In Belarus, being an academic means that you work in an institution controlled by the state. Sometimes you cannot be a true scholar because you have to produce the "official truth". Otherwise you risk being repressed for disloyalty. A good illustration of that is last month’s case of Hrodna University in western Belarus, where a number of prominent university teachers were put under pressure for fulfilling their professional as well as civil activity. A number of solidarity initiatives emerged to support repressed academics. Such campaigns may indicate the emergence of genuine civil society in Belarus.

There are less than three months left until 2013, the year when Belarus will have to pay out $3.1bn of its external debt. Whether the government will manage to handle this challenge is still unclear. The Belarusian economy has not yet recovered from the last year’s economic crisis. This year’s GDP growth, mostly attained thanks to export of solvents, is slowing down due to Russia's accusations of this business' illegality. The Belarusian rouble continues to fall. Aware of the insignificant chances of covering the debt with Belarus' own assets, the authorities hope to refinance a considerable part of it. In any case, the Belarusian National Bank has Belarusians i.e. the everlasting source of assets, and a well-tested mechanism for the assets’ attraction i.e. devaluation of Belarusian rouble.

The Parliamentary election of 2012 never had the ingredients to be transformative, but it did offer the chance for the opposition to present a credible platform to the population - and to seek to create space for issues to be debated that matter to the wider population. Ultimately there was a lot of focus within the opposition on discussions of boycott, and at election time on various election observation efforts, but less on credible campaigning and outreach.

Official population censuses in Belarus conducted in 1989, 1999 and 2009 reveal a number of interesting trends. They show that the population is declining, the proportion of those who identify themselves as Belarusian is increasing and the role of the Belarusian language is weakening. The period of Lukashenka's rule has coincided with the sharpest decline of population since the collapse of the USSR. The other important development is that the use of the Belarusian language has reduced dramatically, leading to the formation of a Russian-speaking Belarusian nation. It is remarkable that the largest share of Belarusian speakers is among those who identify themselves as Poles.  

Apostolic nuncio Claudio Gugerotti is the only diplomat who can visit the Belarusian prisoners of conscience.The Holy See seems to work as an intermediary between the European Union and Lukashenka with regard to release of the political prisoners. The nunciature tries to keep their profile low and refuses to give details of the visits to prisons. The secrecy of those visits may hint at the seriousness of intentions. On 3 October, Claudio Gugerotti met with the Pope to discuss the latest events in Belarus.

Belarusian football is now experiencing extraordinary historic moments. For the first time ever the Union of the European Football Associations (UEFA) named a club from Belarus as the best team of the week in Europe. This happened after BATE Borisov shocked all football fans and specialists by defeating the German champions Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League on 2 October. Sports media across the whole world made much of BATE's glorious victory. This is one of those few occasions when Belarus features in international news without the tags of “dictatorship”, “economic crisis” or diplomatic rows. The team from Borisov has become Belarus's best envoy in the world arena. In spite of its tiny budget and little support from the state, the team is doing more to promote the good image of the country than the whole government put together.

This week Lukashenka lost one of his most important allies. Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili lost parliamentary elections and is going to switch to opposition. Belarusian ruler expressed his admiration for Saakashvili which was willing to give up the power. Saakashvili has been an important channel for Belarusian government to communicate with the West. Of course, Lukashenka is known for his ideas of integration with Russia while Saakashvili is a symbol of pro-Western policy in the former Soviet Union. At the first glance any relations between them look improbable. Their alliance, however, makes perfect sense and tells a lot about Belarusian regime and intricacies of post-Soviet international relations.

The 2012 parliamentary election in Belarus is over. The Central Elections Committee announced those who will be in the new parliament. A typical MP is a non-partisan male aged between 50 and 60. He made his career in state sector - either working for government institutions or in education, culture, science or health care industries. A labour collective usually nominates such a candidate. To become member of parliament one also needs to have a good record of political loyalty towards the incumbent regime.

Seventy years ago, on 4 October 1942 German authorities organised Dazhynki festival in Minsk. It was the first time the festival took place in Belarus with the highest level of state support. On 21 September 2012 Aleksandr Lukashenka was opening a Dazhynki festival in Gorki, a small town in Eastern Belarus. Dazhynki is a traditional Eastern European celebration of completion of the harvest season. The Thanksgiving Day or Harvest festivals  can be regarded as Western equivalents to Belarusian Dazhynki. But today only Belarusian authorities celebrate it with such pomp. For Lukashenka, it is not just a holiday but also an important political show.   Lukashenko uses Dazhynki to demonstrate how much he supports agriculture. Belarusian towns compete for the right to host the holiday, as Dazhynki remains the best opportunity to improve their wellbeing.

Analysts focus on the effect of recent elections on the politic landscape of Belarus and whether the European Union can do anything to improve the situation in Belarus. The EU and Belarus: Perpetual Tango All Over Again? Giselle Bosse, European Policy Centre, analyses EU-Belarus relations to identify where next for EU policy towards Belarus. The expert makes some recommendations for the situation's improving. In particular, the EU could be more specific about the goals of its policy and respectively knows the answers on some key questions, for instance, what is the EU longer term goal: to push Lukashenka to introduce reforms, or regime change?

Whether you arrive in Minsk from the airport, bus or railway station, one of the first things you notice is abundant construction. You will see construction sites almost everywhere. New shiny office buildings of glass and concrete grow in the centre. On the outskirts you’ll mainly see multistory block residential houses. Subsidised loans is one explanation of this boom.  A sad truth here is that Minsk seems to be the only place in Belarus where life is really bubbling. Growth of other Belarusian cities is slow and continues thanks to strong urbanisation processes and migration.  In rural parts of the country population is decreasing dramatically ‒ up to 4% during 2011, and the state encourages people to move to rural areas by offering free housing in newly constructed buildings.

Around 200 scholars from around the world involved in studying Belarus and East-Central Europe are taking part in the 2nd International Congress of Belarusian Studies which takes place on September 28-30, 2012 in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Congress brought together researches of social sciences and humanities, and offer the discussion of regional development issues, Belarus relations with other countries, and other topical problems. Belarus Digest broadcasted the event on 28-30 September.  

The 2012 parliamentary campaign election campaign ended in defeat of all political actors in Belarus. On the one hand, the Belarusian opposition was unable to mobilise society. On the other hand, the authorities received the expected results from a made up "political depression" which they have themselves created – indeed, very few people turned up at the polling stations. It was clear from the very beginning that the authorities would not allow any opposition members into the House of Representatives. The Belarusian Parliament will continue to serve as a puppet in Lukashenka’s hands rather than a venue for public discussion. After the depressing events which followed the 2010 presidential elections, the only hope for Belarusians was that democratic forces would be able to conduct an effective campaign to lead society out of political depression.

This week the General Congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) in Tokyo may come back to the issue of 2014 Championship in Belarus. But despite an international campaign to move the Championship out of Belarus, the relocation is highly unlikely. Given the strong opposition of IIHF Council and reluctance of national ice hockey associations to this idea, campaigners for the relocation should rather start thinking how to use the sport event to spread their cause, rather than keep investing in the campaign with an extremely low chances of success.