SKY PIRACY
U.N.: Belarus' 'abduction' of journalist escalates crackdown on civil society

A spokesman for the U.N. Human Rights Commission accused Belarus on Tuesday of abducting journalist Roman Protasevich over the weekend. Photo by EPA-EFE

May 25 (UPI) -- A United Nations Human Rights Commissioner official warned Tuesday that the Lukashenko regime's hijacking of a commercial airliner with intent to "abduct" a journalist on board represents a "new phase" in its crackdown on civil society.

Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. commissioner, lambasted the government of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during a press briefing concerning the arrest of journalist Roman Protasevich over the weekend.

"This arbitrary arrest is a sign of an extremely worrying escalation in the crackdown on dissenting voices, not just of journalists but also of Belarusian human rights defenders and other civil society actors, including those living abroad," he said.

Protasevich, an exiled journalist critical of Lukashenko, was on a Ryanair flight en route from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, on Sunday when the plane landed under the escort of a Belarusian fighter jet in Minsk where he and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapaga, were arrested.

"The manner, through threat of military force, in which Protasevich was abducted from the jurisdiction of another state and brought within that of Belarus was tantamount to an extraordinary rendition," Colville said. "Such abuse of state power against a journalist for exercising functions that are protected under international law is receiving, and deserves, the strongest condemnation."

Belarus has said the downing of the plane was prompted by a bomb threat and Protasevich was arrested on charges of organizing mass riots and whose name was included in a national terrorist watch list.

On Monday, a video apparently shot by authorities shows Protasevich with marks on his face confessing to having led large-scale anti-government protests last year following August's widely discredited election that saw Lukashenko elected to a sixth term.

U.S. President Joe Biden had raised suspicions Protasevich made the confession under duress on Sunday, worries that Colville shares.

"We fear for Roman Protasevich's safety and wish to seek assurances that he is treated humanely and is not subjected to ill treatment or torture. His appearance on state TV last night was not reassuring, given that apparent bruising to his face, and the strong likelihood that his appearance was not voluntary and his 'confession' to serious crimes was forced."

Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya also raised concerns Tuesday from Vilnius, where she remains in exile, that the 26-year-old journalist has been tortured.

"He said that he is being treated lawfully but he is clearly beaten and under pressure," she said, Voice of America reported. "There is no doubt that he may be tortured."

According to Minsk-based Visana Human Rights Center, Protasevich's legal representatives have not been granted permission to speak with their client despite visiting the pre-trial detention center and other security facilities.

The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Belarus to the United Nations rejected Colville's comments in a strongly worded statement later Tuesday, calling him "a mid-level employee" without authorization to speak on issues of sovereign states.

The mission said Protasevich is a suspect in several criminal cases and was arrested in connection to an international search warrant, stating his arrest was made "on fully legitimate grounds."

"Mr. Colville's qualifications of Belarus' actions in relation to the detention of Mr. Protasevich, a citizen of Belarus, as 'unlawful,' 'arbitrary' and 'abuse' clearly show that the above official went beyond both his powers and the office's mandate," it said. "In so doing, he disregarded both the principle of impartiality that all U.N. international officials must consistently uphold and the doctrine of the presumption of innocence."

The office accused Western nations who have described the incident as state-sponsored hijacking did so without evidence.

"The Belarusian authorities, in accordance with their international obligations, invited these and other organizations, as well as the relevant competent authorities of the United States and the European Union to take part in the investigation," it said.

The comments were made a day after the EU swiftly decided to impose sanctions against the country and for EU aircraft to stay clear of Belarusian airspace as well as banning Minsk planes for landing at their airports. The United States also said it is considering punitive measures.

Both the bloc and the United States, among other western countries, have imposed sanctions and restrictions against the Lukashenko regime over Belarus' August election they deemed to be neither free nor fair and due its security forces escalating crackdown on subsequent protests that forced opposition leaders into exile.

The Viasna Human Rights Center has as of Wednesday tallied 421 political prisoners in the country, most of whom were arrested following the August election.

Following the EU's decision Monday, airlines and countries have said they will be staying clear of Belarus.

Ryanair said none of its flights will fly over Belarus in accordance with the EU guidance. Singapore Airlines, Air France, Lufthansa and British Airways are also avoiding the country.

Finnair announced it will also be discounting use of Belarus' airspace "until further notice."



Meanwhile, the governments of Britain, Lithuanian and others have said their aircraft will avoid Belarus' airspace.

Belavia, Belarus' airliner, announced that due to bans instituted by various countries against it landing at their airports, it was cancelling flights to and from Lithuania, Britain, France and the Ukraine.

