Minsk takes the lowest place in the world among European cities regarding the living standards. This conclusion is made as a result of a research conducted by an international company Mercer. The research was held in over 200 cities in the world. The first place is occupied by Zurich second year in a row, the second is shared between Vienna and Geneva. Among Eastern European cities the first place went to Prague (71 place). Vilnius is at 78 place, Warsaw at 85 place and Riga at 89 place. Minsk occupied 183 place, the lowest of all European cities.

Active discussions on Belarus at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) stopped in 2004, following release of the well-known Pourgourides Report[1] and, consequently, adoption of the Resolution on Disappeared Persons[2], as well as the Resolution on Persecution of the Press in the Republic of Belarus[3]. In the course of 2004-2005, PACE continuously made statements condemning the grave situation with human rights, political freedoms and independent media, and called on the Belarusian government to improve the state of affairs: release political prisoners, conduct free, fair and democratic elections, ensure favourable conditions for existence and functioning of the independent press, allow freedom of assembly.

For Belarus Germany is turning into a supplier and intermediary.

During the Belarusian meetings in the 14^th School of Civil Society Leaders several important topics weren’t seriously discussed. I can’t but mention it, because these questions are vital to the interests of Belarus and to my own activity in the country.

The 2007 edition of the European Commission's annual scoreboard of companies' spending on research and development (R&D) shows that corporate R&D has increased by 10%, with EU-based companies increasing their R&D investment by 7.4%. This compares to 5.3% growth reported in the 2006 edition. The scoreboard also shows an upward trend in companies' profitability all over the world. The world's biggest investor in R&D in the 2007 Scoreboard is Pfizer of the US, with €5.8 billion. The top EU company is DaimlerChrysler of Germany with €5.2 billion.

Round table on the results of the organized activity game “Elaboration of the victorious political strategy for Belarus 2006: scenarios, projection and programming”, 27 June 2005.
Some things should be explained: those who have been given the program with invitation saw here the surnames of Bogdanovich and Leonov. We had no time to change them though on the Saturday’s morning it was known that none of them would participate. The reason was in the co-ordinate participation refusal of “five+” or “ten” and politicians who were invited on the meeting and namely the discussion with whom on this round table was planned to organize and for what the strategy is elaborating in such public variant. Moreover, the decision was probably made on Friday as in the Friday afternoon it was acknowledged that we are going to gather on Varvasheni Street, 8 but not here and there was not participation refusals.
But without paying attention on the things which happen when we begin to do something I would like to represent for the discussion the strategy of the victory