nationwide recognition. Today, on behalf of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, state awards will be presented to all those present in this hall. Although the outgoing year was not easy for the country in general and each enterprise in particular, we have managed to turn the corner,” said Roman Golovchenko.

According to him, the prosperity of the country relies on its people, professionals who work with utmost dedication every day.

“It is nice to see representatives of various professions in this hall, including representatives of the petrochemical industry. In the face of particularly tough sanctions this year, they managed to ensure stable operation of the entire petrochemical complex of the country, complete the most sophisticated projects to upgrade our two oil refineries, as well as to build an oil pipeline that connected these two refineries. The new delayed coking unit at Naftan Refinery, which has been working in the commercial operation mode since January this year, has produced a significant amount of new value-added products, which was a great boost to the economic performance of the company. Mozyr Refinery increased the volume of refining and resumed start-up operations at the hydrocracking complex for heavy oil residues, which will significantly improve the yield of light oil products and have a positive impact on the profitability of oil refining at this enterprise. These are not easy projects. And the fact that they are successfully running is attributed largely to the dedicated work of our professionals in one of the country's economic mainstays - the petrochemical industry,” the prime minister noted.

The achievements of Belarusian manufacturers were also acknowledged. “Representatives of large domestic enterprises are present in this hall today. Companies affiliated with the Industry Ministry have performed pretty well this year. They managed to increase output despite all the difficulties. We expect a significant increase in the export of industrial products: by the end of the year the export is projected to grow by about 13%. Enterprises do not only operate in the red, they also look forward and grow, implement investment projects. They retain an unwavering focus on import substitution. Here we are working closely with our strategic ally - the Russian Federation,” the head of government emphasized.

The prime minister thanked the employees of the tax authorities. “The tax authorities of the country ensure timely and correct intake of tax receipts and social contributions to the budget and thereby enable the state to fulfill its obligations, as the budget is used to fund education, healthcare, science, culture, etc.,” he stressed.

Roman Golovchenko also thanked the teachers for their work. “You have a difficult and very important mission: to educate and nurture the younger generation. Children should have access to quality education, and teachers should be able to work in a comfortable environment. This is the task of the government,” the prime minister stated.

Among the awardees were representatives of the media. “It is hard to overestimate the importance of this profession for the society. Today, journalists are part of the government's effort to defend the country's right to develop independently and sovereignly, to follow its own path of development. Journalists should help the society build an objective and adequate picture of what is happening, and their reporting should be free from information garbage and obvious fakes,” he said.

At the end of the ceremony, on behalf of the government and himself, Roman Golovchenko congratulated the awardees on this significant event in their lives. “A state award is a token of recognition, as well as a sign of trust. I am convinced that these high awards will encourage and inspire you to reach new heights and professional achievements,” he concluded.

Written by: belta.by

Cooperation of the CIS countries has become closer, more active and effective, Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee – CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev told reporters, BelTA has learned.

"External pressure, unfortunately, on the CIS countries, primarily on Russia, Belarus, is not weakening but, on the contrary, is increasing. They adopted the ninth sanctions package against Russia and Belarus. We are working to counter this pressure by joint efforts. Amid this increased pressure by the so-called collective West, the CIS states have rallied together, cooperation has become closer, more active and more effective," Sergei Lebedev noted.

According to him, the intra-CIS trade surged by 30%. "Foreign markets have been closed to us, and therefore we have intensified domestic trade. Iit is quite effective and mutually beneficial, which is very important,” Sergei Lebedev noted. “I cannot but mention a whole series of visit exchanges between the CIS countries. These contacts have intensified."

Sergei Lebedev added that 2023 will not be easy for the CIS countries. "We set ambitious goals in terms of cooperation. I very much hope that 2023 will be productive for the CIS," he added.

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The Prosecutor General's Office is finishing the preparation of the first materials for the national courts of Belarus on the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War, Prosecutor General Andrei Shved told journalists, BelTA has learned.

“We are completing the work on the first materials that will be submitted to the national courts of the Republic of Belarus. The Belarusian court will determine the guilt of concrete fascists, even those who died. This way the future generations will know what these fascists did. The work on it continues,” Andrei Shved noted.

