Belarus
Belarus (Bela - White, Rus - Russia), also known as White Russia, is a country in eastern Europe, bordering on Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, and Ukraine. Its capital is Minsk.
Although the country declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarus has implemented Soviet-style policies under the rule of de facto dictator Alexander Lukashenko and is interested in joining back up with Russia again. It is often said [By whom?] that the Soviet Union never really ended in Belarus: There never was 'shock therapy' privatization of the economy like in most other Warsaw Pact countries and most large companies are still state owned along the established pre-1991 lines. Politics have never seen liberalization either; Lukashenko is often called 'the last dictator of Europe', though he's recently gained some competition for this title. Since the founding of the so-called 'Union State' between Russia and Belarus in 1999, the two nations have been working closely together on economic and security policy in a construction which can be seen as halfway between the European Union and the United States, with added flag waving and guys with guns marching around. In 2014, Belarus joined Russia and Kazakhstan in the Eurasian Economic Union,[1] which essentially aims to be a (Russian-dominated) version of the EU. Lukashenko is known for his statement, that it is better to be a dictator than gay. Philosophers worldwide are still out to prove this, but we can think of someone who would probably disagree.
[edit] In the land of the blind, everyone is jealous of the one-eyed person
Lukashenko won the 2013 Ig Nobel Prize for Peace for making it illegal to applaud in public,[2][3] and to prove the point, a one-armed man was arrested for clapping.[4]
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are prospective EEU members with Armenia having begun the accession process.
- ↑ Winners of the Ig® Nobel Prize
- ↑ Belarus's crackdown. No applause, please: A hardline president is having to cope with a collapsing economy (Jul 7th 2011) The Economist
- ↑ In Belarus, one-armed man arrested for clapping by Fred Weir (July 8, 2011). Christian Science Monitor