The State Committee for press issued an official reprimand to the popular Russian paper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" (Belarus edition) under article 32 of the Belarusian Law "On press and other mass media sources." This article reads that Belarusian citizens enjoy the right for objective information via mass media outlets about the activities of the state structures, civil associations, about political, economic and international life.

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New documentary of the prominent Belarusian filmmaker Yuri Khastchevatsky "Gods of sickle and hammer" was highly appreciated by the jury of the prestigious Berlin cinema festival, held February 7-18. In conversation with the BelaPAN correspondent the filmmaker said that the film was ordered by the French-German TV channel ARTE and attracted some Polish assistance. The film was shown four times on February 12, 13, 14 within the youth program "Forum". The movie theatres were always overcrowded. Every time the film would be followed by a two-hour discussion. German newspapers called the documentary "a bomb of the week". UNESCO specialists selected it as a candidate for the INPUT film festival to be held this year in Capetown.

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Ratification by the Russian State Duma of a treaty between the Russian Federation and Belarus on the introduction of a single currency and formation of a single emission center of the "union state" provoked great resonance in both official and opposition circles. As previously reported, the treaty envisages the introduction on Jan.1, 2005 of a single currency unit on the territory of the two states - Russian ruble.

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Head of the Brest region committee Vassily Dolgalev reprimanded two of his assistants - Vladimir Stepanov and Vassily Dvoronovich. Reason for the reprimand was the delays in salary payments in the region. By Feb.16 the overall December indebtedness amounted to 590,5 million rubles. 102 out of 112 economic enterprises, which owe their staffers are state collective farms.

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Every forth death of the young Europeans, aged 15-29, is caused by hard-drinking. In different EU states the death-rate among youths averages 13-32% from the total number of lethal cases. During the study of the phenomenon there have been singled out 4 groups of countries, where the people are mostly addicted to alcohol. Among the leading four country`s are Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Kazakhstan and Hungary. Europeans first taste alcohol very early in their lives. According to the results of the survey 12% of the 11-year kids know from their experience what it means to be drunk

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US ambassador in Belarus Michael Kozak will hand in February 22 his credentials to Alexander Lukashenko. A four months pause, provoked by the Belarusian authorities, is over now. Head of the United States diplomatic mission arrived in Minsk in October 2000. Soon afterwards he passed over copies of the credentials to the then chief of the Foreign Ministry Ural Latypov. Ever after Kozak would face numerous problems.

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An answer to this question will be considered today by the Committee for authority of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna. Specially for this purpose they will read out the report on the two-day visit to Minsk by the members of the special working group of OSCE PA, which departed from the country two days ago. The key purpose of their travel was to realize the future of Belarus membership with the OSCE PA.

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Indictment against Sergei Kolyada, captured February 10 by the law-enforcers together with Alexander Chigir, son of the former Belarus Premier, was voiced February 20. Kolyada is charged with "purchasing or selling material values, previously acquired through a criminal act, committed by a group of people upon the beforehand agreement." Police placed Sergei Kolyada into two-months detention.

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During the period the OSCE PA delegation was working in Minsk February 19-20, the Minsk city court halted the repeated court consideration of charges, brought against the leader of the Social-democratic Party (Narodnaya Gromada) Nikolai Statkevich and 13th Supreme Soviet deputy Valery Schukin. Both men are indicted for provoking mass disturbances in the downtown during the October 17, 1999 Freedom March.

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Joint-stock company "Gasprom" and the government of Poland overcame all discrepancies as concerns laying the gas-pipe from Poland to Slovakia, avoiding the territory of Ukraine. The negotiating sides claim that they managed to reach certain compromise in course of the recent visit of the "Gasprom" head Rem Vyakhirev to Poland, where he met with the Polish Minister of economy Yanush Shteinhoff. It was mentioned, that "the period of misunderstanding and contradictions is over now, there started constructive cooperation on the project."

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