In the last days of July, the backbone of Belarusian economy - the potash industry - suffered a severe blow dealt by its Russian partner.The Russian company Uralkali refused to work anymore with the Belarusian Potash Company (BKK), a joint enterprise of Uralkali and Belaruskali authorised to sell their products throughout the world.These developments have seriously weakened the global position of Belaruskali. The “potash collapse” is just one more illustration of the problematic relations between Belarus and Russia.
This week Belarusian TV reported that Ukraine will lose rather than win if it signs the Association Agreement with Brussels. It also covered the falsification of reports in the Belarusian state-run agricultural sector and a contest for the best crop gatherer in Belarus.State TV argued that the Transparency International report on corruption is unreliable and underestimates CIS countries. Alexander Lukashenka's talk about reforming the Electoral Code, as well as science and development of the economy got significant coverage.
On 6 August 2013 Alexander Lukashenka held a meeting with top officials on the proposed changes to the Election Code. Some of the announced changes could potentially serve to further tighten the government's control over elections.Meanwhile, the officials’ rhetoric concerning electoral reform implies that they intend to carry out these vague legislative amendments as if they were implementing Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) recommendations.If the OSCE wants to avoid such window-dressing from the Belarusian
Recently the head of the independent Union of Poles in Belarus, Mieczyslaw Jaskievicz made a controversial statement about Belarusian Catholics. In an interview given to Belarusian Partisan he related that he belongs to a Catholic Church with an exclusively Polish identity. In his words, Belarusians and Russians are Orthodox.It happens often that people, particularly in the Poland-Belarus borderland, define their national identity in terms of their religious affiliation. Such an oversimplification remains valid due to the dominating presence of the Polish language in the religious services in the past. Over the last two decades the Church in Belarus, however, has seriously been changing its approach to Belarusian believers. In addition to its Polish language services it has also the Belarusian language into its churches.
Why is a controversial ex-mayor of Kaunas considering Belarus seeking political asylum? The Centre of Legal Transformation appeals for a public hearing on the legislative project "On Alternative Military Service".The National Statistical Committee of Belarus (Belstat) has recently revealed that half of Belarusians earn less than US$500 a month. For the first time Hrodna Medical University is offering its students to study in Belarusian. How many students will decide to use this opportunity?
Belarusians have a special attitude towards Israel. In the only world's country where Yiddish was ever a state language, almost every family – even of non-Jewish origin – has either relatives, friends or acquaintances there. It is no wonder then that three out of nine Israeli presidents, including the current president Shimon Peres, are Belarusian Jews.At the same time, Belarus for years has enjoyed quite dynamic relations with both Israel and Iran. Till 2003, Minsk maintained very close links with Saddam’s Iraq, as well. These parallel links with the states hostile to each other demonstrate that the Belarusian government is not as primitive as it sometimes seems. It is able handle such dilemmas and pragmatically avoids ideology. Belarusian officials never treat Israel the way they treat the EU or US.
Belarus Digest starts a new series of articles summarising what common Belarusians see on state television.The aim of the series is to help our readers understand how the Belarusian state media form public opinion in the country, which topics they consider the most important and which myths they try to perpetuate. Reviews will go beyond mere "propaganda watch" to cover domestic politics, the economy, society and international affairs. We will avoid making comments and leave readers to make their own judgements.
On 2 August, the “Occupy Pedophilia” group posted a new video online, which went viral on the Belarusian internet. In the video teenagers interrogated a potential pedophile, and in the end poured urine on his head.They call themselves “Occupy Pedophilia” or pedophile hunters, the group has become a significant phenomenon in post-Soviet nations. Autonomous groups under the guise of 15-year olds acquainted over the Internet with potential pedophiles who offer them sex. After that, the hunters meet with a potential pedophile and shoot a video of them.
On 21 June the Ministry of Agriculture of Belarus had to acknowledge that they detected African swine fever in a village of the Hrodna region. By August, it had spread to other regions of Belarus. This highly contagious disease causes up to a 100% mortality of livestock. Moreover, medics so far failed to develop an effective cure. The Belarusian government had to take unprecedented measures to fight the outbreak such as killing livestock on large pig farms as well as in private households, causing popular discontent. For many rural families, breeding pigs has been an indispensable part of their households. People cannot understand why they have to kill all their pigs at once.
Last month, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro promised his people that very soon Venezuela would possess the most powerful air defence system possible, capable of stopping any attempt at illegal entrances into the country’s air space. For years, Belarusian specialists were working on the construction of this facility.The statement by the Venezuelan head of state means that the Belarusian side managed to sort out this serious crisis which the Belarusian military industry encountered abroad just a year ago. Back then, a light airplane of a Swedish PR-agency illegally entered Belarusian air space. Allegedly, it did so to promote democracy by symbolically bombarding Belarus with teddy-bears. But as the leading Belarusian military expert Alexandr Alesin recently noted on naviny.by, it might just as well have served to discredit Belarus' military capabilities and defence industry. Recent news show, however, that this has not happened.
The Belarusian statistics agency has recently published the average salaries by region in June. Minsk city appeared as the leader with an average salary of $750. In second place was the Minsk region with an average of $580, and in Salihorsk it even reached as high as $840, higher than in the capital's average.Salihorsk is a city located south of Minsk, where the whole economy is built around a highly profitable potassium trade. The Minsk region is home to many industrial areas. The region, of course, has close relations with its centre, Minsk city, which absorbs both human and financial resources from its periphery. This kind of centralisation of the economy can indeed have negative consequences for the region.
On 23-24 July Belarusian emigrants from 21 countries participated in the two-day Congress of Belarusians of the World in Minsk.It was a rare occasion where top state and churches officials as well as opposition politicians attended the same event. Organisers of the Congress managed not only to gather people with different worldviews and political affiliations, but also representatives of the old and new wave of emigration.
On 12 July, Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich proposed the introduction of a tax on non-working Belarusians.Although official statistics show that the unemployment rate stands at 0.5 per cent, the prime minister acknowledged that 445,000 Belarusians do not work - about 9 per cent of the working-age population. The authorities avoid talking about it officially, but everyone in Belarus is aware that most of these people work abroad.The majority of migrants from Belarus find jobs in Russia. Although most Belarusian workers perform low skilled work in Russia, the brain drain is becoming a threat to the country. People who are well-paid by Belarusian standards and have higher education and pro-European attitudes increasingly want to leave Belarus.
Some 300 delegates gathered in Minsk for the Sixth Congress of Belarusians of the World. Fond of Ideas explains why business should be socially responsible.New opportunities for environmental education await Belarusians. Among them, BEROC invites young Belarusians to participate in a student's school on the economy and economic research.The state-run newspaper “Respublika” published a list of extremist publications and events that endanger the Belarusian state.