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Chernobyl: Moving on - and remembering

Last update: Thursday, December 18, 2008, 08:31 | © Metro Éireann

Over 20 years on from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, huge challenges still face those in the most affected areas of Belarus. Development workers and residents in the country’s east tell CATHERINE REILLY how far they’ve come, and what problems remain.

A minority under siege?

Last update: Thursday, December 11, 2008, 12:49 | By: Catherine Reilly

Controversies over the treatment of Belarusian Poles brought Poland and Belarus to the brink of severing diplomatic ties in 2005. CATHERINE REILLY visits Minsk and Grodno to gauge whether a possible warming in Belarusian-EU relations heralds hope for Belarus’s Polish communities

Bad press?

Last update: Thursday, December 4, 2008, 03:40 | By: Catherine Reilly

Belarus’s president Alexander Lukashenko has been accused of crushing independent journalism since coming to power in 1994. Amid suggestions that his rule may loosen to facilitate economic ties with the EU, CATHERINE REILLY meets government and non-government journalists in the Belarusian capital Minsk, who tell her what they can and cannot report

In their own words - Belarusians in Ireland

Last update: Thursday, November 27, 2008, 15:34 | By: Catherine Reilly

Belarus and its 10 million residents stand at a European crossroads, sharing a border with Russia and Ukraine to their northeast and south, and neighbouring the EU countries of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. But beyond Belarus’ global media tag as ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’, and its association with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, little is often known about this intriguing yet somewhat isolated country, which boasts a wealth of traditions and has endured a turbulent history.In the first of a four-part series on Belarus, Ireland-based Belarusians speak to CATHERINE REILLY about their traditions, life in Ireland, and their controversial leader, Alexander Lukashenko.