Today morning a draft resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE “Situation in Belarus” has started to be discussed by Political affairs and security committee. A member of the PA OSCE Working group on Belarus from Danish parliament Kristian Pihl Lorenzon is to make a report.

---

The bill on information, information procedures and information protection is still “very uneven, but the Ministry of Information doesn’t work on it thoroughly enough,” deputy chairperson of the commission for industry, fuel-energy complex, transport, communication and private business of Belarus’ “chamber of representatives” Tatsiana Safronienka told BelaPAN on July 5, before the session of the executive group of the commission that considers the bill.

---

Institutions that should perform functions of both cleaner and sentry were appointed to each monument of Lenin’s 12 statues, by the order of Babruisk municipal executive committee.

---

Belarus is to pay the maximum price for the Russian gas starting with July, while it paid only $ 55 per 1 cubic meter of gas in the first half of 2007. Now not only has Belarus to pay $ 100, but the country must compensate the lower price of January-June.

---

Alyaksandr Lukashenka has made a statement about tendencies of growing external pressure on Belarus on different fronts. “International atmosphere around Belarus is not getting safer or quieter. Unprecedented pressure on different fronts increases: in political, informational, economical and other spheres,” the Belarusian ruler said at a meeting with graduates of Minsk`s military training institutions and on July 5.

---

The Deputies of the German parliament’s fraction Bundnis 90/Green Party and Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDPG) submitted proposal to reduce the German visa price for the Belarusians for discussion in Bundestag, said Marieluise Beck, a Bundestag deputy from the fraction Bundnis 90/Green Party in an interview to Deutsche Welle.

---

My friends and I arranged a meeting in Niamiga at 7 p.m. to have a walk in the city center together. The company was pretty huge. And nearly everyone had a t-shirt “For Freedom” (“За свабоду”) on. We all were in good spirits, walking around and congratulating people on the feast. Flags with the emblem of Minsk were soaring above our heads. I left the crowd and approached a police officer under a bridge in Niamiga:

---

Kastrychnitski district court of Minsk recognized the case of expulsion of student Yury Aleinik form the President’s Academy of Management not subject to its authority on July 5, reported the press-service of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC). The reason is simple: the President’s Academy of Management is accountable to the country’s Head.

---

Today a session of the organizing committee on celebrating Belarus’ Independence Day July 27 has taken place in Minsk. An appeal for holding a meeting and a concert at 6 p.m. on July 27 in Bangalore Square, with an aim to celebrate the date of adopting the Declaration on National Sovereignty by the Supreme Soviet of Belarus in 1990. Applicants for holding the meeting was a chairman of the Organizing committee, a deputy chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front party Viktar Ivashkevich and a representative of the Belarusian Social Democratic party (Hramada) Ihar Rynkevich.

---

Alyaksandr Lukashenka has promised to continue military assistance to Iran. The statement of the Belarusian leader has been made during the meeting with Iranian defense minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar who had arrived to an official visit to Minsk. As said by Lukashenka, cooperation of Minsk with Teheran in the military and technical sphere is at the stage of constant development, and principally in the high technology sphere. He added that Belarus is to fulfill all contracts signed with Iran, not specifying what kind of contracts he meant: armaments deliveries or other deals.

---