In the United States, Biden has come under pressure to do more than issue statements concerning the arrest with U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., calling on him in a letter to direct the Federal Aviation Administration to prohibit U.S. aircraft from Belarus' air space.

Following the arrest, Biden issued a statement stating he has directed his administration to develop options in conjunction with EU and other partners to "hold accountable those responsible."

During a press conference Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that "he's asked his team to put together some options for him."

Meanwhile, Belarus on Tuesday has decided to close its embassy in Canada as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned Protasevich's arrest and said the Lukashenko regime's behavior is "outrageous, illegal and completely unacceptable."

"This was a clear attack on democracy and on the freedom of the press," he said during a press conference. "We condemn it and call for his immediate release."

Canada, which has previously sanctioned Belarus since August, is considering further options, he said.

It is unclear if the embassy's closure was in response to Trudeau's comments.

The embassy said it will suspend its services starting Sept. 1.

SARS-like outbreak in 2012 spotlights role of Wuhan researchers

China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology was the center of bat coronavirus research, but has denied any connection to the coronavirus outbreak in the central Chinese city. File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo


May 25 (UPI) -- A bat cave that was the epicenter of a mysterious pneumonia outbreak in 2012 may have been the origin of a virus related to SARS-CoV-2, but experts remain divided about its connection to the global COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent press report.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the cave was first brought to the attention of China's medical community nearly a decade ago, when workers in it fell ill after clearing out bat excrement.

The report comes after researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology said Friday they have found a new branch in the family tree of bat coronaviruses that have the potential to swap parts, according to the South China Morning Post.

The outbreak at the cave in China's southwest Mojiang region began when a 42-year-old man with the surname Lu was clearing the cave. Lu fell ill and was admitted to a local hospital.

Li Xiu, a student at China's No. 1 School of Clinical Medicine at Kunming Medical University, wrote his thesis about Lu's condition, noting that Lu was admitted to hospital care April 2, 2012, and exhibited symptoms of fever and cough for two weeks. Lu also coughed up mucus spotted with blood and experienced trouble breathing, the paper said.

Top Chinese health officials were alerted to the situation after five other workers, ranging in age from 30 to 63, also were hospitalized.

Zhong Nanshan, a Chinese respiratory disease expert who was the first to publicly disclose that COVID-19 transmits between people, diagnosed pneumonia at the time. A student of George Gao, the current chief of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said four of the miners tested positive for SARS antibodies.

RELATED China denies three Wuhan lab researchers fell ill in November 2019

Scientists at WIV were alerted to the case in 2012 and began to extract genetic material from fecal samples of bats in the Mojiang mine. They called the virus they found RaBtCoV/4991, according to the Journal.

RaBtCoV/4991 was found to "easily exchange genetic material with similar ones to create a new coronavirus," the report said, citing research by Shi Zhengli, the Chinese scientist who headed WIV's bat coronavirus research.

Shi and other scientists also published in February 2020 a paper on the existence of a virus called RaTG13 that was 96.2% similar to SARS-CoV-2.

RaTG13 and RaBtCoV/4991 were found to have "striking similarities" by scientists outside China. Shi also conducted experiments at WIV in 2018 and 2019 to test whether bat coronaviruses could bind to an enzyme in human cells. Shi has not responded to requests for comment, according to the Journal.

DRC volcano: More than 100 children missing, earthquakes hit bordering area, Rwanda

Congolese residents of Goma flee from Mount Nyiragongo volcano as it erupts over Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo Saturday evening. File Photo by Kinsella Cunningham/EPA-EFE

May 25 (UPI) -- The search continued Tuesday for more than 100 children missing since the Mount Nyiragongo volcano eruption in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Mount Nyiragongo volcano in the eastern DRC erupted Saturday evening, with the lava flowing through the northern district of Goma, flattening hundreds of homes and killing more than 30 people, according to the BBC's latest death toll.

The destruction has left parents desperately searching through the rubble for their missing children while the Red Cross and government officials try to reunite families, the BBC reported Tuesday.

The United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, said in a statement Sunday more than 170 children were feared to be missing with 150 of them separated from their families as thousands who had been evacuated returned to the DRC amid concern their homes would be damaged and utilities disrupted.

RELATED Deadly Typhoon Surigae leaves flooding, damage behind in Philippines

Meanwhile, a 5.3-magnitude earthquake was among a series of quakes to hit western Rwanda's Rubavu district bordering the east DRC Tuesday morning where Congolese residents had fled to escape the Mount Nyiragongo volcanic eruption in Goma, Xinhua reported.

