The Soviet ticking time bomb legacy

terrible. esta el asunto de las minas antipersonales que ha provocado cientos miles de mutilaciones y decenas de miles muertos. uno de los legados de los camaradas sovietivos que tambien transmitieron a los kaxtroz. hay un convenio internacional para evitar su empleo, pero los hp de siempre no lo han firmado entre ellos cuba. cientos [o miles que nunca se sabra] cubanos las han sufrido en los campos de mimas que rodean la base naval de guantanamo de lo cual nadie habla. hay cientos de miles sino millones de minas sembradas por militares cubanos en muchos lugares del mundo particularmente en africa y centroamerica. tampoco se habla de ello ni se piden responsabilidades  igualmente espantoso el asunto de las armas exportadas o regaladas a cualquiera que decia ser anti-yanqui. hoy cualquier idiota puede adquirir un akm-47 original en internet y causar una masacre. los otros - los yanquis digo-, tampoco se quedan atras.

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By Vasily Fedosenko

The Soviet Union collapsed overnight more than two decades ago. In Belarus, which suffered most in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, the sudden demise of the nuclear superpower five years later left enough lethal legacy of other types to endanger the lives of several future generations.

In a forest near the village of Savichi, some 160 km (100 miles) southwest of Minsk, one of these Soviet-era time bombs is still ticking. Here, under a thin layer of ground, hundreds of tons of highly toxic Soviet-made pesticides are stored in leaky dumps.

Located just 3 km (2 miles) from a busy motorway, the dump spreads the pungent smell of chemicals far beyond its perimeter marked by rows of barbed wire. The poisonous substances hastily buried here back in the 1960-70s include the dreaded dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, more widely known as DDT, banned worldwide for several decades because it can cause cancer in humans.

Belarus’s independence has given a new lease on life to places like Savichi, a forlorn area marked with signs reading: “Danger. Toxic chemicals.” A $5.5 million U.S. grant helps finance work aimed to clean up the pesticide disposal site. People clad in white chemical protection overalls and wearing gas masks load a greyish mixture of soil and chemicals leaked from rusty barrels into new blue-colored 70-kg (154 pound) plastic containers.

Last year, workers loaded and sent a total of around 950 tons of the toxic substance to Germany for environmentally safe processing. This year they are completing work at this old dump, having packed more than 600 tons of pesticides in more than 9,000 containers.

This project is coming to an end but officials say Belarus’s land holds several more huge Soviet-era dumps of toxic pesticides. And the time bombs continue ticking.

Lukashenko warns Belarus not for sale

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, faced with a currency crisis, has angrily warned key creditor Russia to keep its hands off state assets.The central bank took an axe to the Belarus rouble this week, devaluing it by 56 percent in an attempt to control the current account deficit, and Russia has been seeking to buy assets in return for a two billion euro emergency loan.

Belarus bombing suspects confess

#Belarus police arrest #protesters

As Alexander Lukashenko is sworn in, many opposition supporters stage protests.

Belarus' opposition supporters protest against President Alexander Lukashenko in downtown Minsk  [AFP]

A group of protesters have staged a demonstration outside Belarus' Palace of the Republic, just hours after the inauguration of long standing leader Alexander Lukashenko.

The president of Belarus had warned on Friday that no dissent would be tolerated as he took the oath of office for a fourth time in a ceremony that was boycotted by European Union ambassadors.
However, the protesters ignored his threats, some of the protesters were arrested by the police.
While holding a copy of the Belarusian constitution, protester Maxim Vinyarsky said he swore "never to recognise Alexander Lukashenko as a legitimate ruler."
"I put my hand on the Constitution, I hold it in my hand and I swear never to recognise him as president but consider him an usurper, illegally holding power in his hands," he said.
Lukashenko was re-elected last month in a vote widely seen as fraudulent and has since cracked down on the opposition, including jailing hundreds of opposition protesters and also seven candidates who ran against him in the 19th December poll.
Lukashenko also closed the office for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe after its election observers called the vote flawed.
The 56-year-old president has accused Poland and Germany of plotting to overthrow him, claims both countries have rejected.

The EU has threatened to re-impose travel restrictions on Lukashenko and other top officials over the flawed elections and subsequent crackdown if 30 opposition activists, including four presidential candidates, are not released. Lukashenko, who appeared to rule that out on Thursday, ordered his government to prepare harsh retaliatory measures if the sanctions are applied.
The travel ban on Lukashenko and others had been lifted in 2008 as the country, once described by the United States as Europe's last dictatorship, made modest progress on rights issues.
Several EU member states and the EU's Foreign Affairs chief Catherine Ashton also have said they may reinstate the ban when EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels on 31st January.

