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The COVID-19 pandemic affected not only global economy and society, but also particular institutions, including those of higher education. The aim of the paper is to determine changes in students' life at selected universities in Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. An online survey was applied, addressed to students of four universities in Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus (n=380). As a result of the pandemic, more than 46% of students declared worsening of their material situation. In comparison to the period before the pandemic, the respondents observed appearance or intensification of various psychosomatic symptoms, and a 12 percent point decrease in the assessment of their own health. The comparative analysis showed similarities between students' life preferences, plans on university education, and differences in their material situation, health, and employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Especially relevant at the present time is the study of the impact of the global crisis - a pandemic caused by the infection COVID-19 on the countries and the world's sustainable development. The consequences of the popular trend of globalization, a certain closedness of the principles of capitalization, and, of course, the impact of the global crisis caused by COV1D-19 were investigated in the scientific work. The study aims to confirm the transformation of sustainable development trends and the transition from worldwide globalization to national capitalization of the agricultural entrepreneurship potential in the modern conditions of the global crisis of Covid-19. The goal will be achieved by tasks through accounting and analytical support and mathematical analysis of the quadratic correlation and regression dependence of the integrated indicator of sustainable development. Research methodology consist of analysis and collection of economic, environmental, and social data of agriculture in European countries. At this stage, the most significant indicators of six countries were selected: Ukraine, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Poland and Belarus. Index analysis was used for formation of an integral indicator - a sustainable development index. Also Microsoft Excel tools were used. An index analysis of the main indicators of sustainable development is provided in the paper. On the basis of the integrated index of sustainable development of agriculture, a trend line was built and a forecast of the vector of globalization/capitalization was made. An upward forecast of the integrated index of agriculture sustainable development, which indicates a continuous process of globalization was proved in the paper. This pattern corresponds to Belarus and Romania and was proved by the basis of imperial studies. The calculation and forecast of the transition from global globalization to national capitalization as a result of the impact of the pandemic and quarantine were presented in the scientific work too. This pattern is inherent in Hungary, Germany, Poland and Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social remittances- the transfer of ideas, practices, and codes of behaviors- are a well-documented subject in migrant transnationalism literature and transnational family studies. However, the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak has generated unprecedented regulations around the world which require widening the conceptual basis of social remittances in a state of emergency. As the pandemic progresses, most countries require civilians to follow a number of norms deemed as the "new normality," while other countries continue to operate under their "old normality," with minor or no restrictions. As national pandemic policy responses vary across countries, transnational families live under different regimes of "normality." In these settings, the study of transnational families offers a valuable opportunity to examine a special type of social remittances practiced during global crises, and analyze whether the exchange of rules, practices, and ideas across national borders has any impact on re-shaping and renegotiating pandemic-coping "new normality" practices for both migrants and their families. The paper is based on 13 in-depth interviews conducted with representatives from Armenian transnational families with migrant members in Russia, the Czech Republic, or Belarus. These countries provide a backdrop for an examination of social remittances among transnational families that we term "pandemic transnationalism." The study shows that the circulation of safety rules and "good practices" actively shapes the everyday behavior of migrants and their families, their level of perceived danger towards the coronavirus, and their practical knowledge of safety measures. The latter are often harnessed in informal collective settings despite being in conflict with the obligations and regulations of their home society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online messaging app Telegram has increased in popularity in recent years surpassing Twitter and Snapchat by the number of active monthly users in late 2020. The messenger has also been crucial to protest movements in several countries in 2019-2020, including Belarus, Russia and Hong Kong. Yet, to date only few studies examined online activities on Telegram and none have analyzed the platform with regard to the protest mobilization. In the present study, we address the existing gap by examining Telegram-based activities related to the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. With this paper we aim to provide an example of methodological tools that can be used to study protest mobilization and coordination on Telegram. We also contribute to the research on computational text analysis in Cantonese—one of the low-resource Asian languages,—as well as to the scholarship on Hong Kong protests and research on social media-based protest mobilization in general. For that, we rely on the data collected through Telegram's API and a combination of network analysis and computational text analysis. We find that the Telegram-based network was cohesive ensuring efficient spread of protest-related information. Content spread through Telegram predominantly concerned discussions of future actions and protest-related on-site information (i.e., police presence in certain areas). We find that the Telegram network was dominated by different actors each month of the observation suggesting the absence of one single leader. Further, traditional protest leaders—those prominent during the 2014 Umbrella Movement,—such as media and civic organisations were less prominent in the network than local communities. Finally, we observe a cooldown in the level of Telegram activity after the enactment of the harsh National Security Law in July 2020. Further investigation is necessary to assess the persistence of this effect in a long-term perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2020 presidential election in Belarus was different from previous elections