The earthquakes have ripped through houses, schools, and several roads, Rubava Mayor Gilbert Habyarimana told Xinhua, prompting several families to flee their homes out of fear they could cave in on them if there is a major earthquake.

The Mount Nyiragongo volcano is one of the largest in the world. Saturday's eruption was the last large eruption since a 2002 eruption that killed 250 people and displaced thousands, CNN reported.

PHOTOS DRC volcano: More than 100 children missing, earthquakes hit bordering area, Rwanda - UPI.com

AP: 

Myanmar’s junta uses bodies as tools of terror

Duration: 03:29 

An investigation by The Associated Press and the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, identified more than 130 cases where Myanmar security forces appeared to be using bodies as tools of terror. (May 26)

Myanmar cardinal appeals for fighting to end after fatal church attack

(Reuters) - Myanmar’s Roman Catholic leader has called for attacks on places of worship to end after he said four people had died and more than eight were wounded when a group of mainly women and children sought refuge in a church during fighting this week.

© Reuters/Stringer . FILE PHOTO: A slogan is written on a street as a protest after the coup in Yangon

© Reuters/SOE ZEYA TUN Charles Maung Bo, Cardinal, Archbishop of Yangon attends the ceremony of interfaith praying in Yangon

The conflict between the army and forces opposed to military rule has escalated in recent days in eastern Myanmar near the border of Shan and Kayah states, with dozens of security forces and local fighters killed, according to residents and media reports.

Thousands of civilians have also fled their homes due to the fighting and have also suffered casualties.

"It is with immense sorrow and pain, we record our anguish at the attack on innocent civilians, who sought refuge in Sacred Heart Church, Kayanthayar," Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, who is the Archbishop of Yangon, said in a letter posted on Twitter.

The church in the district of Loikaw, the capital of Kayah State bordering Thailand, suffered extensive damage during the Sunday night attack, Bo said.

Myanmar is predominantly Buddhist but some areas including Kayah have large Christian communities.

"The violent acts, including continuous shelling, using heavy weaponary on a frightened group of largely women and children" had resulted in the casualties, he said.

"This needs to stop. We plead with you all...kindly do not escalate the war," he said.

Bo said that churches, hospitals and schools were protected during conflict by international conventions.

He said the attack had prompted people to flee into the jungle with more than 20,000 now displaced and in urgent need of food, medicine and hygiene.

Another resident in the area trying to help displaced people estimated on Wednesday the number who had fled their homes had now risen to between 30,000 and 50,000 and were still using churches to shelter in.

"The elderly and children are in the churches. All the churches have put up white flags in order to stop the shelling," said the 20-year-old, who asked not to be identified.

She said the situation remained tense in the area and accused the military of continuing to use heavy weapons against lightly armed local militia.

A junta spokesman did not answer phone calls seeking comment.

Myanmar has been in chaos since the army took power on Feb 1 and ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, with daily protests, marches and strikes nationwide against the junta, which has struggled to impose order as opposition against it grows.

It has responded with lethal force, killing more than 800 people, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group. The military disputes this figure and coup leader Min Aung Hlaing recently said about 300 people had been killed in the unrest, including 47 police.

The military is also fighting on a growing number of fronts, against established ethnic minority armies, and rag-tag local militias formed in the past few weeks, many armed with rudimentary rifles and home-made weapons.

Min Aung Hlaing has played down the risk of violence spiralling into a bigger conflict.

"I don't think there will be a civil war," he told Hong Kong-based Chinese language broadcaster Phoenix Television Phoenix in a May 20 interview.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Michael Perry)

Mexico: Builders bulldozing outskirts of Teotihuacan ruins


MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government said Tuesday that a private building project is destroying part of the outskirts of the pre-Hispanic ruin site of Teotihuacán, just north of Mexico City.

 Provided by The Canadian Press

The Culture Department said it has repeatedly issued stop-work orders since March but the building crews have ignored them. The department estimated at least 25 ancient structures on the site are threatened, and it has filed a criminal complaint against those responsible.

Apparently, owners of farm plots are trying to turn the land into some sort of amusement park. The area is just outside and across a road from the site's famous boulevard and pyramid complex.

The U.N. international council on monuments and sites said bulldozers threaten to raze as many as 15 acres (7 hectares) at the site, which is a protected area. The council also said looting of artifacts had been detected.

“Teotihuacán is an emblematic site declared as World Heritage by the UNESCO, that represents the highest expression of the identity of the people of Mexico,” the U.N. council said in a statement.

Mexico has long been unable to enforce building codes and zoning laws or stop illegal construction, in part because of the country’s unwieldy, antiquated legal system.