According to him, interrogations of living witnesses are almost over. “We still need to reach out to those who live outside of Belarus but their number is small. We will complete this work in the first half of next year,” said the prosecutor general. “A great deal of work has been done to calculate the amount of material damage inflicted by the fascist invaders and their accomplices during the Great Patriotic War. This amount was determined by a government commission, it will be announced to the public later, because it is huge and it is hard to comprehend,” he added.

“We resumed active work with our foreign partners in the search for criminals. We sent a second request for legal assistance to almost 30 countries of the world where living SS members live. And we are actively working to bring them to justice for atrocities committed during the Great Patriotic War,” Andrei Shved emphasized.

A seminar to review progress in the investigation by the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Belarus into the genocide of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War is taking place at Maksim Tank Belarusian State Pedagogical University. Taking part in it are heads of the central offices for education of the regional executive committees, the first deputy chair of the education committee of the Minsk City Council, the heads of education offices of the Minsk district administrations, the heads of institutions of higher, secondary specialized, vocational education, people in charge of military and patriotic education at Minsk educational institutions, heads of structural subdivisions of the Education Ministry, educational institutions subordinate to the Education Ministry.

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The next meeting of the CIS Council of Permanent Plenipotentiary Representatives will be held at the CIS headquarters in Minsk on 20 December, BelTA learned from the press service of the CIS Executive Committee.

There are seven items on the draft agenda. The main one is the chairmanship of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the Commonwealth of Independent States in 2022. Askar Beisenbayev, Permanent Plenipotentiary Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Council chairman, will deliver a report on the results of his country's chairmanship.

Permanent representatives of the CIS countries will discuss the issues related to the second CIS Games. The tournament will feature 20 sports and will be held in Belarus from 3 to 15 August 2023. The expected number of participants - athletes, coaches, referees, medical personnel and other persons - is about 3,000. Competitions are proposed to be held in Minsk, Borisov, Soligorsk, Molodechno, Brest, Orsha, Zhlobin, Grodno, and Mogilev.

The Council is expected ti sum up the 2022 results and outline work plans for the next one, taking into account the priority tasks of the CIS development.

The plan of action to the CIS development concept and proposals for the draft agenda of the next meeting of the CIS Ministerial Council will be on the agenda too.

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More than 6.547 million people in Belarus have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, BelTA learned from the Belarusian Healthcare Ministry.

Over 6.645 million people have got the first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. Over 905,600 people completed the vaccination regimen in Brest Oblast, over 803,400 in Vitebsk Oblast, over 992,900 in Gomel Oblast, over 704,100 in Grodno Oblast, over 1.31 million in Minsk, over 1 million in Minsk Oblast, over 699,400 in Mogilev Oblast.

About 116,000 employees of organizations and institutions have completed the vaccination process.

More than 240,500 children and teenagers aged 5-17 have received one shot of the vaccine, of them more than 226,700 have been fully vaccinated.

Thus, 71.8% of the country's population have received one dose of the vaccine, 70.7% have been fully vaccinated; 80.7% of people received booster shots.

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The bill to amend the Law of the Republic of Belarus “On citizenship of the Republic of Belarus” will help protect national interests and the security of the state,” Deputy Chairperson of the Standing Commission on Human Rights, National Relations and Mass Media of the House of Representatives Lilia Ananich said at the sitting of the ninth session of the House of Representatives, BelTA has learned.

The bill on amending the Law “On citizenship of the Republic of Belarus” passed two readings at the House of Representatives on 14 December. “The bill on amending the Law “On citizenship of the Republic of Belarus” seeks to protect national interests and security of our state. It was submitted to the House of Representatives by the government. On 6 September 2022 the bill was discussed at a meeting hosted by the head of state. Following the discussion, a number of instructions were given to finalize the document at the parliamentary platform. On 22 September the Ministry of Internal Affairs sent a number of additions to the Standing Commission. Discussion of these issues and the search for acceptable wording of the text led to the significant revision of the bill. A series of workshops, four meetings of working groups and additional rounds of talks with interested parties were held to fine-tune the document,” said Lilia Ananich.

The parliamentarian stressed that the bill does not contradict the Constitution and seeks to enforce comprehensive changes in the criminal procedure legislation and citizenship legislation adopted in recent years.

