| 12.01.2010 |
Belarus Will Remain Belorussia for Moscow Journalists and Scholars
Despite Minsk’s official insistence that Belarus is “the uniquely correct form of the name of our state” and the willingness of at least some Moscow officials to agree to that practice, Russian journalists and academics say they will continue to identify their Western neighbor as Belorussia. |
| 12.01.2010 |
Belarus Cracks Down On Youth Activists
Since late November, the Belarusian authorities have targeted members of the Malady Front (Young Front, MF), an organization registered in the Czech Republic but not in Belarus, as well as Eurapeyskaya Belarus (European Belarus), the members of which overlap. |
| 12.01.2010 |
Appeasement in our Time: Berlusconi Goes to Belarus
BERLIN — This year has been full of celebrations of the peaceful revolutions of 1989, arguably the most important advance of freedom, democracy, and human rights in history. But this year has also seen rapid European rapprochement with (and some might say appeasement of) one of the world’s worst autocrats: Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus. Europe’s embrace reached a new level Monday when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi paid an official visit to Minsk, the first by a Western head of government in over a decade. |
| 12.01.2010 |
Pragmatic EU Keeps Belarus Sanctions in Suspension
Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, speaking for the current EU Presidency, said that ''we are still in a period of engaging with authorities in Belarus to try to move them further in the direction of European values.'' |
| 12.01.2010 |
Zapad 2009 Rehearses Countering NATO Attack on Belarus
On September 29 the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Belarusian counterpart Alyaksandr Lukashenka attended the end of joint military exercises at the Obuz-Lesnovsky firing range in Belarus. The two stage "Zapad 2009" (West 2009) began on September 8, involving a total of 12,500 servicemen, including 6,000 from Russia, and 40 aircraft among 200 items of military hardware. Medvedev said that such exercises will be held every two years in order to promote Russian and Belarusian military interoperability and form a high-quality joint defense system. Army-General Nikolai Makarov, the Russian Chief of the General Staff noted the importance of the exercises: "We have not conducted anything like that in terms of composition and scale for a long time" (ITAR-TASS, September 8; Krasnaya Zvezda, September 25; Rossiya TV, September 28). Minsk invited observers from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine to attend the event. However, the exercise which was developed jointly between the Belarusian and Russian defense ministries was described by Medvedev as "purely defensive," though to many western observers it appeared to be a regressive step: the exercise scenario concentrated on repelling a NATO-led attack on Belarus (EDM, September 28). |
| 12.01.2010 |
A delicate Balance Between East and West
Change is a dangerous thing for an autocrat, and Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko is being buffeted by demands for just that as he tries to steer his country through the economic crisis and strained ties with Russia without losing control. |
| 11.01.2010 |
The Wall That Didnt Come Down
When change comes to Belarus, its leaders will likely be today’s youthful activists rather than the aging, fractious “opposition.” |
| 11.01.2010 |
CBS Symposium at Southwestern College
The Center for Belarusian Studies at Southwestern College organized and held a major symposium October 6 and 7, 2009, on the topic “Higher Education and Civil Society in Belarus.” The conference - held on Southwestern’s campus in Winfield, Kansas - brought together leading specialists in the subject area from Belarus, from the North America Belarusian Diaspora, and from the diplomatic arena. |
| 11.01.2010 |
Sanction Suspensions Continue …
The application of tough sanctions in 2006 against the authoritative Belarus regime produced some immediate democratization results. Then three years of successive sanction suspensions followed. What did they produce? |
| 11.01.2010 |
Khalip Gets Journalism Award
The prestigious Courage in Journalism Award of the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) was granted to the famous Belarusian journalist, Iryna Khalip, in New York on October 20, 2009. Khalip won the award together with Cameroonian reporter, Agnes Taile, and a journalist from Iran, Jila Baniyaghoob. |
| 11.01.2010 |
Doing Business With Lukashenka’s Regime
Typically, one would not expect to find a “Special Report” on Belarus in The Financial Times. In recent years, most of the western business community has shown limited interest in the country. It wasn’t so long ago, that some people joked about turning the country into an amusement park for people nostalgic over the break-up of the Soviet Union. While politics may have played a contributing role in this lack of interest, it was more likely the perception that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to undertake profitable activities in Belarus. |
| 11.01.2010 |
New Blocs Cooperation With Regime
Lyavon Barshcheuski, the former head of the Belarusian Popular Front says creation of the Belarusian Independent Bloc (BIB) is a “capitulatory project and treason”. |
| 11.01.2010 |
European Union Disappointed with Lack of Change in Belarus
A meeting of the European Union Council of foreign ministers in Brussels on November 16-17 opted to continue restrictions on travel by Belarusian government officials to its member states. However, to encourage the Belarusian side to improve its domestic situation, the ban was suspended for a further eleven months, expiring in October 2010. |
| 11.01.2010 |
Minsk Forum: Belarus and EU Far Apart
Introduction:
The Minsk Forum took place on November 4th to 6th in Minsk. A year ago at a similar representative assembly, Head of the Presidential Administration Uladzimier Makiej made a sensational announcement – that the independent newspapers Nasha Niva and Narodnaya Vola would be included in the state system of distribution. |
| 11.01.2010 |
Lukashenka Makes Key Leadership Changes in Belarus
On December 4, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka made sweeping changes to the higher echelons of the leadership. The changes reflect both adverse news on the economic front and the installment of some hard-line personalities on the eve of a series of elections that will monopolize the next 12-15 months. The main opposition newspaper refers to the changes as “KGBization” and restoring ideological control over the media (Narodnaya Volya, December 5). |
| 11.01.2010 |
Opinion Poll Reveals the Impact of The Global Recession on Belarus
A synopsis of the latest opinion poll (September 2009) conducted in Belarus by the Independent Institute of Social-Economic and Political Research has been published on the Institute’s website (www.iiseps.org). The Charter 97 website issued a press release, which maintained that given a choice, Belarusians would join the European Union, but decline to join the Russia-Belarus Union (RBU). It further declared that based on the poll, a majority of Belarusians now wish to replace Alyaksandr Lukashenka as president (www.charter97.org, October 5). This analysis, however, over-simplifies the issues and obfuscates the attitude of the Belarusian population to the consequences of the economic crisis and current bilateral relations with Russia. |
| 12.10.2009 |
The Joint Task Force Without Belarus?