The destruction so close to the capital raises questions about Mexico's ability to protect its ancient heritage sites. Teotihuacan is the country's most visited archaeological site, with over 2.6 million visitors per year, and it has hundreds of smaller, more remote and often unexplored sites.

Teotihuacan is best known for its twin Temples of the Sun and Moon, but it was actually a large city that housed over 100,000 inhabitants and covered around 8 square miles (20 sq. kilometers).

The still mysterious city was one of the largest in the world at its apex between 100 B.C. and A.D. 750. But it was abandoned before the rise of the Aztecs in the 14th century.

Even its true name remains unclear. Its current name was given to it by the Aztecs.

But the Aztecs may have in fact called the city “Teohuacan” — literally “the city of the sun" — rather than Teotihuacan, which means “city of the gods” or “place where men become gods.”

The Pyramids of the Sun or Moon used to draw tens of thousands of visitors for the spring and fall equinoxes each year, before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

The Associated Press

‘If we don’t change we’re f*cked’: Greta Thunberg warns humanity in new video

Climate activist shifts focus onto farming and veganism in latest campaign

Tim Wyatt

Greta Thunberg

@GretaThunberg

”Our relationship with nature is broken. But relationships can change. When we protect nature - we are nature protecting itself.” Thank you @MercyForAnimals for sponsoring this film by @tommustill and me. #ForNature #BiodiversityDay

5:02 AM · May 22, 2021

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Greta Thunberg has warned humanity must shift to a plant-based diet quickly to prevent more ecological and health crises.

In a video posted online, the Swedish climate activist urged people to change what they eat, warning bluntly: “If we don’t change, we’re f****d.”

“The climate crisis, the ecological crisis and the health crisis – they are all interlinked,” the 18-year-old said.

“The way we make food, raising animals to eat, clearing land to grow food to feed those animals… It just doesn’t make sense.”

As many as three in four new diseases spill over from animals, who are forced into close proximity with humans through intensive farming and the destruction of habitats, Ms Thunberg said.
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Raising livestock for food is also responsible for about a quarter of global emissions, while switching to a vegan diet could stop as much as eight billion tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmosphere each year

“If we keep making food the way we do, we will also destroy the habitats of most wild plants and animals, driving countless species to extinction. This really sucks for us too – they are our life-supporting system. If we lost them, we will be lost too.”

Ms Thunberg, who has been a vegan herself for many years, also pleaded with her viewers to consider the “thoughts and feelings” of animals raised for food, most of whom spend “short and terrible” lives inside industrialised factory farms.

Quoting the secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres, she said: “For too long we have been waging a senseless and suicidal war on nature.”

The video was funded by Mercy For Animals, a charity which campaigns to prevent cruelty in the livestock industry and promote veganism. It was released on the International Day of Biological Diversity.

Previously Ms Thunberg has focused her activism on cutting carbon emissions and fossil fuel companies.

She shot to fame in 2018 when she began skipping school on Fridays to protest outside the Swedish parliament, sparking a global School Strike for Climate movement.

In 2019 she famously sailed in a yacht across the Atlantic to speak at the UN in New York, castigating world leaders in a ferociously blunt speech for relying on young people like her to inspire them to tackle the climate crisis, while stealing her future by greedily continuing to burn fossil fuels.

Congressional Committee Concerned About Covert Post Office Surveillance Program

(Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)


By Charles Kim | Tuesday, 25 May 2021
NEWSMAX

A covert U.S. Postal Service program monitoring social media for “inflammatory” posts to share the information with other law enforcement agencies, is coming under scrutiny itself by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Yahoo News reported Tuesday.

The online news organization has been reporting on the topic and discovered the federal agency was monitoring citizens social media posts and then reporting certain posts to other federal law enforcement agencies.

In a letter Monday from the Congressional Committee to U.S. Postal Service Inspector General Tammy L. Whitcomb, Committee Chairman Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Ranking Member Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., asked about the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), and under what authority the agency has to “conduct online intelligence operations” on citizens of the country.

“We write to express concern about recent press reports that the United States Postal Inspection Service has been using analysts from its Internet Covert Operations Program to perform intelligence operations on First Amendment activity,” the letter said.

According to Yahoo News, the agency’s Postal Inspection Service has been monitoring social media accounts of citizens since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota last year.

It then sent bulletins noting “inflammatory” posts to the Department of Homeland Security, which would then notify state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies as well as terrorism task forces throughout the nation, according to the report.

In an April Yahoo News story, Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale told the Congressional Committee that the program began in 2017 to crack down and investigate drug and firearms trafficking but moved to surveilling the protests that broke out after Floyd’s death because of the threat to the agency’s workers and buildings.