“The proposed amendments are designed to ensure the equal right to citizenship of the Republic of Belarus regardless of the grounds for its acquisition, to discourage Belarusian nationals from committing criminal acts against national security and the interests of the state, to help respective authorities to create data banks on Belarusian citizens holding foreign passports, a residence permit and other documents of a foreign state that grant benefits and other advantages in connection with political, religious views or nationality,” she noted.

Lilia Ananich also mentioned some other norms. “The bill provides for the possibility to strip people of their citizenship, including citizenship received by birth, if people take part in extremist activities or cause serious damage to the interests of the Republic of Belarus, if such persons are outside our country. The decision on the deprivation of citizenship on this ground will be made by the head of state after a respective court decision enters into force. The proposed rule will apply only to those citizens who have actually lost their legal ties with the state and inflicted serious damage to the national security of the Republic of Belarus. It is important to note that loss of citizenship is applied in a number of countries, including countries of the so-called mature democracy,” the MP noted.

“When finalizing the bill, conviction-based citizenship loss regime was optimized to cover criminally punishable acts that can potentially be a source of threat to national security. At the same time, in relation to crimes stipulated by Part 2 of Article 363, Articles 364, 366 and 388 of the Criminal Code, a clause was introduced stipulating that these crimes will be the ground for deprivation of citizenship if these crimes are committed on the grounds of racial, ethnic, religious hatred or discord, political or ideological hostility, or on the basis of hostility or hatred against any social group.

We consider it fundamentally important to implement this amendment taking into account the principle of equal right to citizenship, regardless of the grounds for its acquisition,” the parliamentarian stressed.

The bill obliges applicants to take the oath of allegiance. “We believe that this will help develop a sense of belonging to the state, the desire to preserve national identity and sovereignty. The bill also introduces the procedure for assessing official language proficiency. The assessment procedure is to be developed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in coordination with the Education Ministry.

This is expected to increase the objectivity of the assessment and encourage people applying for citizenship to integrate into the Belarusian society,” added Lilia Ananich.

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The New Year's charity campaign Our Children will be running in Belarus from 15 December to 15 January, Deputy Head of the Department of Social, Educational and Ideological Work at the Education Ministry Yelena Simakova told reporters, BelTA reports.

The nationwide campaign will involve more than 20,000 children. Many events throughout the country will be held at the regional level. The purpose of the campaign is to support children who are in need of help and support. The organizers are trying to involve as many children as possible.

According to the plan, representatives or heads of the government bodies, more than 150 organizations and enterprises of the country are going to visit children's homes, hospitals, social institutions, shelters, healthcare facilities, children's rehabilitation centers to wish Happy New Year to children and give them gifts: usually sweet boxes but also equipment, gear, books, toys.

The charity campaign features a number of events. It will officially be launched with an event at the National Arts Center for Children and Youth for children from Minsk and other regions on 15 December. Significant events will be those with the participation of the head of state. In particular, the event in the Palace of the Republic will bring together 2,370 children from all over the country. Children living outside Belarus, but having Belarusian roots, will also be invited to take part in the events.

Festive events will also be held in the Palace of Independence. Various performances have been prepared for children left without parental care, foster families, family-type orphanages, and so on.

Traditionally, the New Year's charity event Our Children involves children left without parental care, disabled children, winners of national and regional competitions, Spartakiads, various kinds of events and also students and pupils who have excelled in studies, social work.

The partner of the campaign is the Belarusian Children's Fund. Leaflets with the information on how to transfer funds to the fund's account will be released soon. Enterprises and organizations of various forms of ownership, citizens will be able to join the nationwide campaign.

Written: belta.by

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has approved the appointment of new deputy ministers at the Justice Ministry and the Architecture and Construction Ministry, BelTA has learned.

Dmitry Kostyukevich was approved for the position of Deputy Justice Minister. He headed the department of legislation in state building and international relations of the state legal directorate at the Belarus President Administration.

Aleksandr Balashenko, the first deputy chairman of the architecture and construction committee of the Mogilev Oblast Executive Committee, was promoted to the post of Deputy Architecture and Construction Minister.

The head of state also gave the go-ahead to appoint Yelena Morgunova First Deputy Chair of the State Committee for Standardization.

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The law on amnesty shall apply to 8,500 citizens, BelTA learned from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The bodies and institutions of the penitentiary system are beginning to enforce the amnesty law signed by the head of state.

