On February 4, the Office for a Democratic Belarus, in close cooperation with the EU Delegation in Minsk, the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (BISS) and with financial support of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), organized a round table discussion on “EU and Belarus transport policy: sharing knowledge”. The event took place in Minsk and brought together experts from the European Commission, the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Academy of Science of the Republic of Belarus, various research institutions, entrepreneurs, representatives of the analytical community, independent and state media agencies. The event was also attended by the former Minister of Transport, Uladzimir Sasnouski.
Belarus Foreign Minister Syarhei Martynau said the former Soviet state seeks to attract foreign investors to its energy and petrochemical industries and expand economic ties east and west, with the European Union and Russia. “We are opening the economy to foreign investment,” Martynov said in an interview on February 6 during an international security conference in Munich, Germany. “We would like to have more and we would welcome foreign investors to Belarus.”
Belarus` political parties have nominated a total of 468 representatives for membership in district election commissions for the coming local elections scheduled to be held in the country in the latter half of April, Mikalay Lazavik, secretary of the central election commission, told BelaPAN on Monday.
Belarusian police officers have thrown out members of the Polish minority from their headquarters in Ivyanets, near Minsk.
Lukashenka could indeed become the new darling of the west in the former Soviet Union, replacing Georgia's somewhat tarnished Mikheil Saakashvili after his assault on South Ossetia in 2008. His record on upholding democratic rights has also come under fire within his own country and elsewhere.
