Today sons of the Belarusian political prisoner Mikhail Marynich have visited the Embassy of the Great Britain in Minsk. Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Belarus, Brian Bennett, handed Pavel and Ihar Marynich a letter from the Minister of State for Europe at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Denis MacShane, addressed to Mikhail Marynich, who was sentenced to five years of imprisonment and confiscation of property on December 30, 2004. In the letter the minister expresses his support to Mikhail Marynich and states that the government of the Great Britain is concerned over the situation with democracy in Belarus.
On January 19 US Ambassador to the OSCE Stephan M. Minikes delivered a speech to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna. Ambassador stated that the political repressions in Belarus are intensifying after the parliamentary elections and referendum in October, 2004. Stephan M. Minikes expressed concern over methodical stamping out independent civil society in Belarus, and called the trial over former Minister of Foreign economic Relations, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Belarus Mikhail Marynich, sentenced to five years of imprisonment on December 30, 2004, was called “politically motivated”.
English PEN has joined calls for the release of Yury Bandazhevsky, a prominent Belarusian researcher who was sentenced to eight years in prison in June 2001 on bribery charges widely believed to be trumped-up. More than 300 members of the English PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee signed a petition calling for the release of the honorary member of English PEN, the organization’s press office reported last week.
Vatican’s new apostolic nuncio to Belarus, Martin Vidovic, arrived in Minsk on January 21. He will replace Ivan Jurkovic, who was appointed as apostolic nuncio to Ukraine in April 2004.
A Higher Realism 13:27, 24/01/2005, By Robert Kagan, "The Washington Post"
The most significant thing about President Bush`s inaugural address was the word he did not utter: terror. Until now the war on terrorism has been the administration`s foreign policy paradigm, giving unity and coherence to disparate and morally contradictory policies: promoting democracy in the Middle East, for instance, while ignoring undemocratic practices in Russia and China. One would have expected Bush to make the war on terrorism the theme of his address.
Like other Austrian newspaper, a Viennese newspaper “Der Standard” under a title: “Diplomatic Crisis between Czech Republic and Belarus” published information about the latest scandal in Czech-Belarusian relations.
Action of solidarity with Belarusian political prisoner Mihail Marinich was carried out on the 23rd of January. At midday ten “Zubr” activists lined up on Victory square with portraits of the politician in their hands. The action lasted twenty minutes. None of the participants was arrested. Several days before leaflets and graffiti with slogan “Freedom to Marinich!” appeared in this town.
"With good and respect we greet all our neighbors both in the West and in the East. I would do everything for development of the stable cooperation with all countries,” told the new Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on January 23 in Independence Square. “Ukraine is to become a reliable partner in struggle with the old and new threats: tyranny, poverty, natural disasters and terrorism. Common search for the ways to security and prosperity is a Ukrainian responsibility as well. We are ready for ithat,” told V. Yushchenko.
About 60 foreign delegations arrived in Kyiv to inauguration ceremony of Viktor Yushchenko as Ukraine’s third President. One of the latest to be confirmed was the arrival of the Belarusian delegation, which consists of one person, the chairman of the ‘chamber of representatives’ Uladzimir Kanaplyou. Nothing is known about some program of his visit besides his participation in the general celebrations, told FM representative Ruslan Yesin to Radio Svaboda. Alyaksandar Lukashenka has ignored the swearing-in ceremony of Yushchenko.
Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld, addressing the Sejm with an annual speech on main directions of the Polish foreign policy, stated that Warsaw supports pro-European and democratic aspirations of the Belarusians. Speaking about the relations of Poland and Belarus, Adam Daniel Rotfeld underlined that the situation in Belarus, which has a common border with Poland, arouses understandable concern in Warsaw.
The Czech authorities misunderstand the principle of reciprocity, said Andrei Savinykh, spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, in his January 21 comment on the Czech authorities` move to expel a Belarusian diplomat in response to the expulsion of Czech diplomat Pavel Krivohlavy from Belarus.
Aleksandr Lukashenko promised to strictly abide by military cooperation agreements signed in the framework of the CIS, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Belarusian-Russian Union State while determining a level of Belarus’ cooperation with NATO. “We will weigh our steps with, above all, our commitments within these organizations,” official information sources quoted him as saying at Friday’s meeting of Belarus’ Security Council. “This is a sacred duty for us and we should be decent and, what matters most, predictable in this respect.”
Direct or indirect mention of Belarus by two top-ranking US officials is evidence that the United States intends to devote more attention to the post-Soviet region, Anatoly Lebedko, chairman of the United Civic Party, said while commenting to BelaPAN on US President George W. Bush`s January 20 inauguration speech.
US President George W. Bush`s plans for a second term received a positive response from the European Union and Japan on Friday but elsewhere there was a mixture of scepticism and downright hostility.
President Aleksandr Lukashenko`s regime in Belarus has long been a target of US criticism - and the Bush administration clearly has it on its radar. The new US "outposts of tyranny" list presented by the incoming US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, mentions just one European country - Belarus.
Former students of Belarus’ European Humanities University (EHU) are planning activities to mark six months since their alma mater was closed in July 2004. The privately held university had its license stripped by order of Education Minister Aleksandr Radkov. The university had some 1000 students, 100 master`s students and 50 postgraduate students at the time.
Belarus is “to strengthen energy security and escape energy dependence on Russia” over the next few years, Interfax quoted Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko as saying. ”We are to have a common and entire program to ensure energy security of our state to escape energy dependence on a certain country or even on a certain monopolist in that country,” Alexander Lukashenko told Belarus Security Council Friday.
Belarus is not going to engage, nor has ever done so, in banned nuclear developments, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko told the national Security Council at a sitting on Friday. "For that we have neither means nor desire. We have enough other methods to protect our country", he stressed.
The Belarusian government has come up with a scheme to raise its stake in BelCel, a Belarusian-Dutch cellphone operator. The plan provides for increasing the stake of the Beltelecom state telecommunications monopoly from 33 to 46.65 percent, and reducing the stake of the Dutch investor, Comstuct International, from 50 to 47 percent and of the private Infobank from 17 to 6.35 percent.
Two Belarussian freight trains collided late on Sunday in Lithuania, sources from the Belarussian Ministry for Emergency Situations reported on Monday.
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