According to preliminary estimates, the law shall apply to about 8,500 convicts who are serving sentences in prisons or open prisons and who are on probation. About 4,500 convicts will be released, another 4,000 will have their sentences commuted by 1 year.

The bill waives criminal penalties for minors; pregnant women; single men who have children under the age of 18; persons who reached the generally established retirement age; disabled people of I and II disability groups; persons with active tuberculosis, cancer, and HIV infection; veterans of foreign wars (in accordance with the law on veterans); persons affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident and other radiation accidents, persons who got injuries (concussions), mutilations, diseases during military service or while performing official duties.

Persons who committed drug trafficking crimes under the age of 18 and persons who committed corruption crimes will see their sentences commuted by 1 year.

The amnesty law shall apply to persons who committed crimes before the law entered into force and convicted before the amnesty period expired.

The amnesty shall not apply to persons who were amnestied or pardoned in 2019-2022 and who recommitted an intentional crime during the period of outstanding conviction; who have not fully compensated for the harm (damage) caused by the crime, have not paid compensation in the criminal case; persons who recommitted especially dangerous crimes or who have been recognized, in accordance with the established procedure, as especially dangerous recidivists; persons who had their death sentence, life imprisonment replaced with effective jail term; who were sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against the state, justice, the order of administration, sexual integrity, traffic safety and the operation of transport under the influence of alcohol or drugs; who have not reimbursed alimony arrearages or compensated for the costs incurred by the government for the maintenance of their children in public care; who have committed crimes related to drug trafficking while being older than 18.

Special commissions shall be set up in correctional institutions and penitentiary inspectorates to examine the cases that fall within the scope of the law. The amnesty law shall be enforced within six months.

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Belarusian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Yuri Ambrazevich presented the position of Belarus on humanitarian assistance, including in the context of international Chernobyl cooperation at the 77th session of the UN General Assembly on 6 December, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Yuri Ambrazevich delivered a national statement on the UNGA agenda item 69 “Strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian and disaster relief assistance of the United Nations, including special economic assistance".

The deputy minister noted that for decades international solidarity around Chernobyl has brought together governments and ordinary people from Belarus and many others countries, has become the best example of public diplomacy and depoliticized international cooperation.

The Belarusian diplomat drew attention to the fact that over more than 35 years Belarus has become a full partner and an expert country with expertise in mitigating the impact of a large-scale man-made disaster, and is ready to share scientific and practical experience in medicine and ecology, manufacture of clean products, land reclamation, emergency preparedness. The Belarusians are a unique people who have outgrown their tragedy and consciously accepted the peaceful atom by building the Belarusian nuclear power plant.

Yuri Ambrazevich called to refrain from the spur-of-the-moment politicization and think about the strategic importance of preserving the results of international Chernobyl cooperation, which today is concentrated primarily in Belarus. He emphasized that blind sanctions directly affected ordinary people, significantly reducing the possibilities of international technical assistance, which the government attracted to strengthen and supplement national programs to rebuild the potential of the affected territories. The government has already made up for these losses from internal sources.

The deputy minister took part in the forum "Prospects for the next review cycle of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons" organized by the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan to the UN with the support of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs. In his speech, the diplomat noted that, despite the current disagreements and approaches to issues on the international agenda, "we can all agree that the NPT is a key element not only of the global nonproliferation regime, but of the entire international security system."

During the forum Yuri Ambrazevich stressed that today the world needs a dialogue in the spirit of San Francisco, which would take into account the interests of all interested parties, without dividing the state into "losers and winners."

During the meeting on nuclear non-proliferation, the Belarusian diplomat had a brief conversation with the UN Under-Secretary-General, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu. Yuri Ambrazevich informed the interlocutor about the priorities of Belarus' chairmanship in the CSTO. The parties discussed the prospects for cooperation between the CSTO and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, including the organization of a joint event on the subject of UN Security Council Resolution 1540 regarding the prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Yuri Ambrazevich also met with President of the UN General Assembly Csaba Korosi to discuss regional and global security in the context of the armed conflict in Ukraine.

Particular attention was paid to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the context of the massive use of unilateral economic sanctions by states.

The deputy minister emphasized the need for UN countries to take into account the actual impact of economic restrictions on the ability of affected countries to achieve socio-economic development goals and called for an independent assessment of the impact of unilateral coercive measures on regional and global trade and international economic relations.

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