Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met with the pope Monday on his first trip to Western Europe since the European Union lifted a travel ban imposed a decade ago over his dismal human rights record.

The roof has been removed and the windows stripped of their frames and glass. Piece by piece, workers are tearing down the former synagogue where a renowned rabbi served before fleeing the Soviet Union for New York in 1936.

Nikolai Ilyuchik was 11 when his mother first told him how the Nazis killed all the Jewish men in their Belarusian village during World War II.

Belarus’ authoritarian president allowed a banned organization of ethnic Poles to meet Sunday for the first time in four years, sending a tentative signal of his willingness to relax his tight hold in exchange for warmer ties with the West.

Once again, ethnic Polish activist Andrzej Poczobut expects to be arrested in Belarus, a former Soviet republic whose authoritarian president sees his country’s ethnic Poles as agents of a hostile West.

Russia’s ambassador to Belarus says Moscow will finance Belarus’ first nuclear power plant and construction will begin this year.

Venezuela’s state oil company is behind on billions in payments to private oil contractors from Oklahoma to Belarus, some of which have now stopped work, even as President Hugo Chavez funnels more oil revenue to social programs.

Russia and Belarus will create a new military system to monitor and defend their air space, the Kremlin said Tuesday _ strengthening cooperation between the two uneasy allies who are deeply suspicious of U.S. plans to put a missile defense shield in Europ

Belarus’ central bank sharply devalued the Belarusian ruble Friday, allowing the currency to plunge 20 percent to help stop the hemorrhaging of its reserves. The move came as an unwelcome shock to ordinary citizens.

Belarus’ central bank sharply devalued the Belarusian ruble Friday, allowing the currency to plunge 20 percent in a move that will stop the hemorrhaging of its reserves.