Draft agreement between the ruling state bodies of Belarus and Orthodox Church must be worked out by January 30, 2003. Chairman of the Belarusian committee for religions and nationalities Stanislav Buko said that they got involved 17 state institutions, which are to come up with the cooperation plan with the church. The agreement with the Belarusian eparchy will be signed by the Ministry of education, healthcare, labor and social protection, frontier troops, police etc, reports Belarusian TV.

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Famous Russian human rights defenders came up today with an initiative to set up the “Court of honor of the European politicians” – a public organization, which would raise before the EU countries an issue on visa denial to the politicians, who incite xenophobia, national intolerance and human rights abuses. According to the author of the idea, biologist Nikolai Formozov, human rights defenders recall the incident with Alexander Lukashenko, on whom they imposed travel ban for political motives.

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Consideration of Aleksei Shydlovsky’s court appeal took place on January 23 in the Minsk city court. Shydlovsky demanded cancellation of the Central district court’s decision, which declined his lawsuit on the protection of his honor and dignity, filed against “Sovetskaya Belorussiya” newspaper and its editor Pavel Yakubovich. ZUBR coordinator claims that in May the newspaper published an article, which defamed him by saying that he had served his prison term not for political graffiti, but for refusal to pay alimonies. However, in October 2002, the court turned down his complaint, although the plaintiff had never been married, while the defendant never denied his guilt.

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International non-governmental organization “Transparency International” presented in London its report on corruption worldwide. The text of the document states that the general level of corruption in the globe has significantly fallen. However, “Deutsche Welle” in Ukraine was told by the organization’s representative Jeremi Pope that the situation with corruption in Ukraine hasn’t gone any better. He went on to compare it to the analogous situation in Belarus.

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Belarus is ready to further render support to the Vietnamese nation, RIA “Novosti” quotes Alexander Lukashenko as saying on Thursday at his meeting with the chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly Nguen Van An. In his turn the parliamentarian thanked the head of Belarus, saying that mutual visits of the leaderships of both states formed a good basis for the development of relations in all spheres, especially in the political one.

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Under the preliminary agreement, the delegation of Belarusian experts will pay visit to Kuwait on January 23-27, said at the yesterday’s briefing deputy head of the information department of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Andrei Savinykh.

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First deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus Vassily Pugachev visited on January 20-21 the Lebanese Republic. As mentioned at the briefing by deputy head of the FM’s information department Andrei Savinykh, Vasily Pugachev was welcomed by the president of Lebanon Emil Lahud. In course of the meeting Vassily Pugachev passed over to the head of the Lebanese Republic a personal missive and greetings from Alexander Lukashenko. The president of Lebanon expressed interest in the development of the Belarusian-Lebanese cooperation and confirmed his invitation to Alexander Lukashenko to pay personal official visit to Lebanon.

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On December 12, 2002 the deacon of the Baptist church Alexander Miholenkov faced police administrative protocol for the alleged violation of the established order of organizing and holding religious ministries. Believers, according to the law-enforcers, had no right to hold meetings as 10-12a.m. in the place, which wasn’t designed for the purpose. The protocol was sent to the Zavodskoi district court of Minsk, after which the priest will face administrative responsibility under article 167/1 of the Administrative code, envisaging reprimand, fine or 3-15 days of imprisonment.

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The Ministry of finances of Belarus prepared draft amendments into the general part of the Tax code, bringing this document into conformity with Alexander Lukashenko’s remarks. Director of the department of tax policy and budget incomes of the Ministry of finance Alexander Kozlyakov said that at the meeting of the permanent commission of the “house of representatives” on budget, finances and taxation policy.

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