European Union leaders have agreed on a set of sanctions to be laid against Belarus, including banning its airlines from using the bloc's airspace and airports, after a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was forced to land in Minsk and a Belarusian journalist on board was detained.And in case you had to ask, Iran had nothing to do with it. From Sputnik:
EU leaders also demanded the immediate release of the journalist, Raman Pratasevich, a key foe of authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
"We won't tolerate that one can try to play Russian roulette with the lives of innocent civilians,'' said EU Council chief Charles Michel, who presided over the EU meeting.
EU leaders came to the decision at an emergency summit held on Monday and are expected to enforce the sanctions as soon as legal proceedings will allow.
Hamas Denies Making Fake Bomb Threat That Caused Ryanair Plane to Land in Minsk
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum denied on Monday the group's involvement in the Ryanair plane emergency landing in Minsk over a false bomb threat.
Earlier on Monday, the Belarusian foreign ministry claimed that the plane was diverted to Minsk after the National Minsk Airport received a letter with a bomb alert written in the name of the Palestinian-based militant group Hamas. Allegedly, the Hamas soldiers demanded that the EU stop supporting Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip and warned that they will otherwise detonate an explosive device over Vilnius.
"We don't resort to these methods, which could be the doing of some suspicious parties that aim to demonise Hamas and foil the state of world sympathy with our Palestinian people and their legitimate resistance," the Hamas spokesman was cited as saying by Reuters.
- He was a journalist for the Polish-Lithuanian-funded Euroradio, as well as Radio Liberty.
- Protasevich was part of the Maidan protests in Kiev 2013/2014, as a picture on Facebook shows, where, clad in a Belarusian People's State flag, he is taking part in the destruction of a Lenin statue.
- Protasevich has a neo-Nazi and anti-communist background. He is a sympathizer of the Pahonia Detachment, a Belarusian militia that has fought alongside the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in Ukraine's post-Maidan civil war.
- In February and March 2017, Belarus was swept by a series of demonstrations throughout the country, which Protasevich eagerly "documented," always just a step away from the neo-Nazi black block.
- On March 4 he took part at the installment of a temporary nationalist memorial, going along with a symbolic book burning.
- He posted a picture of himself inside the US State Department, stating "Never had so many important and interesting encounters in my life. Tired but very pleased." In DC he met with fellow regime change swamp creature, the Ukrainian-American Gleb Zhavoronkov.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is facing a new round of questions about a much-criticized trip to Florida after revelations that the air travel company she chartered for the flight wasn't actually authorized to perform charter flights.
Whitmer has previously faced scrutiny over the March trip, which she initially lied about taking, and which came after she had cautioned Michigan residents against traveling out of state due to coronavirus concerns.
The Detroit Free Press raised new questions for Whitmer on Monday when the outlet published a report revealing Air Eagle, LLP - the air travel company that Whitmer chartered to visit her father in Florida - was not authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to give charter flights.
[...]
Retired FAA Inspector Larry Williams told the paper that aircraft owners are allowed to bus them and their friends around for free under a Part 91 certificate but that any other passenger required the Part 135 certification.
Williams also said the flight would be considered a charter and that the revelation was "pretty serious" - carrying with it civil penalties for the plane owners and the pilot - and that the FAA made putting down unauthorized charter flights one of their priorities.
How about some civil penalties for Whitmer?
[...]
Michigan Republican Party communications director Ted Goodman told Fox News on Monday that the report was "concerning," but "not surprising."
"This new bombshell that Whitmer's plane was not authorized to fly is concerning, yet not surprising," Goodman said in a statement. "For Whitmer, it's always been, rules for thee, but not for me."
In a Monday statement to Fox News, Republican Governors Association spokesperson Chris Gustafson argued that the governor's "appalling lack of transparency surrounding her secret unvaccinated vacation to Florida is inexcusable."
Comment: Transitioning is a radical treatment that, in most cases, could be avoided with good mental health protocols. It is not something that should be rushed or undergone without a serious psychological assessment and certainly should not be open to children.
See also: