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In addition to seeking limits on flights, European officials called for the immediate release of the journalist, Roman Protasevich, who was detained on Sunday with his partner, Sofia Sapega. His arrest was aggressive even for Mr. Lukashenko, who claimed an improbably large victory in an election last year and was already subject to European Union sanctions.

Airlines are often forced to adjust operations in response to major disruptions, geopolitical and otherwise. This month, for example, several U.S. airlines canceled flights to and from Israel as a conflict there escalated. Some carriers also adjusted procedures, including adding fueling stops, after the hacking of a fuel pipeline company that serves airports on the East Coast of the United States.

In 2014, nearly 300 people were killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine, where hostilities were raging, on its way to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam. Western governments blamed the Russian government and Russian-backed rebels fighting the Ukrainian government, while Moscow denied involvement. The Netherlands sued Russia in the European Court of Human Rights last year in an effort to secure evidence that would be useful to families of the victims.

From 2017 until this year, Qatar Airways was forced to avoid airspace over Saudi Arabia and several neighboring countries after they imposed an air, land and sea embargo against Qatar. In some cases, that meant flying longer routes around the Arabian Peninsula. The neighbors accused Qatar of supporting terrorism. Qatar has denied those accusations.

The movement to isolate Belarus will have little effect on U.S. passenger airlines, which rarely fly over the country, according to Flightradar24. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken condemned the forced landing of the Ryanair flight, calling it a shocking act that endangered the lives of more than 120 passengers, including U.S. citizens. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the safety of U.S. flights over Belarus should be assessed.

But cargo carriers could be affected. On Sunday, for example, more than a dozen flights operated by U.S. airlines flew over Belarus, according to Flightradar24, including five by FedEx, four by UPS and two by Atlas Air.

In a statement, UPS said that its network remained unaffected, but that it was evaluating other flight route options that will provide for the safety of our crews and aircraft, as well as maintain service for our customers in case it had to make changes. FedEx said it was closely monitoring the issue.

Continue reading here:
E.U. and Britain Move to Impede Belaruss Access to Air Travel - The New York Times

In the past year, several local organizations have created an avenue for activism following George Floyd's death.

Some have evolved since then, turning from protests to full-fledged efforts to give back to the community.

Their efforts originally born from something tragic have turned into something beautiful, creating a path toward healing.

The latest news from around North Texas.

The organization Not My Son was essentially born out of the tear gas that flew almost a year ago at Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, as protestors clashed with police days after Floyds death.

It was the straw that broke Americas back, said founder, Tramonica Brown.

His death was the catalyst that brought her and so many protestors to the streets of Dallas in the summer of 2020. She formed the organization in June when she witnessed protestors being shot with rubber bullets and tear gas during last summers protests.

I didnt want to see anybodys babies get hurt with rubber bullets, said Brown, who is both a mother and an educator. It originally started with a group of teachers. No one protects more, I think, than moms and teachers.

She said Not My Son helped create a safe space of meaningful conversation between activists and city leaders, law enforcement and lawmakers. Their first conversation rally brought together close to 1,000 people.

We challenged everybody to know who their city council member was. A lot of the fight that we want to change happens right here, Brown said during our interview outside Dallas City Hall. A lot of people march and dont know what the cause is. So we wanted to make sure that people understood what youre marching for.

The name for the organization comes from the fear she said she feels for her own son and other Black children being racially profiled by police or discriminated against for the color of their skin.

Tramonica Brown and her son, who helped inspire the name of the Not My Son organization.

I dont want it to be my son. I dont want it to be anybodys son, she said. The Black man is the one who is the most under attack.Its unfortunate but its the reality.

Her son was only two years old when the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman gripped the nation in 2012.

It just really broke me. I was a young mother, I was in college. It just hit me that theres nothing I can really do. I can strive to live a better life and do better and achieve better, but at any moment my son can still be taken, she said.

But what started with protests, evolved into something else. Over time, as volunteers and supporters showed up by the hundreds, their mission started to transform.

Growth is beautiful, Brown said.

She recalls the feeling last summer of wanting to do more. A lightbulb moment occurred during one of their marches.

Instead of marching them through downtown, we marched through South Dallas. I think that was a breakthrough in the immediate growth of Not My Son. People were in tears. Its amazing how many people have not been down Martin Luther King Boulevard but go to Fair Park. It showed a clear divide of what it looks like, she said. I said, What do we do? And people said, We just want to help.'"

So they started feeding the hungry and cleaning up neighborhoods. They created tutoring programs for kids and became a saving grace for 600 families during the winter storm in February.

Through the year, Brown said some volunteers have come and gone. But she was able to find true allyship through groups like Say Their Names, who brought an impactful exhibit to Dallas featuring the names of Black lives lost due to racism.

