“In course of the year 2002 I noticed no positive changes in the Belarusian policy, as concerns democratic processes. Vice versa, the government of Belarus exerts an even greater pressure on the democratic structures from the public organizations – such as the trade unions, female and youth organizations. The authorities also tried to hinder the activities of the Belarusian democratic parties and oppressed mass media,” – said former OSCE AMG head Hans-Georg Wieck in an interview to Radio Ratsya.

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Pinsk court (Brest region) ruled 10 days of arrest against two town citizens Igor Sorokovik and Leontiy Vabeshevich. Such a punishment befell them for violating the conditions for holding the picket, established by the Minsk town hall previously.

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The European Union would like to strengthen its relations with Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, said Prime Minister of the EU chairing country Denmark Anders Fog Rasmussen, closing the EU December 13 summit in Copenhagen. However, reports BelaPAN, these relations must be based upon the “long-time assistance to the democratic and economic reforms, sustainable development and trade”. With this goal in mind EU develops “new initiatives”, reported Rasmussen. He also mentioned that the EU extension will “reinforce relations” with Russia.

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Former Belarusian ambassador in Japan Petr Kravchenko, who was once in the epicenter of a scandal, finally paved his way home, said on Monday deputy chief of the information department of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Andrei Savinykh.

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Syrian president Bashar Asad during his meeting with the Foreign Minister of Belarus Mikhail Khvostov, who’s currently on an official visit to Damascus, confirmed his invitation to Alexander Lukashenko to pay an official visit to Syria, “Interfax” was told on Monday by the Belarusian FM’s press-service.

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The Iranian delegation has been on a visit to Belarus on December 16-22. The visit, organized by the officials from both sides, attracts specialists from the Center for the Iranian export’s development, as well as heads of some companies and banks.

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Under the present circumstances Belarus “has no chances” to join the World Trade Organization and therefore draw nearer to the EU. That means that the conditions of the exterior trade, investments and other forms of external economic relations in Belarus will be deteriorating, BelaPAN quotes professor Marek Dombrovsky (chair of the Center for social-economic research) as saying at the December 14 international conference on Belarus’ economic developments in Minsk.

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Every year the countries of the world present to UN their data on the arms sale deals. The list, which they pass over to the UN, includes tanks, armed personnel carriers, large artillery units, jets, copters, battleships and missiles. The UN list isn’t full for it only takes into account the data, presented by the countries on the voluntary basis.

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Syrian president Bashar Asad received a message from his Belarusian colleague Alexander Lukashenko. RIA “Novosti” reports that the letter was passed over to the Syrian incumbent through the Foreign Minister of Belarus Mikhail Khvostov, who’s currently on an official visit to Damascus.

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Negotiations between the Defense Minister of Belarus Leonid Maltsev and Commander-in-chief of the Algerian military Mohammed Al Amari on the issues of military and technical cooperation between the two states took place on Saturday in Algeria.

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Editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Rabochy” Viktor Ivashekvich will today head to serve his social labor term in Baranovichi colony. Ivashkevich will depart Minsk at 12.00 from the BPF headquarters (Varvasheni str. 8). The journalist had been sentenced to two years of freedom restriction for allegedly defaming the president of the Republic of Belarus.

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It is high time Belarus moved out in the direction of the market transformations. Meantime, it is necessary to use skilled manpower, strategically profitable transit location, as well as the low level of the exterior debt, said representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Belarus Susanna Briksiova, speaking at the December 14 international conference in Minsk “Ways of supporting the economic development in Belarus”.

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This year the state bodies of Belarus considered over 10 thousand immigration applications, filed by Belarusian nationals in search of the permanent residence abroad. They mostly prefer to settle in Russia, USA, Israel and Ukraine. Such data were made public on December 13 during the Minsk round table on the issues of visa policy and frontier control, which attracted representatives of the Interior Ministry, Foreign Ministry and other state structures. Apart from the filling out of documents for permanent residence, the state institutions of Belarus also considered over 430 thousand applications for temporary foreign residence.

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