Belarus took over the relay baton from Georgia, which was the first on the ex-Soviet space to sign concordance on cooperation between the state and the main religious denomination. Belarusian ministries and ruling bodies have few days left to work out cooperation plans with the Belarusian Orthodox Church.

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As the last year has shown yet again, Thailand is far from immune from the scourge of corruption. But there are countries such as Russia with even worse records of this criminal behaviour.

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18-year old ZUBR activist Vladimir P. was apprehended by police on January 27 opposite the “Gorizont” TV manufacturing plant. The young man was delivered to the Central district police station, where they held him in custody for 3 hours. Then they fined him 10,000 rubles and let go. However, despite the detention (which comes third over the past couple of days) and efforts of public utility services, which try to remove them, the city’s main streets are all covered with the slogan.

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“There will be no legitimization of “national assembly” of Belarus at the winter PACE session,” – said in a January 27 interview to BelaPAN the leader of the United Civil Party (UCP) Anatoly Lebedko, who visited PACE session, which opened today in Strasbourg. According to the politician, this finally became clear after the meeting of the sub-commission for Belarus of the PACE Political Committee.

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The head of the Federation of trade unions of Belarus Leonid Kozik disseminated on Monday the statement, in which he called on the international trade union movement to protest against looming US-led military invasion of Iraq. The trade union boss proposes to “require from the heads of governments and states to prevent further escalation of conflict in Iraq”. “I’m calling on the peoples of the world and international trade union movement – say your word against too! Voice statements, protest and express solidarity with the Iraqi nation. Say no to war. Demand peace for the people! Protest against war in Iraq!” – reads Leonid Kozik’s statement.

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Today the first informal CIS summit will open its gates in Kiev. Truly speaking, more and more CIS leaders every year tend to ignore such informal meetings. This time the presidents beat all records, as far as their absence at the summit is concerned. Only eight CIS heads of states stated intention to visit the Ukrainian capital – Russian, Belarusian, Moldavian, Georgian, Tajikistani, Armenian, Azerbaijani and Ukrainian. Four central Asian leaders under various excuses will not engage in the informal summit.

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Wife of one of the missing Belarusian public figures Irina Krasovskaya and lawyer Garry Pogonailo intend to sue the government of Belarus in order to find out the implication of top governmental officials in the abduction of businessman Anatoly Krasovsky and Vice-Speaker of the Supreme Soviet Viktor Gonchar, said at today’s press-conference in Minsk Irina Krasovskaya’s representative, lawyer Garry Pogonailo. “Such procedures are applied in the countries where the government isn’t interested in finding the true perpetrators of these crimes and people, who stand behind them”.

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Every year 15 doctors and 35-50 professors leave the country in search of permanent residence and employment abroad, said the first deputy chairman of the Committee for science and technologies of the Cabinet of Ministers Vladimir Nedilko during the January 27 press-conference in Minsk, dedicated to the Day of science, which is marked on the last Sunday of January. “These are huge figures for Belarus, if we bear in mind that usually the people leave the country in the most active age,” – said Nedilko.

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The retailers didn’t proclaim a strike, though most of them have to halt work from numerous inspections and examinations. Radio “Unistar” reports that total inspections commenced in early December. The local authorities demanded from entrepreneurs to present their certificates on the hygiene registration of all commodity, rather than some types of it, as used to be the case before. Last weekend many of the market’s visitors saw with their own eyes quarrels between the controllers and traders. The luckiest ones even received free goods, which the businessmen threw into the crowd with shouts “Better to people than to you!”.

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Export-import operations with lucrative commodity don’t bring enough profit to the Belarusian manufacturers, the nation and the state in general due to the chain of numerous intermediaries, where the majority are private entrepreneurs, said Alexander Lukashenko at the Monday meeting, dedicated to the sophistication of external trade activities.

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