Riga: Belarusian opposition flag are pictured as workers replace flags of the IIHF World Ice Hockey Championship near the Radisson Blu Latvia hotel in Riga, Latvia on May 25, 2021. Rene Fasel, President of IIHF wrote a letter to Martins Stakis, Mayor of Riga City Council, to ask for a change back to Belarusian official flag. Stakis told that the Belarusian opposition flag will stay and M. Fasel asked to take off IIHF Championship flags. AFP PHOTO
Riga: Belarusian opposition flag are pictured as workers replace flags of the IIHF World Ice Hockey Championship near the Radisson Blu Latvia hotel in Riga, Latvia on May 25, 2021. Rene Fasel, President of IIHF wrote a letter to Martins Stakis, Mayor of Riga City Council, to ask for a change back to Belarusian official flag. Stakis told that the Belarusian opposition flag will stay and M. Fasel asked to take off IIHF Championship flags. AFP PHOTO


BRUSSELS: The European Union agreed on Monday (Tuesday in Manila) to impose sanctions against Belarus, including banning its airlines from using the airspace and airports of the 27-nation bloc, amid fury over the forced diversion of a passenger jet to arrest an opposition journalist.

In what European Union leaders have called a brazen "hijacking" of the Ryanair jetliner flying from Greece to Lithuania on Sunday, they also demanded the immediate release of the journalist, Raman Pratasevich, a key foe of authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

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