"To be an ally is not to be afraid to use your privilege for the better good. To me, allyship is doing your part when you know you can," she said. Its a marathon. So protesting is a way to garner the attention. Now that we have the attention, what are we going to do with it?

This year, Brown said their next goal is to take communities back. She shared concern over some residents in South Dallas being forced from their homes to make way for more development.

If its going to be a building of success, it needs to be around those people who live in that neighborhood, not just shove them out to put more in," she explained. "Were not going to be able to take them back unless youre teaching financial literacy for you to own something. Making sure that our grandmothers are paying their taxes and that they are not getting their land sanctioned because they have $40,000 in taxes that has to be paid in 30 days."

Despite the new efforts to give back to the community, Brown said activism through protest when injustices occur will still be a big part of her focus.

Not My Son definitely turned into a community-based organization. Don't think for a second that we wont protest, because we will," she said.

Teresa Nguyen has been on her own journey of allyship.

Last June, she created an avenue for others to join her on that journey, called the Umbrella Project.

My heart was heavy to do something, she said.

She gathered up and distributed bright yellow umbrellas as a way to protect protestors from rubber bullets and tear gas during last years marches, an inspiration she drew from demonstrations in Hong Kong in 2014.

But it took on a different meaning once the group joined forces with Mothers Against Police Brutality, which requested the names of Black and Brown lives lost be painted on the umbrellas.

Then, what started with just a few dozen umbrellas, grew into 500. Each umbrella had a different name painted in bold, black paint by local artists and volunteers.

It just kept growing, Nguyen said. It breaks my heart. It just became more real."

The movement expanded beyond Dallas, traveling to Juneteenth celebrations in Tulsa, OK., and more protests in Portland, Ore. The umbrellas were a staple in some protests to show the gravity of the fear and pain people were feeling during the movement.

It became something a lot a lot more extraordinary, said Nguyen.

Nguyen herself learned even more about the meaning of allyship, as anti-Asian hate crimes took a grip on America in the year since the pandemic began.

"I try to take it one day at a time. Sometimes its one step at a time or one breath at a time -- trying to feel like you belong even though you were born and raised here, she said. You cant just sit back. Its so important to speak up and be a part of each others lives."

Looking forward into 2021, both groups are focusing on growth and the power of a collective as their fight for justice continues.

I feel like last year was the setup, Brown said. And this year is just having those tough conversations and opening up the door and really factoring in -- what are you going to do?

Both organizations have some big projects coming up in the next week.

Not My Son is organizing a clean-up and feeding of the homeless on May 29. They are in need of volunteers. See the flyer below or click here for more details.

The Umbrella Project is also bringing back the umbrellas in a touching art display starting June 4. For more information, follow their Instagram page.

Excerpt from:
Activists Turn Tragedy Into Transformation and Healing One Year After George Floyd's Death - NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

As U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky continued to defend unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential elections, and often appeared mask-less during the COVID-19 pandemic, a meme spread about his past qualifications as an ophthalmologist.

Snopes readers shared this with us and asked if the claims in it were true. We learned that in general they were, with some complicated elements.

The text of the meme read as follows:

Dr./Sen. Rand Paul claims to be a board certified physician, but he isnt certified by the respected, century old American Board of Ophthalmology. Instead he is certified by the National Board of Ophthalmology which he founded. He is president, his wife is vice-president, and his father-in-law is secretary. The NBofO is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties, the American Medical Association, nor the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure.

Paul is a trained ophthalmologist who has been practicing since 1993 in Bowling Green, Kentucky. In 2010, reports emerged that Paul was not certified by a board for his specialty, at least according to the national clearinghouse for such certifications. As it turned out, Paul was board-certified initially by the American Board of Ophthalmologists (ABO) until 2005 and until 2011 by a board he founded himself in 1999, according to his own admission.

In a 2010 statement to Politico, Paul described how his certification saga was his battle against a hypocritical power play that I despise. Paul basically protested against the ABOs decision to require recertifications of medical licenses every 10 years for anyone who was board-certified after 1992. He fell in that group, found the decision to be discriminatory, and took it upon himself to set up the National Board of Ophthalmologists (NBO). Paul was board-certified for around 10 years by the ABO until letting it lapse in 2005. He said:

I took the American Board of Ophthalmology (the largest governing body in ophthalmology) boards in 1995, passed them on my first attempt (as well as three times during residency), and was therefore board-certified under this organization for a decade.

In 1997, I, along with 200 other young ophthalmologists formed the National Board of Ophthalmology to protest the American Board of Ophthalmologys decision to grandfather in the older ophthalmologists and not require them to recertify.

I thought this was hypocritical and unjust for the older ophthalmologists to exempt themselves from the recertification exam.

In forming NBO, the younger ophthalmologists agreed to require recertification for all ophthalmologists.