in the independence period. Three candidates emerged from the economic and political elite, and several factors reduced the popularity of the incumbent president Aliaksandr Lukashenka, particularly his so-called Parasite Laws of 2016, his dismissal of Covid-19 as a psychosis, and the destruction of crosses at the Kurapaty memorial site. Though several candidates were barred from running, the campaign of Svjatlana Cichanoŭskaja emerged as a serious challenge, with popular mass rallies and support from the other two major campaign teams. Yet the announced results gave Lukashenka over 80%. The response was the largest mass demonstrations seen in Belarus since the late 1980s, to which the government responded with repressions and arrests. The paper discusses the various analyses of the election results and whether the "national awakening" can herald real political change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores #presidentspartingwords, a viral hashtag that accompanied the eulogy-like posts that social media users created about themselves in spring 2020 by satirically emulating president Alexander Lukashenko's patronizing remarks about the first coronavirus victims in Belarus, an authoritarian post-Soviet country. The study examines how the online public used these discursive sites to challenge the governmentally sanctioned subject positions, which construct Belarusians as inapt dependents of the state, by articulating themselves as efficacious,autonomous agents. The study argues the coronavirus pandemic served as a "permissive condition" for critical juncture by disrupting thelogic of the official discourse in which Lukashenko is assigned the role of the major, if not the only, rhetor imbued with the legitimacy to speak on behalf of the Belarusian people. I argue that approaching the coronavirus as a potential critical juncture offers critical mediascholars a useful analytical category for theorizing the discursive conditionality of political change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This photo essay examines the process of isolation during the first period of the COVID-19 pandemic based on the quarantine photos of a family from Belarus. It illustrates how the content and form of the collected images visualized the invisible markers of the pandemic and reflected various stages of isolation, transformations of the notion of home, and changes in family dynamics and routines. To collect the photographs, a weeklong remote participatory project was conducted. The findings of this project thus pointed to a direct correlation between photographs and changes in the social world and individuals' lives brought about by the coronavirus outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public health intervention to contain the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic significantly differed by country since the SARS-CoV-2 spread varied regionally in time and in scale. Since vaccinations were not available until the end of 2020 non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) remained the only strategies to mitigate the pandemic spread at that time. Belarus in Europe is one of a few countries with a high Human Development Index where no lockdowns have ever been implemented and only limited NPIs have taken place for a period of time. Therefore, the Belarusian case was evaluated and compared in terms of the mortality burden. Since the COVID-19 mortality was low, the excess overall mortality was studied for Belarus. Since no overall mortality data have been reported past June 2020 the analysis was complemented by the study of Google Trends funeral-related search queries up until August 2021. Depending on the model, the Belarusian mortality for June of 2020 was 29 to 39% higher than otherwise expected with the corresponding estimated excess death was from 2953 to 3690 while the reported COVID-19 mortality for June 2020 was only 157 cases. The Belarusian excess mortality for June 2020 was higher than for all neighboring countries with an excess of 5% for Poland, 5% for Ukraine, 8% for Russia, 11% for Lithuania and 11% for Latvia. The relationship between Google Trends and mortality time series was studied using Granger's test and the results were statistically significant. The results for Google Trends searches did vary by key phrase with the largest excess of 138% for April 2020 and 148% for September 2020 was observed for a key phrase "coffin", while the largest excess of 218% for January 2021 was observed for "funeral services". In summary, there are indications of the excess overall mortality in Belarus, which is larger than the reported COVID-19-related mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this note, we consider early evidence regarding behavioural responses to an emerging public health emergency. We explore patterns in stadium attendance demand by exploiting match-level data from the Belarusian Premier League (BPL), a football competition that kept playing unrestricted in front of spectators throughout the global COVID-19 pandemic, unlike all other European professional sports leagues. We observe that stadium attendance demand in Belarus declined significantly in the initial period of maximum uncertainty. Surprisingly, demand then slowly recovered, despite the ongoing inherent risk to individuals from going to a match. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are good comparators sharing a common Soviet past, similar cultures and religions, while in the COVID-19 crisis they have pursued quite different policies. Belarus has denied the pandemic and undertaken no measures. Russia played down the epidemic for a long time and then undertook half-hearted and incoherent measures. Ukraine feared the virus and carried out an early and strict quarantine in a centralized policy. While testing has been sparse until recently and death tolls remain uncertain, Belarus and Russia appear to have done poorly in terms of health, while Ukraine has so far done much better. It is too early to judge the economic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers how Russia has reacted to the pandemic, especially in terms of foreign policy. Although internally the management of the pandemic has led to a further limitation of citizens' freedoms, externally it has been exploited to improve the country's image and strengthen its leverage through tactical activism and political generosity. Russia's strategy has been articulated in two phases: first, immediate aid to countries in need in order to channel the idea of a benevolent state, directly or indirectly discrediting other countries or organisations; second, the geopolitical use of vaccines. The article stresses the relationship between science and foreign policy and analyses Russia's health diplomacy strategy, underscoring its opportunities and challenges through the analysis of two case studies (Italy and Belarus). From a methodological perspective, the article mainly refers to foreign policy analysis (FPA), using concepts such as soft power, health diplomacy, and geopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]