Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The United States would also like to take this opportunity to again urge the Government of Belarus to implement the commitment that it made to OSCE Chairman in Office Passy to issue as soon as possible a written invitation to ODIHR to observe the country`s October parliamentary election and to implement swiftly ODIHR`s recommendations on reforming electoral procedures.

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Athens was awash with tales of wrongdoing and corruption just five days before the games open in their spiritual home.

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A DEFIANT Scottish academic expelled from Belarus by the KGB has vowed to continue his work in exposing the authoritarian regime’s attempts to cover up the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.

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A British scientist who has studied the Chernobyl nuclear disaster for more than 10 years has been placed on the Belarussian KGB`s "forbidden persons list" and banned from the country for five years.

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Another interrogation of the well-known political figure Mikhail Marynich was carried out on August 6 in the KGB pre-trial detention facility. It was conducted by a new investigator, who joined the committee of inquiry, Barys Ragimau. He is famous for his participation in “Paval Sharamet” case. After the interrogation, M. Marynich and his advocate Vera Stramkouskaya challenged B. Ragimau.

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The next issue of the newspaper Narodnaya Volya will be out Saturday, Editor-in-Chief Iosif Seredich told BelaPAN. The authorities lifted the printing ban on the paper on August 6, after the Narodnaya Volya had paid off 65 million rubels in libel damages to businessman Sergei Atroshchenko and Yegor Rybakov, former head of the Belarusian State Television and Radio Company.

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The Socialist International has taken interest in the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Belarusian Party of Labor (BPL), Nikolai Statkevich, chairman of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party “Narodnaya Hramada,” a consultative member of the Socialist International (SI), told BelaPAN.

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