Both the European Union and the United States are stepping up pressure on the Belarusian regime, which is targeted because of its continuing violations of human rights and treatment of political prisoners, as well as its introduction of new laws, the most recent of which... MORE

On December 23, for four hours President Alyaksandr Lukashenka responded to questions from domestic and foreign journalists. He expressed certainty that the financial crisis, caused by price hikes on oil and gas, rash imports of used cars, and by the mistakes in fiscal policy, will... MORE

The year 2011 proved to be a difficult one for Belarus, in particular its opposition and human rights activists. Despite the release of some designated political prisoners over the summer, the crackdown on activists that began shortly before the December 19, 2010 presidential elections has... MORE

November 2011 witnessed interesting developments in Belarus: the announcement of the formation of a territorial army by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and a new advisory body called the Council for the Development of an Informational Society (CDIS), run by an existing Operative-Analytical Center and headed by... MORE

On November 23, Ales Belyatsky, a Belarusian human rights activist, was sentenced to four years and six months in prison after being convicted of failing to pay taxes of over 567,000 Euros ($764,000) transferred by unidentified individuals to his accounts in Lithuania and Poland. He... MORE

On October 20, the National Bank of Belarus decided to dispense with a system of different exchange rates by restoring a single rate and in the process devaluing the Belarusian ruble (BLR or Zaichik) from 4,930 to the dollar to 8,680 to the dollar, a... MORE

On September 29-30, the Eastern Partnership summit took place in Warsaw, the second such summit after the inaugural Prague meeting on May 7, 2009. The summit was to be attended by representatives from 33 countries, including 27 EU member states as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan,... MORE

The regime of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has been put under serious pressure in recent days. On September 29-30, a European Union summit in Warsaw condemned Belarus’ human rights record and demanded the immediate release and full pardon of all political prisoners, most of which... MORE

The September 29-30, Eastern Partnership summit in Warsaw was another typically EU empty diplomatic soirée. The Viktor Yanukovych administration has ignored Western criticism of political repression and the EU has put all its eggs into the Ukraine basket to show success in the Eastern Partnership,... MORE

For the last fifteen years, Belarus has been the world’s leader in terms of the sheer number of predictions of its imminent economic collapse. And yet since 1996, the country has demonstrated steady, impressive and, in the words of a 2005 World Bank report, “broad-based”... MORE