The Information Channel Felist.Com -*-------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHARTER'97 BELARUS NEWS UPDATE January, 20, 2003 http://195.133.248.5/20040120_eng.htm --------------------------------------------------------- Child Porn Mongers' Attempt to Paralyze Work of www.charter97.org Internet was exploded last Friday by information about Belarusian companies and citizens making money on child pornography websites. Many sites of important international news agencies, mass media and internet recourses placed articles on this case. On Monday a reporter's investigation "Belarusian Roots of Child Porn Mongers" appeared on the site www.charter97.org. The details of the dirty business were disclosed there. On the next day the site was attacked by unknown hackers. On Tuesday by 1 p.m. the work of the site of Charter'97 was paralyzed completely. The attack started at about 8 a.m. Minsk time. An enormous quantity of users' requests was directed to a site, and the server was unable to process them. These so-called DOS-attacks are for today one of the prevalent means that can paralyze work of web-sites. As said by support service of the hosting company "Masterhost", more than a half of requests to sites of at Masterhost server were sent to the site www.charter97.org. The work of the site stopped completely at 1 p.m. Minsk time. At the moment recovery work is underway. The article that caused the attack is placed at the address http://195.133.248.5/ The attack against the site www.charter97.org which caused a halt of its operating proves that a serious issue has been touch upon in the article. However, the attempts to stop spreading of information on the crimes of child porn are meaningless. Such actions can only attract more attention of the public to this significant problem. --------------------------------------------------------- Reaction to Article "Belarusian Origin of Child Porn Dealers" The theme of Belarus-based ring operating child pornography sites aroused interest of the world community and mass media some days ago. In continuation of this theme today's "Belarusskaya Delovaya Gazeta" published an article "Lolita on Credit Card", also dedicated to activities of CP dealers. The repercussions for raising a question are obvious. Today in the morning the web-site www.charter97.org had experienced a hacker attack, which paralyzed the work of the site for some time. Hackers imitated mass users' query to our server. These attempts continue still. We apologize for interruption of our work and promise to solve the problem soon. --------------------------------------------------------- NTV Returns To Belarus Russian NTV Television reopens its office in Belarus starting from February 1. According to NTV press service, Belarusian Ministry of Information and NTV signed an agreement on cooperation, RIA Novosti informs. As Pavel Selin, former NTV correspondent in Belarus, told the press-center of Charter'97, NTV had not appointed a head of the office in Minsk yet. As the "Obozrevatel" reporter in Minsk said, according to the agreement signed on January 19, NTV has agreed "to comply with Belarusian laws and to cover Belarussian social, economic and political events objectively". Belarusian authorities closed down NTV office in Minsk in July, 2003 in a dispute over the channel's coverage of the funeral of Vasil Bykov, a famous writer and opponent of President Alexander Lukashenko. Belarusian authorities regarded the facts reported by the correspondent untrue and fabricated. Pavel Selin was deported from Belarus. --------------------------------------------------------- Free Belarus: Opposition Can Come to an Agreement Before the End of Spring One of the leaders of European coalition "Free Belarus" Andrei Sannikaw, representing Charter'97, commenting on presentation of the list of candidates from 5+, said: "Now, when they came through the stage of making a list (we also have our list) we could start talks and negotiations: consultations to find common points, aims of participation in elections and then start negotiations on concrete issues". Another representative of "Free Belarus" Mikola Statkevich in his interview to Radio Svaboda said that coalition 5+ has not answered to the proposal to start talks, and just offered to join 5+, but he does not lose optimism: "I think that as soon as our colleagues become certain that they cannot introduce monopoly for democracy and everything connected with it, they are to start talks. And we'll have an agreement, I think, before the end of spring. And at an earlier time it is not desirable. If the authorities knew the format of our coalition, our tactics and strategy beforehand, they could think up something, even though they are inert". --------------------------------------------------------- Talks on Gas Did Not Take Place Yesterday Belarusian-Russian talks concerning gas supply to Belarus and creation of a joint venture with "Belatransgas" did not succeed yesterday. The Department of Governmental information of Russian Federation informed that talks on the level of gas corporations "Gazprom" and "Beltransgz" were planned on January 19. However yesterday Belarusian delegation did not arrive to Moscow. The decision to cancel visit to Moscow was made at last moment, and even in "Beltransgaz" itself on Monday morning nobody could say for sure whereabouts of director general Pyotr Petukh. His reception office answered that at 7 a.m. he was to leave for Moscow. But one of deputy directors was sure that he had not left for talks and is in the country. However, as Sergei Kupriyanov, press secretary of Gazprom board of directors said, "talks are to take place today". --------------------------------------------------------- Homiel Central Market Director Arrested Uladzimir Zhalezko, director of Central Market of Homiel, was arrested at the moment when he was receiving a 1,500 dollars bribe. The detention was carried out by law enforcers of the department on economical crimes of the Internal Affairs Department (Homiel regional executive committee) and regional prosecutor's office. The motivation was an appeal of a businessman who said that the director asks money for prolongation a rent contract, the BDG informs. Uladzimir Zhalezko is taken into custody. The regional prosecutor's office brought up an action. --------------------------------------------------------- CHARTER'97 BELARUS NEWS UPDATE December, 20, 2003 http://195.133.248.5/20040120_eng.htm -*-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: http://felist.com/member/unsub?grp=media.charter97&email= http://felist.com/ mailto:ask@felist.com