Reaction of the Parliamentary Assembly to the statement of the Belarusian authorities on the possibility of Belarus’ leaving OSCE or having its status suspended, was formulated in one short word: “Fine”. The word was pronounced by the OSCE PA president Adrian Severin, while addressing the Belarusian ambassador in Austria Viktor Gaisenok. Such a form of official OSCE reaction had been preliminarily coordinated with the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Jaime Gama.

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Winter session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly began its activities with the session of the Permanent Council, at which the OSCE PA deputies were presented a text of the special report of the OSCE PA for Belarus. In early February this year the group, headed by Mrs.Tsapf, paid a visit to Minsk and presented in a 40-page report its vision of the political situation in Belarus. In her report head of the working group Uta Tsapf noted: “Lukashenka deals with his rivals wherever he finds them: in economy and mass media”.

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The authorities are breathing threats and blackmail against the families of the “Krai” activist Andrei Zhernosek and former KGB officer Gennady Uglyanitsa, who accused the Belarusian authorities of abducting opposition politicians and journalists. As you know, both men had received political asylum in Norway, although their families remain settled in Belarus.

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Yesterday morning a commission sitting took place where the question of the conditional earlier release of the most famous prisoner of the colony 15/1 was weighed up. The prison administration and officials from the Frunze district executive committee have come to a decision that Andrei Klimau deserves a conditional earlier liberation. Apparently there are no reasons to keep him in prison: Klimau has served two thirds of the six-year prison term.

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Resident of the Zhabinka district center Gennady Samoilenko decided to give up his first pension, mailing it by post to Alyaxandar Lukashenka. By so doing the retired man intended to attract the attention of the public to the Belarusian pensioners’ dire straits. Samoilenko’s pension size equals to 68 thousand rubles ($41). The man, who has recently reached the retirement age, considers such income ridiculous.

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A special PA OSCE working group on Belarus is to visit Belarus in May this year. It is supposed that this time its visit would not be confined to Minsk, and the deputies would visit a number of regions. According to Uta Zapf, the head of the group, will enable them to be acquainted with the situation in the country more effectively.

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Minsk authorities demand from the United Civil Party leadership to leave the occupied office by March 15 at the latest. BelaPAN was told in the UCP press-center that the municipal authorities explain it by the fact that the building, in which the party’s office is located, needs capital repair. In their turn, UCP representatives deem that the authorities are violating their own commitments and threatened to submit a court complaint.

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The Belarusian collegiums had to stop classes and weekly public lectures in the Yanka Kupala library of Minsk. The library’s leadership annulled the contract on space rent, which had been pending for four years. The reason for the ban on the use of the office, as said by Elena Kubyshkina, is the “incorrect” use by the collegiums of the library’s name. In other words, the director is dissatisfied that the collegiums, advertising their performances, mentioned the library’s involvement in the matter.

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The Department of Justice of the Belarusian regional committee petitioned the court with a request to liquidate the public amalgamation “Brest regional center of supporting the public initiatives “Vezha”. The organization’s members are now readying for the court action.

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The United States believe that Minsk sells weaponry to the so-called rogue states and terrorist regimes, said on Thursday deputy assistant to the US Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Steven Pifer, reports Reuters. “The reason for the US government’s concern is the numerous reports from the trustworthy sources about Belarus’ implication in the shipment of ammunition to the states and organizations, supportive of terrorism,” – said Pifer after his three-day long Minsk mission. The US State Department also stated that Belarus is training the military from the rogue countries. In particular, according to Pifer, in fall 2001 Belarus trained the Iraqi officers on how to handle the anti-aircraft complex S-300. “Iraq may use these complexes with only one goal in mind – to shoot down US airplanes, which are patrolling the Iraq’s no-fly zone upon the UN mandate,” – said Pifer.

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Belarusian authorities protest against the “national assembly’s” non-involvement in the OSCE PA session. The statement on the matter on behalf of the Belarusian government was voiced by the Belarus’ representative with the OSCE Viktor Gaisenok at the session of the organization’s Permanent Council. As stressed at the briefing in the Belarusian FM by the FM’s press-secretary Pavel Latushko, the statement was caused by the fact that the Belarusian parliament’s delegation received no official invitation to the OSCE PA session, held on February 21-22 in Vienna.

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In Kharkiv during the meeting of the leaders of the Security Councils of Belarus, Russia, Poland and Ukraine, Polish representatives reminded to their Belarusian counterparts about human rights abuses in Belarus. “We have drawn attention of the head of the Security Council of Belarus to the human rights abuses in his country”, -- informed the journalists the heads of the National Security Bureau of the Polish Presidential administration Marek Sivec. The head of the Polish National Security Bureau also added that the letter of the wives of the disappeared Belarusian politicians, which was received by Alexander Kwasniewski in January, would not be left without response.

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The Warsaw district court voiced its verdict concerning the extradition case of the former big Belarusian businessman Vatslav Markevich. The jury ruled that his extradition to Belarus is inadmissible. Markevich’s defenders claimed that their client’s case is politically motivated, as far as the case on the $2mln credit, which, according to the Belarusian procuracy, Markevich received through swindling, was shut by the economic court five years ago, while in 2000, when the suspect officially gave up the Belarusian citizenship, the authorities didn’t object to that at all. According to his lawyers, the activities of the Belarusian procuracy in this extradition case are closely related to the arrests of leading directors and businessmen, which are commonplace in Belarus of today.

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A special judiciary commission, set up upon Alyaxandar Lukashenka’s order, is operating in Minsk and Minsk region, inspecting the effectiveness of court, procuracy, lawyers, police and the Ministry of Justice. Most commission members represent the executive. The lawyers believe that by so doing they violate the very principle of the independence of courts and attorneys.

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A lot has been said these days about the astounding Belarus’ ice hockey team victory over the Swedes. One thing not mentioned so far is the annual budgets of two teams. The totaled income of “Tre Crunur” exceeds that of the Belarusian hockey players by 45 times! As for our tonight’s rivals – the Canadians – they cost 125 times more that Vladimir Krikunov’s squad.

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In Belarus wholesale prices for oil were reduced. As RIA “Novosti” was informed yesterday by the state concern “Belneftechim”, it happened because the price of Russian oil for Belarus was reduced. In the result the wholesale petrol costs reduced by 4%, fuel oil by 10%. The costs of the diesel fuel remained unchanged. However, the retail prices for these products remained the same. Today in Belarus a retail price of a liter of petrol A-76 is 29 cents, AI-92 costs 34 cents, AI-95 costs 40 cents.

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