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15th October 2015
N e w s a d e m ic .co m ™
- British English edition
page
10
surface to breathe.
Snakeheads
can also ‘w alk’, or wriggle, over
land. The fish live in shallow pools,
streams and swampy areas. By wrig
gling, they can move from one body
o f water to another. Some are known
to have travelled over wet, or marshy,
land for 0.4 kilometres (0.25 miles).
Snakeheads can survive out o f the
water for about four days.
View o f P arachiloglanis bhutanensis from the
side and below (G overnm ent o f Bhutan)
In the report the WWF warns
that there are threats to all the ani
mal and plant species in this part
o f the world. These include popu
lation growth, deforestation, min
ing, overgrazing, pollution, and the
building o f hydroelectric dams. All
o f these, the report says, lead to
a loss o f habitat. Poaching, or il
legal hunting, either for food or the
wildlife trade is another threat to
many animals. □
B
elarus
pr esid en tia l
election
A presidential election was held in
Belarus on 11th October. The fol
lowing day, election officials an
nounced that Alexander Lukashen
ko had won with 83.5% o f the votes.
M r Lukashenko is often described
as ‘Europe’s last dictator’.
Belarus is in Eastern Europe. It is
a landlocked country. This means it
has no coastline or access to the sea.
Like many other Eastern European
countries, it was once controlled
by the Russian-led Soviet Union.
Belarus became a fully independent
country in 1990 during the dissolu
tion o f the Soviet Union. After the
Soviet Union broke up, many other
countries in Eastern Europe joined
the European Union (EU). Yet B e
larus has continued to work closely
with Russia.
M r Lukashenko has been Bela
rus’ president since 1994. He is now
61 years old. Six years ago, M r Lu
kashenko changed the constitution.
This is the set o f rules by which a
country is governed. Many countries
have a limit on how many times a per
son can serve as their president. Mr
Lukashenko’s changes to the consti
tution mean that there are no limits to
the number o f times he can be elected.
This was the fifth election that
M r Lukashenko has won. Some
people in Belarus and in other coun
tries say that none o f these votes, or
ballots, was fair. Opposition groups
claim that they are persecuted and
intimidated. There were three other
candidates in the election. Yet none
got more than 4.5% o f the votes.
After the election in 2010, opposi
tion leaders organised street protests
in Minsk, the country’s capital city.
Hundreds o f people were arrested
and put in prison including six op
position leaders.
Many organisations in Belarus
are still run in the same way to how
they were when the country was
controlled by the Soviet Union. The
government owns most factories
and many farms. Mr. Lukashenko
makes sure that workers in govern
ment-owned factories and farms are
paid on time. Older people always
receive their pension payments on
the correct date. This didn’t always
happen in the past. So, even though
some people complain about Mr
Lukashenko, most farm and factory
workers, as well as retired people,
support him. His nickname in Bela
rus is Batka, or ‘Father’.
In recent months Mr Lukashenko
has tried to help end the fighting
in eastern Ukraine. There, armed
groups, or rebels, want that part of
Ukraine to be self-governing. They
have been fighting against Ukrain
ian government forces.
Russia
supports the rebels. A ‘ceasefire’
meeting took place in M insk eight
months ago. Mr Lukashenko hosted
it. The leaders o f Russia, Ukraine,
France, and Germany and repre
sentatives from the rebel groups
attended. A ceasefire was agreed.
However, fighting has continued in
some places.
After the 2010 election, the lead
ers o f the EU and the USA sent a
message to M r Lukashenko. They
said the opposition leaders who
were arrested must be freed. When
this did not happen, they imposed
some sanctions on Belarus. About
170 senior people, including M r Lu
kashenko, and 14 organisations in
his country were banned from trav
elling to EU countries and the USA.
International money transfers were
also restricted.
A le xa n d e r Lukashenko, pre sid e n t o f Belarus
(Serge Serebro, Vitebsk Po p u la r News)
Two months before the latest
election, Mr Lukashenko freed the
opposition leaders. They had been
in prison for nearly five years. On
12th October, the day after the elec
tion, the EU announced that it would
suspend, or end, its sanctions. The
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