Word: alyaksandr
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Belarus is in many ways a post-Soviet nation in name only. Its state security service is still called the KGB and the iron-fisted rule of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has led the U.S. State Department to dub the country "Europe's last dictatorship." U.S.-based nongovernmental organization Freedom House included the country in its "Worst of the Worst 2009" report released earlier this month, naming Belarus one of the 21 most repressive places in the world...
Since the Georgia-Russia war last August, Brussels has been keen to draw Belarus away from Moscow and closer into its camp. The first step last October was the suspension of an E.U. visa ban against Belarus' authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and other top officials. That relaxation of the travel restrictions, which were first instituted in 2006 after a rigged presidential election and violent crackdown on protestors, was renewed last week. In another sign of mending relations, the E.U.'s foreign policy chief Javier Solana visited Minsk on Feb. 19 for meetings with top Belarusian officials. E.U. leaders...
...Europe keep the pressure on even as it reaches out for closer ties? Yes, say some in Minsk. "No normal person can be opposed to dialogue, cooperation, and aspirations to make the situation better," former presidential candidate and political prisoner Alyaksandr Kazulin told Radio Free Europe recently...
Sometime next year, opposition to Belarussian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka will burst out onto the streets in Ukrainian-style mass protests. At least, that's what Alyaksandr Milinkevich predicts - and he plans to lead the demonstrations against Lukashenka, who presides over what U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls Europe's "last true dictatorship." But first, Milinkevich will challenge Lukashenka in the presidential elections next July. "The situation here is somewhat different [from Ukraine], but the scenarios are similar everywhere when it comes to dictatorships," he told Time. "Dictatorial regimes never admit defeat." If the President is running scared, it doesn...
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