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka refused to sign an agreement Saturday that would create a rapid-reaction security force, casting doubt on Moscow’s plans to form a post-Soviet military alliance and suggesting that a serious rift in relations with Minsk continues. |
| 12.10.2009 |
US Delegation Chastised By the Dictator
Representatives of the US Congress visited Belarus as a part of their visit to the Baltic and Balkan states. A meeting between the congressmen and the Belarusian dictator didn’t bring a breakthrough in relations. |
| 12.10.2009 |
NATIONAL MINORITIES POLICIES IN LITHUANIA:
A SUCCESS STORY?
Part I of II
1. Preface
This text deals with the analysis of the scope of national minority rights in Lithuania. The text will be based on the Lithuanian domestic legislation, international legal mechanisms which Lithuania is a part of as well as works of Lithuanian and international scholars on this issue. Time framework is defined as that from the declaration of the independence of the Republic of Lithuania until now.
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| 12.10.2009 |
Russian TV Crew Expelled
A Russian TV crew’s visit to Minsk might be the Kremlin’s first move in a bid to undermine an uppity underling. |
| 12.10.2009 |
Belarusans Basking in — Not Hiding From The Spotlights Glare
The Belarus Free Theatre has no official audience in Belarus, because officially the Belarus Free Theatre does not exist. Only state-run theaters exist in Belarus, which has been described as Europe's last dictatorship. Only approved plays exist, by approved, non-revolutionary playwrights. There are no revolutionary playwrights in Belarus. Officially. |
| 12.10.2009 |
September 17 and the Roots Of Contemporary Belarus
The 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War in 1939 has been commemorated worldwide. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has denounced revisionism and attempts to belittle the Soviet victory. In Belarus, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka commemorated September 17 as the pivotal date in the foundation of the modern state, and speakers at a conference at the House of Officers requested that it be added to the calendar of state days of remembrance. |
| 12.10.2009 |
Lukashenka Admits Rigging 2006 Presidential Election
In an interview that appeared in Izvestiya in Moscow on August 27, the Belarusian President, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, maintained that the results of the 2006 presidential elections were falsified. However, rather than raising his total, Lukashenka had allegedly demanded that it be lowered to appear more realistic to the public. He maintains that his real total was 93 percent, but it was replaced by "something around 80 percent" (the official figure was 83 percent). |
| 12.10.2009 |
Belarusian Leader Pardons American Lawyer
MOSCOW -- The Belarusian president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, on Tuesday pardoned an American lawyer at the center of a 16-month dispute between Belarus and the United States, in a push to fully restore relations between the two countries.
During a meeting with members of the United States Congress, Mr. Lukashenko agreed to free Emanuel E. Zeltser, who was serving a three-year sentence for industrial espionage and forgery. American diplomats protested Mr. Zeltser’s mysterious arrest and closed trial, and they pressed for his release on humanitarian grounds, saying he had fallen gravely ill in prison. |
| 12.10.2009 |
Lukashenkas Gambit In Relations with Moscow
On July 31, the Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka participated in an informal summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) held in Cholpon Ata on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan. However, he refused to sign any documents on the Russian proposal to create the Collective Operational Reaction Forces (CORF) and Belarus has yet to take up its scheduled term as the rotating chair of the CSTO, which embraces, along with Russia and Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The trip by Lukashenka was described in the official media in Minsk as a "working visit" to Kyrgyzstan (SB-Belarus' Segodnya, July 31). It appears once again that the Belarusian president is emphasizing his distance from Moscow, but it is a risky gambit. |
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