According to the Ministry of Information order the “NTV-Belarus” television channel broadcasting by cable and air linking systems becomes obligatory. The “Cosmos TV” firm, a multi-channel television operator in Minsk, received corresponding order of Minsk City Council on January 12.

---

On 23 January the Embassy of Latvia filed with the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Belarus a note concerning the defilement of the building of the Embassy in Minsk in the evening of 22 January, when unknown persons threw on the fasade of the building bottles with black paint and scattered leaflets with National-Bolshevik symbols on the adjacent territory. An analogical act of vandalism was performed in 2005.

---

In the morning of 22 January Iuliia Harachankova received a telephone call from the city’s KGB office. The KGB workers invited her for a talk. The activist answered she would come to them only on a summons. In the evening the summons was handed to her mother, as the girl was absent.

---

Viktar Syrytsa has informed HRC Viasna about receiving an answer from Baranavichy city prosecutor’s office and Baranavichy city police department concerning his complaint about illegal actions of the police during a search of his apartment.

---

On January 23, on the third day of a trial in the case of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee member Pavel Lyavinau, judge Natalya Karablina suspended the meeting for 20 minutes. However, she didn’t return to the court room of Pershamajski court of Minsk, Radio Racyja informs.

---

Government of Belarus is going to make a proposition to Alyaksandr Lukashenka on introduction of rent payment for land for transiting entities subject to the international legislation. This information was conveyed to head of the state by Syargei Sydorsky on January 23 in the course of the meeting at the “Naftan” Joint-Stock Company, the press-service of the Belarusian ruler informed the Interfax. In the near future the corresponding documents will be submitted to Lukashenka for consideration.

---

Russian-Belarusian "porous" border can be used by terrorists for penetrating the Russian Federation, Russian Border Service head Vladimir Pronichev said.

---

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the interior ministry’s attempts to force the closure of Vitebsky Kurier, an independent biweekly based in the northeastern city of Vitebsk. The ministry told the newspaper on 12 January, two days after it was evicted from its premises by the Vitebsk commercial court, that its permit will be withdrawn if it does not produce documents showing it has a new address within two weeks.

---

In the ministry of defense no detailed information was given on minister of defense of Belarus Leanid Maltsau’s visit to Iran and they categorically refused to comment on the Belarusian- Iranian memorandum on military cooperation, signed in Teheran. While commenting on the present situation to the press-center of the Charter’97 first minister of defense of independent Belarus General Pavel Kazlousky declared that when he was a minister of defense (1992-1994) all visits of the minister and his subordinates were made openly in Belarus and information about the visits was operatively transferred to the mass media.

---

A 20-years-old young man fell out of the window on the second floor of the Pinsk city milicia station and immediately died. As the BelaPAN was informed at the prosecutor’s office, the young man was detained on suspicion of a mobile phone theft by the miliciamen at 1.25 a.m. on January 22.

---

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko declared the conflict with Russia over supplies and transit of energy sources unfinished yesterday. He stated that he expects $3.5 billion lost in concessions to Russia to be returned. In particular, he was referring to imposing rental payments for the 40,000 hectares of land on which oil, gas and petroleum product pipelines lie.

---

President George W. Bush used his State of the Union address to signal the United States` continued support for "the cause of freedom" in Cuba, Myanmar and Belarus, countries the administration has labeled "outposts of tyranny."

---