Despite a deplorable human rights record, Belarus will host the 2014 World Ice Hockey Championship. German MP Marina Schuster argues organisers should take the competition elsewhere
Index on Censorship’s Mike Harris joined a panel debate at the OSCE parallel conference on adopting a joint resolution on Belarus, giving consideration to the country’s suspension from the OSCE, which will now go to the Council of Ministers.
Two more foreign banks halt cooperation with Belarus after German Chancellor Angela Merkel tells Index on Censorship and Free Belarus Now that she would intervene to stop Deutsche Bank from selling government bonds to Europe’s last dictatorship. 
Minsk is as close to Berlin as London is. Yet, an iron curtain separates the two capitals. In 2011, over a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the nation of Belarus holds out as the last dictatorship in Europe, writes John Kampfner
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