Belarus’ president yesterday headed to Russia to seek assistance amid a bruising showdown with the EU over the diversion of a flight to arrest a dissident journalist, as Russian authorities refuse some European airlines entry if they avoid Belarusian airspace.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his Black Sea residence in Sochi for talks on closer economic ties, the Kremlin said.
Belarus provoked the EU’s outrage when Belarusian flight controllers on Sunday told the crew of a Ryanair jet flying from Greece to Lithuania there was a bomb threat and instructed it to land in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, where 26-year-old journalist Roman Protasevich was arrested along with his Russian girlfriend.
Photo: AP
Although Belarusian authorities claimed that Minsk had received a threatening e-mail from a ProtonMail address purportedly from the Palestinian group Hamas claiming that a bomb was on board flight FR4978, the e-mail provider posted on Twitter that after reviewing a leaked copy of the e-mail, they determined it was sent after the plane was diverted.
The EU responded by barring Belarusian carriers from its airspace and airports and advising European airlines to skirt Belarus.
The bloc’s foreign ministers agreed on Thursday to ramp up sanctions to target the country’s lucrative potash industry and other sectors of the Belarusian economy that are the main cash-earners for Lukashenko’s government.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell yesterday said the bloc was monitoring whether Russia was systematically refusing to let European airlines land if they avoided Belarus after several flights were canceled.
On Thursday, Austrian Airlines said it had canceled a Vienna-Moscow flight after Russian authorities did not approve a route change avoiding Belarusian airspace.
An Air France flight from Paris to Moscow on Wednesday had to be canceled for the same reason.
“We don’t know if it is case by case, specific cases or is a general norm from the Russian authorities in order to make the European planes overfly Belarus,” Borrell told journalists. “There were a couple of cases. Some planes that couldn’t land, couldn’t take off, but frankly speaking, we have to wait and see in order to take measures.”
Austria denounced Russia, after it refused to allow the Austrian Airlines flight to be rerouted.
Austrian Airlines is part of Germany’s Lufthansa group, which on Thursday said that all its airlines were “currently avoiding Belarusian airspace.”
Scheduled flights to Moscow and Saint Petersburg continued, it said.
The International Civil Aviation Organization Council on Thursday said it would “undertake a fact-finding investigation of this event” to determine if there had been any breach of international aviation law by a member country.
A nervous-looking Protasevich was last seen in a video released by Belarusian authorities on Monday in which he was seen supposedly admitting to helping to organize mass unrest, a charge that could land him in jail for 15 years.
“I want you to relay our appeal everywhere, throughout the world, to government representatives, to EU countries, to EU leaders, to US leaders: I am appealing, I am begging, help me free my son,” his mother, Natalia Protasevich, told journalists in Warsaw.
Roman’s father, Dmitry Protasevich, on Thursday said that his son was “a tough man” and “a hero.”
“Throughout his life he fought for the truth and passed it on to people, which is why Lukashenko committed this despicable act,” he said.
The couple and their lawyer confirmed that they have not had any communication with their son since his arrest.
Additional reporting by AFP
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
NASA on Thursday said that the long-delayed launch of Artemis 2, the first crewed flyby mission to the moon in more than 50 years, could come as soon as April 1. “We are on track for a launch as early as April 1, and we are working toward that date,” Lori Glaze, a senior NASA official, told a news conference, after technical difficulties delayed a launch originally expected last month. “It’s a test flight, and it is not without risk, but our team and our hardware are ready,” she said. “Just keep in mind we still have work” to do. The US space
RSS