Krychev district council asked the Smolensk authorities to assist them in their argument against the independent newspaper of Krychev "Volny Gorod" (Free town), published in the local press.

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Another Sojm`s conference of the Belarusian Popular Front "Renaissance" and the Conservative Christian BPF Party was held February 18 in Minsk, attracting over 200 representatives of the regional organizations, movements and parties from all over the country.

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According to the results of the sociological poll, conducted in November 2000 among the country`s research laboratories and universities by the Center for Monitoring of the migration of academics and scientists of the National Academy of Sciences in 1999 the total amount of Belarusian professors and scholars, who changed their country of residence, increased by over 9%.

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Court proceedings against the leader of the Youth Front Pavel Severinets will resume February 19 in the Central district court of Minsk. YF leader is indicted for holding a St.Valentine Day rally in Minsk on February 14. Administrative case under art.167-1 of the Code of administrative violations will be considered by the judge Tatyana Pavluchuk.

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The State Committee for press reprimanded the newspaper "Narodnaya Volya" for the recent Valery Schukin`s publication "Wanna nominate yourself for the presidency? Go get your son prepared for jail!", in which the deputy also touched upon the departure of Vassily Bykov from Belarus. According to the reprimand #16 of February 14, signed by the State Committee for Press chair Mikhail Podgainy, Schukin`s article reads that among the detained suspects, charged with selling stolen car parts, was "not only the son of a potential candidate for the presidency Mikhail Chigir but also the grandson of a Belarusian writer in exile Vassily Bykov." The State Committee concludes that the data is false and adds that the Ozhegov`s Russian dictionary, published in 1987, defines the notion "to exile" this way - "to forcefully drive someone from somewhere".

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Employees of the Mogilev car-building factory, involved in the February 3 protests, are threatened with sacking, reports BelaPAN. The street action was organized by a regional structure of the Independent Trade Union of Belarus and sanctioned by the municipal authorities. Its participants demanded that they cease violating trade unionists` rights and protested against the fall in the standard of living.

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will arrive in Belarus on February 19. Today there`ll start a two-week visit into our country by the representatives of the Special working group for Belarus of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. In course of their visit the group members intend to collect data about the political situation in Belarus ahead of the presidential race, scheduled for the coming fall.

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February 16 Alexander Lukashenko signed an order to convene the 2nd All Belarus Assembly, scheduled for May 18, 2001. The event will attract 2500 delegates, who will personify regional support of Lukashenko. The official reason for holding the thing is different from the above-mentioned, though - discussion of an issue on the Program of the social-economic development of Belarus for the period of 2001-2005.

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The "parliamentary union of the Russia-Belarus state" failed to pass the statement in support of the arrested in New York "state secretary of the union state" Pavel Borodin. As told February 16 by the Russian Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznev during his meeting with the press, the statement has never been passed due to certain discrepancies, as concerns the final text of the document. The deputies failed to reach any compromise at the end. Notice, that previously the State Duma also didn`t manage to pass its declaration on Borodin`s detention in Brooklyn.

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Belarus oil enterprises have processed over the last 11 days around 427 thousand tons of petroleum, which is 87% of the last year statistics, report the official sources ("Naftan" - 210 thousand tons (81%), "Mozyr" - 217 thousand tons (94%)).

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Kazakhstan has no intentions of participating in the Russia-Belarus integration efforts, said in his February 16 interview to the Russian newspaper "Izvestia" head of the National Bank of Kazakhstan Grigory Marchenko. The official believes that the whole course of the currency integration between the two countries looks "very complicated", so they don`t feel like taking some serious decision at this stage. "At the moment we act as mere observers - just watching what will come out of it," - noted Kazakhstan National Bank`s president.

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