UN aviation body to meet over Belarus plane diversion

The UN civil aviation agency will hold an urgent meeting Thursday to discuss Belarus after Western powers on the UN Security Council called for the body to investigate Minsk's diversion of a European flight and arrest of a dissident. The ICAO Council will meet as the consequences of the incident play out in Europe's airspace, with a Barcelona-bound flight from Minsk refused access to French airspace, and Poland banning Belarusian carriers on Wednesday. But a defiant President Alexander Lukashenko said he had "acted lawfully to protect our people", in an address to parliament on Wednesday. In his first public statement since the Ryanair flight was diverted and opposition journalist and activist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend were arrested on Sunday, Lukashenko dismissed the international outcry. The criticism was nothing more than another attempt by his opponents to undermine his rule, he said, accusing them of waging a "modern, hybrid war" against Belarus and of crossing "boundaries of common sense and human morality".<br/>