Another protest rally in Hrodna has ended in arrest today. About two hundreds of individual entrepreneurs have gathered in the Zhyliber Park on the central square of Hrodna, Lenin Square, in front of the city executive committee, to express their protest to introduction of value-added tax for the goods imported from Russia. In several minutes after they gathered, riot police disbanded the meeting. Protesters were squeezed out of the park. Those who resisted, were detained. According to witnesses, riot policemen’s treatment of detainees was brutal.

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The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, is to hold a press conference in Vienna on Friday to unveil his report on the media situation in Belarus, according to the OSCE press office.

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The founders of Belarus’ European Humanities University have decided to formally liquidate the university, which was stripped of its license by order of Education Minister Aleksandr Radkov in July 2004. The university had some 1000 students, 100 master’s students and 50 postgraduate students at the time. The liquidation process started on March 1.

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The European Parliament (EP) on March 10 is to take a vote on a resolution calling for the release of Belarus’ political prisoners, MEP Bogdan Klich of Poland told BelaPAN. He said the resolution would be the EP’s reaction to “an arrogant reply” by Belarusian Ambassador Vladimir Senko to EP President Josep Borrell’s letter of concern about the imprisonment of opposition politician Mikhail Marinich.

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The list of contenders for the single opposition candidacy in the 2006 presidential election is expected to be closed on March 25, Anatoly Lebedko, chairman of the United Civic Party, told BelaPAN.

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Johan Molander, Sweden’s new ambassador to Russia, told his Belarusian counterpart, Vladimir Grigoryev, on Wednesday that he also would seek accreditation as ambassador to Belarus, according to the press office of the Belarusian embassy in Moscow.

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Belarus` president, Alexander Lukashenko, on Wednesday placed new, tight restrictions on Belarusians` trips abroad and foreign adoptions, adding to a web of stringent government controls in the ex-Soviet nation.

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Galina Zhuravkova, the convicted former head of Aleksandr Lukashenko`s Presidential Affairs Department, is sick and at home, Belarusian Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov told reporters in Minsk on Wednesday.

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On April 25 and 26, 1986, the world`s worst nuclear power accident occurred at Chernobyl in the former USSR (now Ukraine). The Chernobyl nuclear power plant had four reactors. While testing reactor number four, numerous safety procedures were disregarded. At 1:23 am. the chain reaction in the reactor went out of control, creating explosions and a fireball which blew off the reactor`s heavy steel and concrete lid.

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