About 50 people were wounded early on Friday by a home-made bomb that sprayed nuts and bolts into a crowd at an open-air concert in Belarus’s capital.
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/ 27 December 2006
Belarus issued an implicit threat that it could stop Russian gas deliveries through its pipelines to Western Europe unless Gazprom relented on demands that Kiev pay steep price increases in 2007. ”We are inter-dependent. If I don’t have a domestic gas-supply contract, Gazprom won’t have a transit deal,” Belarus’s Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko said.
Depleted by a wave of arrests, Belarus’ opposition movement is seeking ways to regroup after week-long protests were broken up by a state apparatus determined to defend President Alexander Lukashenko. Authorities at a detention centre outside Minsk finally confirmed that they had in detention Alexander Kozulin, an opposition candidate at the March 19 presidential election.
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko clinched a third term in office on Monday but opponents blasted the vote as an "unconstitutional seizure of power" and the European Union said stronger sanctions against the Belarussian leadership were likely.