Society | Belarus - Expat Reporter

How Belarus Exposes the Lockdown Lie

Rachel Allen from Off-Guardian.org investigates why authoritarian Belarus is coping with COVID-19 without lockdown and other measures which cause unrest and resistance in democractic Europe and USA. Numbers and citataions from actors may clarify the whole picture.

MPs reduced the period for obtaining Belarusian citizenship. But now it can be lost for extremism

Susan Holmes

Belarusian parliament amended the Law “On Citizenship of the Republic of Belarus”. The document has already been published on the National Legal Portal. It will enter into force on June 18, 2021. According to it, the terms for acquiring Belarusian citizenship are reduced, but cases of its loss for extremism are prescribed.

Covid-19: How does Belarus have one of the lowest death rates in Europe?

Ron Mitchell

Plagued by political turmoil over “Europe’s last dictatorship” and with a president in denial of covid-19, how has Belarus ended up with one of the lowest death rates on the continent? Kata Karáth from British Medical Journal reports

Minsk Metro: All Four Stations of the New 3d line Are Ready for Launch

Ron Mitchell

“Minskmetrostroy” reports that all four stations of the third line of Minsk subway are done. It was announced that the line which connects Minsk south districts to the city center will, highly likely, start functioning in November 2020.

Lukashenko talks about political, economic results of meeting with Orban

Michael Pike

Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko held negotiations with Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban in the Palace of Independence on 5 June. It is Viktor Orban’s first state visit to Belarus

Minsk Dialogue experts: The conflict between Belarus and Russia is reaching a dangerous line

Michael Pike

Relations with Russia have not gained a “new normality” and have been deteriorating for six months now, Of the whole range of problematic issues, a compromise, however, temporary and unreliable, was found only on oil supplies in March-April this year. There has been no progress on the visa issue, integration road maps or mobile phones’s roaming in the Union State.

US Ambassador back soon: Trump names his nominee for US envoy to Belarus

Michael Pike

The Trump administration is likely to appoint a veteran diplomat as U.S. ambassador to Belarus—the first in more than a decade—amid its efforts to strengthen ties with a country long considered to be in Russia’s orbit.

The Jewish Resistance Museum in Novogrudok

History of the Kushners: why Donald Trump’s in-laws are coming to Belarus this summer

Michael Pike

The founder and curator of the Museum of Jewish Resistance in Novogrudok, Tamara Vershitskaya, met with Charles Kushner, a US billionaire and in-law of US President Donald Trump, in January in New York. Now she is talking about this meeting and how the family of the American billionaire keeps the memory of Belarus.

The Swiss embassy was opened in Minsk

Ron Mitchell

In Minsk, at Svabody Square, 11 Swiss Embassy was opened. Before that, only a representative office of this country worked in Belarus. The head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign AffairsIgnazio Cassis flew to the Belarusian capital for the opening ceremony. Together with him the embassy was opened by the head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Vladimir Makei.

Europe’s Last Soviet Economy Approaches Its ‘Hour of Reckoning’

Michael Pike

Belarus kept old factories, jobs, and social services alive after communism. Now that model is under threat from Russia, Bloomberg Businessweek writes in its recent article about Belarus