Over the past three weeks the number of members of the Baranovichi public association of the Belarusian Republic’s Youth Union rose by more than seven times. BelaPAN quotes the chairwoman of the regional BRYU organization Elena Kushinskaya as saying that “this was the result of the agitation work, conducted by BRYU information groups at schools”. However, the pupils and their parents keep to a different thinking.

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Chief ideologist of Belarus, deputy head of the presidential Administration Oleg Proleskovsky said during his visit to the exhibition “Media in Belarus”, which opened in Minsk, that the new Law on mass media will contain elements of the state ideology.

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Belarusian human rights defenders intend to forward the cases of the disappeared politicians and journalists to the foreign courts. There has been set up a special public commission in order to work out the concomitant procedure.

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Belarus will organize large-scale military exercises with the involvement of all law-enforcement and military ministries each year, said Alexander Lukashenko during his recent visit to the Belarusian Military Academy on the occasion of the Academy’s 50th anniversary. Its graduates serve both in Belarus and far outside the territory of the country. According to Lukashenko, the Military Academy is not only an educational but also scientific center. Its specialists developed most modern military technologies, such as radio-consuming materials for disguising military machinery and automatic troops control systems. At one of the exhibition stands they demonstrated to the incumbent fragments of the US winged missiles and even of a “Stealth” F-117 plane, shot down in Yugoslavia.

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Alexander Lukashenko issued decree#174 “On some issues, relating to the National Belarusian TV and Radio Company”. The draft decree has been worked out by the BT Company in compliance with the head of state’s demand to bring BT’s legal status in conformity with the existing legislation of the Republic of Belarus.

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The head of the Iraqi movement “National Reconciliation” Ayad Alyavi said in an interview to the Moscow newspaper “Vremya Novostei” that the future Iraqi government intends to cooperate with all countries, for the exception of Belarus and France, which he blamed for delivering military aid to Saddam. “We possess plenty of data on Belarus but we’d prefer Belarusians themselves to confess what they exported to Iraq. We have proper documents at our disposal and will raise the issue before the UN Security Council, demanding to punish those Belarusian officials, who helped infringe on the sanctions,” – declared Ayad Alyavi. Radio Svaboda turned for commentary to the director of the Iraqi service of Radio “Svaboda”, former US ambassador in Baghdad David Newton.

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(Washington) - The House International Relations Committee of the United States Congress today incorporated key elements of the Belarus Democracy Act of 2003 as part of H.R. 1950, the State Department reauthorization bill. The Belarus Democracy Act was sponsored by United States Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ) who hailed today`s move as another step toward bolstering desperately needed democratic assistance in Belarus, a former Soviet Republic held hostage by the dictatorial regime of Alexander Lukashenka.

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