“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.” Wrote the great German philosopher Hegel, when kings ruled Europe and empire-building ordered the world. In our time, freedom’s consciousness defeated fascism and destroyed a global empire of tyranny. In today’s world, democratic government is the norm and dictators are a dying breed. Saddam Hussein is the latest example of how a strong and malevolent dictator terrorized his countrymen for decades, only to be revealed in a hole in the ground as a weak and pathetic figure commanding neither loyalty nor power, and who will be remembered by his people and by history as a coward. So it has been with so many tyrants – it is their fundamental weakness and insecurity that drive them to deny their people’s most basic rights, and relegate them to live in a state of fear. So it will be with Alexander Lukashenko, whose tyranny over Belarus cannot last forever, and whose legacy will be political and economic devastation that will take years for you, Belarus’ future leaders, to overcome, as you give your people back their country and put a free Belarus on the path to Europe.

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Today in Moscow the session of the Council of Ministers of the Union state is to take place. This information was confirmed to the NG by the department of information of the Standing committee of the Union state (SCUS), and by press secretary of the Belarusian Prime Minister Yawhan Myaleshka. However, even in the noon of yesterday the possibility of the meeting was questioned. In any case, until 4 p.m. local time the Belarusian government headed by Syarhei Sidorsky was deciding if the delegation is going to Moscow or not.

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