The Supreme Court of Belarus has not granted an appeal of the founders of the Freedom and Progress Party Uladzimir Navasyad (Vladimir Novosiad), Syarhei Kazlowski and Alyaksandar Melnikaw, who considered the denial to register the party by Justice Ministry unjustified.

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The leaders of the four pro-democracy political parties campaigning on a single platform named “Five Steps toward a Better Life” on Wednesday called on the international community to step up pressure on the Belarusian authorities over Mikhail Marinich’s detention.

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The Israeli Embassy in Minsk will reopen after Ambassador Zeev Ben Arie arrives in Minsk on November 30, sources in the Belarussian Foreign Ministry told Interfax.

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The architecture of Independence Square in central Kiev is late Brezhnev but the ambience is Prague 1989. Groups of people stand around tables scattered with the propaganda of the various candidates, or make impassioned speeches to cameras. The atmosphere of a genuine election, one in which the outcome is uncertain — so rare now in the former Soviet Union — is unmistakable. Boys and girls with orange scarves hand out campaign leaflets. It’s cool to be political and there is a sense of hope, urgency and foreboding that I last witnessed when I was their age during the Solidarity revolution in Poland in 1980. Several of them told me that if this election is lost, their only choice is to emigrate. ‘You are our last hope,’ one middle-aged woman told us, a group of international observers watching the election. The hope that the democratic, all powerful ‘West’ can accomplish a miracle also sounded familiar.

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A pensioner from the town of Vawkavysk, Valiantsina Saldatava, demands the authorities to revise the results of the elections in Vawkavysk, and resume the “Mestnaya Gazeta” issuing. Mrs. Saldatava says that she would not stop the hunger strike, and she would hold on till the end.

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Administrative Commission of the Moscow district of Minsk sentenced the famous lawyer, human rights activist, deputy head of Belarusian Helsinki Committee Harry Pahanyajla to a fine of five minimal wages. Administrative judges have decided that the famous human rights watchdog disseminated an unregistered edition. They meant a booklet with documents about disappeared politicians, that were held by protesters taking part in the picket in front of the Office of Public Prosecutor of Belarus. The protest took place on September 16, on the day of disappearances of oppositionists Viktar Hanchar and Anatol Krasowski five years ago.

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The Minsk headquarters of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) is hosting an exhibition of paintings by former students of the Yakub Kolas National Humanities Lyceum that was shut down by the authorities last summer.

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Belarus’ political situation was under discussion at a meeting held between Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos and Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, a new Chairman-in-Office of the Council of Minister’s Committee of Ministers, in Madrid on Thursday, an official with the press office of the Polish embassy in Spain told BelaPAN.

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Prominent Belarusian historian Igor Kuznetsov proposed that the memorial complex to be constructed at Trostenets near Minsk for commemorating the victims of the Nazi death camp that was located there should also honor the memory Stalin terror victims.

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Before the recent parliamentary elections and referendum Alyaksandr Lukashenka publicly told about average salary growth up to 250 $ that is to take place next year. The corresponding instructions were sent to the agencies of administration. In particular, Administration of the Free Economic Zone “Homel-Raton” sent foreign businesses the demands to raise the salaries to the aforesaid value.

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