In my protest to the American Board, I asked, If the ABO thinks that quality of care would be improved by board testing every decade, shouldnt this apply to all doctors, not just those of a certain age? In fact, many of us argue that the older ophthalmologists need recertification even more since they are more distant from their training.[]This is the kind of hypocritical power play that I despise and have always fought against.

The NBO was officially incorporated in 1999, according to the Kentucky Secretary of States website. The organization lasted more than a decade, board-certified 50 to 60 doctors, and was never recognized by the medical establishment.

Kentucky doesnt require board certification for medical licensure, so Paul is still licensed to perform surgeries in the state, and he does. According to the American Medical Association, While every physician must be licensed to practice medicine, board certification is a voluntary process. Medical licensure sets the minimum competency requirements to diagnose and treat patients and is not specialty specific. Board certification, however, demonstrates a physicians exceptional expertise in a particular specialty and/or subspecialty of medical practice, according to the American Board of Medical Specialties.

In 2013, The Washington Post asked Michael S. Rodman, executive director of the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, how the NBO fit into Kentucky law. The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure does not license physicians based on their specialty board certification nor is it a requirement for licensure, he said. However, the Board does address specialty board certification through our regulation on physician advertising. He confirmed that if a board is not on his groups list, a physician cannot advertise as being board-certified. NBO was not on the list.

A TPMmuckraker investigation found that the NBO was not a member of the American Board of Medical Specialties, an umbrella group for medical-specialty organizations, and officials for the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery told the news organization they had never heard of the group. According to a 2010 report from the Courier-Journal (below), the NBO is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties, which works with the American Medical Association to approve such specialty boards.

According to the Kentucky Secretary of States website, Pauls family members did make up the NBOs leadership. He was the president, his wife, Kelley Paul, was vice president and director, and Hilton Ashby, his father-in-law, was secretary. In 2010, TPMmuckraker reached out to Ashby to learn more about his involvement in the board, and he said, I cant tell you what the organization does. When he was informed that he was listed as the groups secretary, he said: I was at one time involved as a secretary on something. But I dont know whether it was about that specifically or not. Pauls wife also declined to comment for the Courier-Journal report, saying, Im not involved in that. Im not officially talking about that today. Neither of them are medical professionals.

NBOs board was dissolved by the state in 2000 after Paul missed a filing deadline, and though he kept it running, it remained legally unrecognized. He restarted the board officially in 2005 and filed annual reports until 2010, and the NBO was dissolved again by Kentucky in 2011. Its current standing is ranked as Bad on the Secretary of States site.

In 2013, The Washington Post wrote that Paul continued to present himself as board-certified even though the NBO had been out of business since 2011. His profile on the website of the TriStar Greenview Regional Hospital, said Specialty Board Certifications: Ophthalmology in 2013, though it appears to have been removed since then. And on the Healthgrades website, Pauls physician entry once read Ophthalmology, Board Certified, though he does not appear to have an entry anymore. The same report said that Paul had not been certified by any board recognized by the state of Kentucky since 2005 and since 2011 had no board certification since his organization was dissolved. Paul has, however, tweeted about volunteering at the TriStar Greenview Regional hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. A representative for the hospital did not respond to our questions about the way Paul was presented on their website in 2013, but directed us back to the active physicians listed on it, and Paul is no longer there.

We have reached out to Healthgrades, and will update this post if we receive more information.

Based on his Senate website, Paul says he currently performs pro-bono eye surgeries for patients across Kentucky. Additionally, he provides free eye surgery to children from around the world. We have been unable to find recent examples of Paul presenting himself as board-certified, beyond the 2013 Washington Post report.

We reached out to Pauls office to get their response on the above reports and will update this piece if we receive more information.

Given the public records describing the state of the NBO, Pauls own statements, his board certification by the ABO until 2005, and the lack of information around how he presents himself today, we rate this claim as a Mixture.

Original post:
Was Rand Paul Certified as an Ophthalmologist by a Board He ...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has demanded that Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, should be fired for allegedly "obfuscating the truth" about U.S. funding of research at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology just before the emergence of COVID-19.

"The nicest way to say this, I think he's obfuscating the truth," Paul told the Christian Broadcasting Network on Tuesday. "The people who supported funding for gain-of-function, the creation of super viruses, who supported funding for the Wuhan institute, should immediately be relieved of their responsibilities... Dr. Fauci should go."

Fauci has denied that funding he helped approve as the longstanding director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) went to "gain-of-function" experiments that could make viruses more deadly or transmissible, calling Paul's claims "entirely and completely incorrect" during a heated round of questioning during a Senate hearing earlier this month.

Fauci cited the early 2000s SARS outbreak, also caused by a coronavirus, in explaining the reasoning behind NIAID and the National Institutes for Health (NIH) funding research at the lab. He said that "it would have been irresponsible" to not research other coronaviruses in bats before they potentially jumped into the human population.