© ČTK

Former Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda (left) with then-US Ambassador William Cabaniss

Wikileaks: Czechs blocked US attempt to buy Russian missiles from Belarus

Leaked US Embassy cables suggest US desire for Russian missile technology took priority over human rights concerns in Belarus

Foreign Affairs

Tom Jones | 19.01.2011 - 23:02

The independent Belarusian Internet news server www.naviny.by has published three diplomatic cables sent from the US Embassy in Prague in March and April 2005, according to which the US wanted to purchase Russian missiles from Belarus via the Ukraine and Czech Republic. The cables, published Jan 19, were passed to the news site by Israel Shamir, Wikileaks’ partner for Russia.
From the three communiqués sent by then-US ambassador William J. Cabaniss Jr, it transpires that the US Navy wanted to purchase 23 Kh-31 Russian sea-skimming missiles via an unnamed Czech arms dealer. “Is the Navy’s need for these missiles strong enough to overcome US objections to military purchases, even indirectly involving Belarus?” Cabaniss wrote in a March 9, 1995 cable, requesting guidance on how to proceed.

According to the same cable, the US was attempting to buy Kh-31 missiles from Belarus through middlemen because the Russians refused to sell the missiles to a Czech arms dealer or Ukraine. ‘Is the Navy’s need for these missiles strong enough to overcome US objections to military purchases, even indirectly involving Belarus?’
“The US Navy has for some time been planning an open commercial purchase of 23 KH-31 (or MA-31) Russian sea-skimming missiles from a Czech arms dealer,” Cabaniss wrote. “It has come to our attention that the missiles are coming from Belarus, via a series of complicated transactions. This arrangement is reportedly necessary because the Russians themselves refused to sell the missiles to the Czech arms dealer.”
Documents from the US Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, show that in 1995 the US Navy struck a deal with Russia to deliver modified Kh-31 missiles as target drones. The Russian military enterprise Zvezda-Strela delivered the missiles without electronics, which were then adapted by US aerospace group Boeing and named as the Boeing/Zvezda Strela MA-31, which was first tested in 1996. The US Navy evaluated the MA-31 as being superior to the rival Sea Snake developed partly by Honeywell.
In 1999, the US navy placed an order with Zvezda-Strela for the production of 34 MA-31s which according to an article at the time by Russian military analyst Dmitry Litovkin, the MA-31s were not only superior, but were half the price of the Sea Snake. Litovkin speculates in his report that the US Navy may also have been interested in Kh-31 technology for the development of an Anti-Missile Defense system (AMD) to defend ships against the Russian Moskit missile (classified by NATO as a sunburn-type missile), which he says is in many ways similar to the Kh-31, only much more powerful. Both were designed by the constructor Yakovlev Sergei, though the Moskit was developed at the Raduga military design bureau and enterprise.
At the time of Litovkin’s article, the Moskit could reach 2,800 kilometers per hour at very low altitudes (air to sea, or sea to sea) and according to the author, detection was only possible three to four seconds before impact, i.e. not nearly enough time to react.
In 1999, however, Russia blocked the US Navy order for the MA-31s. Though the first Kh-31 type missiles were developed in the 1980s, it is probable that development continues to this day.
Indeed in 2005, the US Navy was attempting to acquire the later versions of Kh-31: “23 of the KH-31 missiles are currently in Belarus, where they have been for as long as three decades. The propsed sale of these missiles to the US Navy would begin with a transaction between the Russian Army and the Belarus Army, under which 23 newer missiles would be sent from Russia to Belarus,” Cabaniss’ March 9 communiqué states.
A day later, Cabaniss sent another communiqué regarding the perspective missile purchase reporting reservations on the side of the Czechs: “The Czech government has been very critical of the Lukashenko regime, and some in the MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], particularly those responsible for the promotion of human rights and democracy, have voiced objection to the deal. The matter has now been passed to ХХХХХХХХХХХХХХ,” the communiqué dated March 10, 2005 says.
On April 1, 2005, Cabaniss reported that the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed at the time by Cyril Svoboda (Christian Democrats, KDU-ČSL) had blocked the deal, despite the fact that Belarus had taken delivery of the new Kh-31’s sought by the US Navy.
“The Czech government has formally denied the license request of a Czech arms dealer to broker the sale of Russian KH-31 missiles, now in the possession of a state-run firm in Belarus, to the U.S. Navy. Poloff [US Embassy Political Officer] was told April 1st that the MFA licensing office had on March 31 sent a formal letter to the office within the Ministry of Industry and Trade which is responsible for arms sales, informing it of the MFA's decision.”