The first visit of the new US Administration officials to Belarus came to an end. Deputy assistant State Secretary for the newly independent states John Purnell and head of the department for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine of the US Department of State Greg Perett were on an official visit to Minsk March 18-20. The schedule of their visit included meetings with both the authorities and representatives of democratic opposition and human rights groups. Americans also met with the relatives of the prominent missing opposition members, who`d gone missing.

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New York City celebrated the 83rd anniversary of the proclamation of the Belarusian Popular Republic. Despite his illness, John L. Armstrong, head of the US State Department section for Belarus visited the festivity, so did an official from the International League for Human Rights Peter Zalmaev. In their speeches both American politicians stressed that the United States keep watching over the situation development in Belarus, doing everything in its power to help locate the missing prominent Belarusians and restore freedom and democracy.

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Hundreds of families of Vitebsk region leave their urban homes and get settled in the rural areas in search of work. Local employment bureau reports that during last year alone 254 families moved to the countryside from the towns and got employed there. This "de-urbanization" can be explained by the fact that the folks prefer to grow crops themselves in order no to die from starvation. But one cannot escape poverty all the same.

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Belarus underwent another increase of communications tariffs. The previous price-increase occurred two months ago on January 19.

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The first visit of the new US Administration officials to Belarus came to an end. Deputy assistant State Secretary for the newly independent states and head of the department for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine of the US Department of State were on an official visit to Minsk March 18-20. The program of their visit included meetings with both the authorities and representatives of democratic opposition and human rights groups. Americans also met with the relatives of the prominent missing opposition members. "The very fact that the new US Administration was so quick to pay a visit to Belarus speaks for itself - obviously, the situation in Belarus is one of the top priorities of the US Department of State," - noted Charter`97 international coordinator Andrei Sannikov after a conversation with the American guests:

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Over the past weekend the anonymous visitors dropped numerous flyers upon the heads of the theatre-goers in the Minsk Opera Theatre, Theatre of Musical Comedy, "Association of Taganka actors" and Mogilev Theatre of Dramaturgy. The flyers read: "These people no longer go to the theatres". Under these words there were portraits of imprisoned deputy Andrei Klimov, along with Dmitry Zavadsky, Yuri Zakharenko, Anatoly Krasovsky and Viktor Gonchar, abducted by the Belarusian regime. Below the call "We can`t keep silent any longer" there was ZUBR logo.

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Arms deal on sales of Belarusian MiG-29 fighters to Peru stands high on the agenda of the Peru Congress. Recently they discovered the fact that Peru mediators made around $47 mln commission on the deal, whereas Belarusian go-betweens - around $100 mln. The Peru side was represented by the company "Mobetek Representasyones", related to the notorious "Lima Cartel", which, in its turn, has connections in the drug trafficking mafia. The Belarusian side was represented at the transaction by the state company "Beltechexport".

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The number of unprofitable enterprises in Belarus increased from 618 in 1994 to 2670 in January 2001. If by the crucial year 1994 the gross domestic product growth constituted 63% of the 1990 level, industry - 65%, agriculture - 78%, then in 2000 these indexes "reached": GDP - 36%, industry - 21,3%, agriculture - 52%.

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The Saturday issue of the presidential paper "Sovietskaya Belorussiya" was surprisingly abundant in just and unbiased statements.

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Grodno region indebtedness before the companies` personnel constitutes 1,5 billion rubles. Most of the sum has to go to the agriculture. The villagers of Narovlyansky, Loevsky, Kormyansky and Petrikovsky districts have seen no money since New Year.

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