Paul then asked him if he could rule out that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, may have been created in the lab. Fauci, who has indicated multiple times that he believes it is more likely that the virus evolved naturally without ruling out a lab escape, said that he could not be certain of what Chinese researchers did.

"I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done and I'm fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China," said Fauci. "However, I will repeat again: The NIH and NIAID categorically has not funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

Paul insisted that the Chinese researchers were engineering a "super virus" on Tuesday. He said that Fauci "downplays" his own role in the supposed research and suggested that he was trying to hide the truth over concerns that it may be determined that SARS-CoV-2 was created with lab manipulation.

"Scientists from other places have said, 'Yes, it was gain-of-function. They were making a super virus,'" Paul said. "And so then you have Dr. Fauci saying, 'Oh no, it didn't happen.' I think he's concerned that if it's discovered that it ultimately came from the Wuhan lab it will boomerang and come back to him."

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. intelligence community to ramp up investigations into the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Although it has not yet been determined whether the virus emerged from human contact with an animal in the wild or due to it escaping from a lab, a lab escape scenario does not necessarily indicate that the virus was engineered.

Newsweek reached out to NIAID for comment.

Originally posted here:
'Fauci Should Go:' Rand Paul Accuses the NIAID Director of Obfuscation on the Wuhan Lab - Newsweek

The Congress on Wednesday said dictatorial regimes would blush at the brazenness with which the Narendra Modi government was trying to crush citizens freedom by enforcing new rules for social media that have invited allegations of political censorship.

Messaging platforms will be required to provide access to encrypted messages, which would break privacy protections. On Wednesday, WhatsApp filed a lawsuit in Delhi High Court challenging the new digital rules.

According to the new rules, the three-month deadline for compliance with which ended on Wednesday, social media platforms operating in India would have to appoint a resident grievance officer, a chief compliance officer and a nodal contact person. The rules require large social media platforms those with more than 50 lakh registered users such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to do additional due diligence. The platforms will also now be required to have a physical contact address in India.

Arguing that the Modi government should be the new go-to place for all dictators to hone their skills in controlling free speech and thought, Congress spokesperson and constitutional lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the new rules struck at the concept of encryption, which is the technological backbone of privacy.

This is particularly true of messaging apps, the most important subset of social media and digital platforms, he said.

Singhvi said the committee that would monitor content would become the Big Daddy of control, acting like social media police, a digital thana working under the information technology ministry.

His argument was that giving such powers to a regime that slapped sedition charges on people speaking about oxygen crisis during the pandemic, arrested people for putting up posters critical of the Prime Minister and hauled up journalists for negative coverage would strangulate free speech.

Lamenting that the government had refused to modify the rules despite unanimous condemnation from all segments of civil and political society, Singhvi said: The heart and soul of their highly objectionable approach was reflected in Rule 4, which obliges all social media platforms to identify the first originator of the information (in a message) if so directed by the government.

This introduces the requirement of traceability that would break end-to-end encryption. It should be noted that even previous proposals that seek to implement traceability in a manner which is supposedly compatible with end-to-end encryption have been shown to be vulnerable to spoofing where bad actors can falsely modify the originator information to frame an innocent person.

Singhvi said the grounds for such directions had deliberately been kept vague. The rules says that the government may ask social media platforms for the originator of a message for the purposes of prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of an offence related to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order.

Singhvi said: Under Clause 3 (d), all platforms have to remove any content deemed objectionable by an application, not by any court, but by the ministry (with) such broad thresholds. Under Clause 3(b) (i), the government can command the platform to remove any data on the basis of such utterly broad words like belongs to another person and to which the user does not have any right. WhatsApp forwards of research or analysis to groups could be stopped under this deliberately overbroad definition.

Pointing out that countless sedition cases had been initiated against citizens for criticising the Prime Minister, Singhvi said: Any infraction of the rules would take away the protection given by the parent act, which exempts the intermediary social media platforms from direct punishment and consequently, any mischievous application would directly make the social media platform liable for third-party content over which they have no control. The government has forgotten all the safeguards and protections accorded to social media in the landmark Shreya Singhal case.

The Congress leader asserted that the rules also violate the principles of privacy elaborated in the Puttaswamy judgment of a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court in 2017. The court had held that the right to privacy is protected as a fundamental right under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.

If this Big Daddy does not agree with the self-regulation done by the social media platform itself at Level-1 or disagrees with the decision of the self-regulation institutional body at Level-2, Rules 13 and 14 allow an inter-departmental government committee to make recommendations overruling the Level-1 and Level-2 decisions, exercising direct content censorship and empowering itself to direct that content of any person or sender or publisher to be blocked, Singhvi said.

Read this article:
Congress: Modi government trying to crush citizens freedom - Telegraph India