There is none nor there can be any uncontrollable bodies of power, said, according to officially informed sources, Alexander Lukashenko at the February 18 meeting, dedicated to the evaluation of the police work over the past year. The head of state noted that back in the past the law-enforcement structures had been considered untouchable. Things shouldn’t be that way, though, he said.

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This year the Freedom Day, marked on March 25, will see street actions, art exhibition, solemn meeting of the public, concert, literature readings and scholarly conference. The schedule of events was announced at the February 17 press-conference by professor Anatoly Gritskevich, member of the national organizing committee for celebrating the 85th anniversary of the Belarusian People’s Republic. At the moment they are negotiating with the political parties and official representatives. Gritskevich underscored that 8 out of 10 parties, to which the organizing committee forwarded the documents, already consented to uphold festive events of the jubilee year.

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“We have always stated that the level of Belarusian-Polish relations is to a large degree defined by the coordination between the European Union and candidate-countries,” – said the newly appointed plenipotentiary ambassador of Poland in Belarus Tadeush Pavlyak in an interview, published on February 18 in “Narodnaya Volya” newspaper.

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Amnesty International group from Nootdorp of Netherlands addressed president Lukashenko with a regular letter, pointing out lack of investigation into the politically-motivated disappearances in Belarus. Following you may read the original text of the letter:

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The Supreme Court of Belarus required the judicial lawsuit of the shut Grodno newspaper “Pagonya” in order to consider the complaint of the convicted journalist Pavel Mozheiko. It isn’t until the consideration of the required case that the Supreme Court may file a protest, reports the court’s administration.

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Alexander Lukashenko called extradition to the Hague Tribunal of the former ex-president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic “an awful blunder”. In an interview to the popular Yugoslav actress Ivana Zhigon, preparing a series of programs on Belarus for the Serbian TV company “BK Telecom”, the head of state pinpointed that “if the nation betrays the leader, whom they have once chosen, that nation risks not to have any faithful leaders anymore”. Once the head of state starts thinking of his own survival, he can no longer be a true president, says Alexander Lukashenko.

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The head of the OSCE Minsk representation Eberhard Haiken called the agreements, reached between the Belarusian authorities and OSCE, a consequence of the classic style diplomacy. “Izvestia” reports that he voiced this statement of his at his first every press-conference in Minsk in capacity of the OSCE office chair in Belarus.

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Brest regional affiliate of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee rings alarm bells in connection with problems, occurring in course of the registration of candidates and printing of flyers by already registered nominees for the local councils.

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Perhaps it takes an ex-KGB spy for a Kremlin ruler to play diplomatic poker with skill. Indeed, President Vladimir Putin shows as much mastery at international diplomacy as he does in handling Russian domestic affairs. Not since Gustav Stresemann, Weimar Germany`s foreign minister, played the Soviet Union and the West off against each other, has a leader with so weak a hand played his cards so effectively. President Vladimir Putin`s latest moves in North Korea, and his careful tap-dance over Iraq, are just the latest examples.

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February 17 the Sovietsky district court of Minsk considered administrative cases of St. Valentine’s Day youth rally participants. In the aftermath of the street action “I Love Belarus!”, run by the Young Front on February 14, the law-enforcers apprehended 6 persons, who spent the following two days in the Okrestina confinement center. Judges of the Sovietsky district court of Minsk Ruslan Kazadaev and Oksana Relyava considered 5 lawsuits on Monday and charged the protesters with violating art.167/2 of the Administrative code (organizing unsanctioned assemblies). Pavel Severinets and Artur Finkevich were sentenced to 10 days of administrative arrest, Oleg Medvedev and Dmitry Filippovich – 7 days, while Petr Kevlev will serve 5 days in the confinement center.

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Desecration of the Minsk military communal graveyard (1914-1918) testifies to the vandalistic treatment by the Belarusian authorities of the nation’s historic past, said prominent Belarusian artist Aleksei Marochkin at the February 14 press-conference, which the public held on the territory of the cemetery.

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One of the initiators of the People’s March “For Better Life!”, co-chairman of the public association “Private Property” Leonid Malakhov received on February 15 a letter from the Minsk inspection of the Ministry of taxation with a claim to present within the following 10 days an income and tax declaration, covering the period of the past six years. Failure to obey the order will entail huge fine. Malakhov was handed in this letter a few hours after the meeting of the leaders of entrepreneurial structures, at which they consented to the coordination of efforts in their common struggle for their rights.

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