The increase in threats against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, Barksdale told the Committee, was a “factor” to continue online surveillance.

“The chief postal inspector was unprepared to the point of incompetence,” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told Yahoo News at the time. “He couldn’t tell me when this program started, how much money is spent on it or where the authority to spy on Americans came from. The complete inability to give us answers to basic questions was unacceptable.”

In another Yahoo News report from May 18, the agency used fake online identities, as well as facial recognition software and other “sophisticated intelligence tools” in its activities.

“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service appears to be putting significant resources into covert monitoring of social media and the creation and use of undercover accounts,” Rachel Levinson-Waldman, deputy director of the Liberty & National Security Program of the Brennan Center for Justice said in the story. “If these efforts are directed toward surveilling lawful protesters, the public and Congress need to know why this is happening, under what authority and subject to what kinds of oversight and protections.”

US citizen working for Hamas killed in Israeli air strike

Osama al-Zebda, 33, was an engineer for the militant group.

ByNasser Atta,Hatem Maher, andGuy Davies

25 May 2021, 14:53

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A U.S. national and his father who were working for Hamas as engineers, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza earlier this month, a source from the group confirmed to ABC News.

Osama al-Zebda, 33, was born in the U.S. while his father, Jamal al-Zebda, 64, studied at the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science at Virginia Tech, according to the Hamas source. Osama lived in the U.S. for five years, his wife told ABC News. The father and son moved back to Gaza after living for a few years in the United Arab Emirates.

"We are aware of reports of a U.S. citizen killed in Gaza," a U.S. State Department spokesperson told ABC News. "Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment."

Fatima Shbair/Getty Images

Palestinians return to the rubble of their destroyed homesin Beit Hanoun, Gaza, four days after t...

Both were killed in an Israeli airstrike during the military's Operation Guardian of the Walls, launched in response to Hamas rockets fired from Gaza earlier this month which saw 253 Palestinians killed -- including 66 children -- over 11 days of airstrikes and shelling, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

During that period, over 4,500 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza, killing 13 and injuring 100s more.

MORE: Israeli cabinet approves cease-fire with Hamas amid 2nd week of violence

The elder al-Zebda returned to Gaza in 1994 to help the armed wing of Hamas develop its arsenal of rockets. Jamal al-Zebda was the head of the department in the non-military wing of Hamas which develops their rockets and his son, Osama, served as a more junior engineer. Neither were active fighters, the Hamas source said.

MORE: Civilians pay the price during worst Israel-Hamas fighting since 2014

The Palestinian Information Center (PIC), a Hamas-affiliated website, said Jamal had joined the al-Qassam Brigades in 2006 and played an instrumental role in introducing more powerful warheads, using basic materials drawn locally from the narrow enclave of Gaza, which is trapped by an Israeli-Egyptian blockade. The PIC said Hamas' improved weapons arsenal was evident in the recent conflict and that Jamal had survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 2012, though they did not offer any details.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

A senior Israeli military official told ABC News that Jamal al-Zebda has technological training and served as a source of knowledge at the organization's production center. As a senior member of Hamas' research and development division, the official said he has promoted key projects in the organization's intensification of weapons developments, "developed and intended to harm Israeli citizens."

Amir Cohen/Reuters

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"My husband, who is of American nationality, knew that the shortest way to God is to sacrifice his spirit, mind, time and money for the sake of him and his religion, so he preferred it over any other thing," Osama's wife, Yosra Aklouk, 29, wrote on the Facebook profile of her deceased husband.

Aklouk told ABC News that she was unsure of his exact role in Hamas, and that her husband was a "genius engineer" and she was "proud" of him.

"I'm shocked by what happened," she said. "It was hard to go back home but I'm consoled by visits from the hundreds of people who are helping me."

Asked if her husband had been responsible for developing rockets aimed at Israeli civilians, Aklouk said: "We have no problem with the Jews. We are refugees from Jaffa (a port city in Israel) and they have stolen our land and our house. We don't want to kill anyone, we just want to return to our home."

Osama's father, Jamal, was an important target for Israel due to his scientific expertise, Wasef Eriqat, a Palestinian military expert and analyst, told ABC News.

"Jamal al-Zebda is credited with guiding and training an entire generation of engineers at the Islamic University who were up to the task of facing up to Israeli scientists," he told ABC News. "His achievements also came amid very difficult circumstances, such as the scarcity of materials and resources because of the blockade on Gaza."

Joe Truzman of FDD’s Long War Journal reported the news Sunday.

ABC News' Cindy Smith and Jordana Miller contributed to this report