Word: belarus
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...could the vote be prevented? Sources have told Time that top commanders of Yeltsin's powerful Security Service have prepared "an analytical report" for their boss that outlines the pretexts under which he might do so. First, he could cite the long-discussed confederation treaties with Kazakhstan and Belarus, whose arrangements would supersede the current Russian constitution. In this context, the Duma's effort to reconstitute the U.S.S.R. could be seen not as a threat but as an opportunity. In fact, this week Belarus and Russia are signing a treaty as a step toward integration. The report reminds Yeltsin that...
...countries on Sept. 9 from Switzerland, the home of the previous year's winner. Because this would be the first Gordon Bennett race since the end of World War II in which former Soviet airspace would be accessible, organizers had contacted each of the Baltic States as well as Belarus and Ukraine to request permission for the balloons to cross their airspace. Pilots, after all, could not fully control where the winds took them. Having received approval from every government, including Belarus', the balloons ascended from Wil, near the Swiss city of St. Gallen, at 7:45 a.m. Over...
...Belarus claims that information never reached officials at the military base, 100 miles southwest of Minsk, where a blip produced by Fraenckel and Stuart-Jervis' balloon suddenly appeared on radar screens, dangerously close to one of several strategic missile bases that dot the area. Belarussian officials sent two Mi-24 helicopter gunships into the air to investigate. One of the choppers found the balloon, approached within 110 yards and attempted, without success, to establish radio contact. (Race organizers suspect that the pilots were unable to respond because their batteries had gone dead during the three-day flight...
...roughly the same time, the two other balloons over Belarus were confronted in similar fashion; the pilots quickly unfurled flags and were permitted to land. More than 25 minutes of circling Fraenckel and Stuart-Jervis' craft, however, brought no reply from inside the gondola, which was covered with thick canvas. After firing warning shots, the helicopter pilot became convinced that the craft was unmanned. Ordered to bring it down, the chopper fired about 20 bullets, enough to send the balloon and its gondola plunging to the forest below. Belarussian officials then kept silent for 24 hours while they sifted...
Three days after the attack, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko had yet to make a public apology, which prompted Nicolas Burns, a U.S. State Department spokesman, to denounce Belarus' behavior as "outrageous" and "absolutely indefensible." Lukashenko eventually ordered an investigation of the episode and by week's end had invited American officials to participate. That may eventually shed light on who is responsible. But what cannot be explained, or fathomed, is how anyone can shoot down something as harmless as a helium balloon. "This is so senseless," said Ruth Ludwig of the Balloon Federation of America. "It's the most benign...