Semyon Vainshtok, the head of Russia's state pipeline monopoly Transneft, says it could take Russia less than 18 months to build a new oil pipeline bypassing Belarus.

It's rare for Belarus's authoritarian president to speak to Western media. But recently Alyaksandr Lukashenka has opened up.

Belarus has announced it will sharply increase transit tariffs for Russian oil this month.

Belarusian police have detained around 30 members of an opposition youth group, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reported.

Belarus plans to charge foreign states $5 million per year to rent the land under oil and gas pipelines transiting through Belarus.

Belarusian authorities backtracked today, reversing a decision to evict a leading human rights group from its office in Minsk.

Following Russia's more than twofold increase of gas prices and imposition of a sizable duty on crude oil supplies to Belarus in 2007, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka seems to be utterly confused and at a loss to decide what course he should take now.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said today the eviction of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee from its offices in Minsk was an "act of harassment."

A human rights group in Belarus says authorities have ordered it to leave its offices in a building it has rented from the state since 1998.

Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar and his visiting Belarusian counterpart, Leanid Maltseu, have signed an agreement aimed at expanding defense cooperation.

The highest-ranking European diplomat to visit Belarus in years called today for democratic change and the release of political prisoners during a speech at Belarusian State University.

Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly President Rene van der Linden arrived in Minsk today at the start of a three-day visit, a rare trip by a senior Western official to the authoritarian state.