Last week, a delegation led by Sinomach, the largest state-run machinery manufacturer in China, met with Economy Minister Nikolai Snopkov. This follows a visit by Wu Bangguo, head of China's National People’s Congress, to Minsk last month. Beijing will issue...
In an effort to avoid persecution for political activism, opponents of the Belarusian regime continue to look for new forms of protest. Sometimes such forms do not prove to be effective or even reasonable. On Tuesday, the...
Minsk is not taking chances in times of crisis. Only instead of heeding the advice of international economic experts, the Belarusian government is tightening the screws on civil society. In this year of 80% inflation, the new laws in Belarus...
Unable to deal with the economic crisis by economic means and fearing a revolution, Belarusian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka strengthens the KGB. Last Thursday the Belarusian rouble fell sharply against the US dollar. Now the rate is 9,000 Belarusian rubles for one...
The results of the second summit of the Eastern Partnership say nothing new about the EU policy in Belarus and in Eastern Europe. As always, the EU leadership is busy with internal problems. In light of the financial collapse...
Last Saturday's Narodny Skhod (the People's Assembly) had been long planned as a major protest event in Belarus. Authorities warned and intimidated its organizers and prospective participants in all regions of the country well in advance. As a result...
On Sunday Belarusian authorities released yet another presidential candidate - Dzmitry Us. At least seven political prisoners remain in Belarusian prisons. This number includes the two ex-presidential candidates Andrei Sannikov and Mikalai Statkevich, leader of the campaign “European Belarus” Dzmitry Bandarenka,...
The main reason why the second ever Eastern Partnership Summit made it to the headlines of some Western media was a Belarus-related scandal. Otherwise, the Warsaw event got extremely poor coverage by leading news agencies. That clearly points to the...
At a meeting last week, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka did his best to persuade the Armenian foreign minister of Belarus’ goodwill. But this was hardly convincing - the halcyon days of close relations between the two countries are long gone....
This year for the first time since its kick-off in 1997, there will be no Minsk Forum conference. The international conference, bringing together representatives of Belarusian and international political and economic organisations once a year in Minsk, has been...
Every month of this year was filled with stories from Belarus about predominantly closed trials of political opposition activists, rally participants, human rights defendants, and journalists. This week’s show trial seems different. In the court cage are Vladislav Konovalov and Dmitry...
Under pressure from the West, Belarusian authorities have begun to release political prisoners. It appears that Lukashenka is prepared to take a long time to release all prisoners to reap as many benefits as possible. Over a dozen protestors...
This week the Belarusian leader vowed to release all political prisoners by the beginning of October. The situation in the country is unlikely to change this time around. However, one day Alyaksandr Lukashenka may realize that by putting people...
This month Belarusian analysts focused on geopolitical games involving Belarus, the deep roots of the economic crisis and the inability of the officials in Minsk to deal with it. Another topic which began to receive more attention is the...
