Belarus Bans Most Citizens from Going Abroad (bbc.com) 99
Belarus has temporarily banned most of its citizens from leaving, including many foreign residency permit holders. From a report:
There are some exceptions, such as for Belarusian civil servants on official trips and state transport staff. The State Border Committee's tightening of the rules follows international outrage over Belarus's recent diversion of a Ryanair flight and arrest of a top dissident and his girlfriend on board. Many dissidents have left Belarus since a disputed election last year. In its statement on the Telegram messaging service, the border committee says it has received "many requests to leave Belarus on the strength of residence permits [issued] by foreign countries."
Only those with permanent residence in foreign countries -- not temporary -- are allowed to leave Belarus now, it says. The border committee blamed the measures on the coronavirus pandemic. President Alexander Lukashenko's harsh crackdown on opponents since his disputed 9 August election victory has sent many into exile or to jail. His main rival, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who insists that she won, moved to neighbouring Lithuania with her team. Poland also hosts many Belarusians. Her foreign affairs adviser, Valery Kovalevsky, posted an angry tweet, saying President Lukashenko had "severely limited the right of Belarusians to travel, asserting that certain grounds (residency abroad) aren't sufficient to leave Belarus."
Only those with permanent residence in foreign countries -- not temporary -- are allowed to leave Belarus now, it says. The border committee blamed the measures on the coronavirus pandemic. President Alexander Lukashenko's harsh crackdown on opponents since his disputed 9 August election victory has sent many into exile or to jail. His main rival, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who insists that she won, moved to neighbouring Lithuania with her team. Poland also hosts many Belarusians. Her foreign affairs adviser, Valery Kovalevsky, posted an angry tweet, saying President Lukashenko had "severely limited the right of Belarusians to travel, asserting that certain grounds (residency abroad) aren't sufficient to leave Belarus."
the rest of the EU (Score:1)
Re:the rest of the EU (Score:4, Funny)
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> The fascist elite in Wall Street and DC will keep attacking democracy until they succeed in turning the US into a fascist police state
If by fascism you mean the merging of government and businesses, I think that is well under way with media conglomerates and big tech siding with political parties already. And in turn those political parties scratching their backs.
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> Says the guy who typed that drivel on an iPhone
[citation needed]
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you lost, get over it
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reste of the EU? Belarus is not part of the EU
Doing that would likely means having to fight Russia as well.
We should start on an easier target such as North Korea.
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Even if it were in the EU, EU countries are sovereign anyway
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I mean they did say they should declare war - that basically means you're ignoring the sovereignty of the nation you're warring with and whenever victory/surrender occurs new laws, borders, etc are drawn up.
Honestly at this point though it's pretty clear that Lukashenko isn't going to give up power due to angry stares. If the Belarusian people WANT military help to overthrow the existing dictatorship I wouldn't be opposed to offering it, but its politically difficult there - military fighting always involv
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You have to remember, Lukashenko is Putin's lap dog. Belarus is only surviving, at this point, thanks to the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of "loans" Russia is giving them. Not to mention free military equipment.
If the people of Belarus were to rise up against Lukashenko, you can be sure Putin would send in Russian troops and use the same tactics they used in Chechnya.
Putin won't make the same mistakes he did invading Ukraine and relying on locals. He'll make sure his troops do the dirty work.
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The tactics Putin uses in Chechnya was bribing one of their warlords.
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In many areas it seems like the EU is more federal than the US.
Except that on things that matters, it isn't. The EU budget is almost nothing compared to the US federal budget.
The EU budget is about 1% of the GNI of member states at about 1 trillion euros. The US budget is more than 4 trillion dollars, with a smaller population.
The EU budget is less than 2% of public expenditure in the EU. The US federal budget is more than half of the public expenditure in the USA.
Re: the rest of the EU (Score:4, Informative)
The EU is in fact mostly a confederation. What little federative thing it does is asking the members to create similar legal frameworks across the EU in order to get rid of a lot of red tape (as the British have found out recently in a very unpleasant way) and remove opportunities for a race to the bottom.
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Environmental policies are also regulated mostly by the EU as being seen as central to free trade. How free trade have anything to do with bird protection areas, I have no clue.
Environmental protection can be a burden to business. If another country lets businesses do whatever they want, the businesses there have an unfair advantage. Need any other clues?
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I think the Kremlin might have a small issue with that.
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Why? Does Belarus have any oil we need?
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Why? Does Belarus have any oil we need?
Nah, but apparently there are plenty of "Hot Belarus Chicks"
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They have potatoes.
Re:the rest of the EU (Score:4, Funny)
> They have potatoes.
So do we, and we made ours president!
Re: the rest of the EU (Score:4, Insightful)
Installed democracies have worked so well in the past, I can see why you'd want to continue with such a successful nation-building program.
Re: the rest of the EU (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Japan
3) South Korea
4) Botswana
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Nig Nog, West Germany and Japan were not primitive countries they are advanced industrialised nations, industrialised enough to wage major war. The total and utter bullshit about the USA remaking them, what a crock of shite. All those two countries had to do was get rid of the autocrats and they fixed themselves in spite of US interference and a steadfast refusal to end the occupation after 70 odd years.
PS for fuck sake you look at the last track record not stuff from over fifty years ago. In the last fift
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The S. Koreans got rid of their dictatorship themselves, IIRC, it was part of the Olympics. Botswana became a democracy after the UK gave them independence.
Japan and Germany are out-layers in being about the only countries that America turned into democracies, instead of dictatorships, or such weak democracies that they almost instantly turn into dictatorships.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Especially since Germany has been a democracy before.
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Good point. It is interesting that democracy took on relatively easily in Japan, as well as S. Korea and I guess Taiwan managing to become relatively free democracies.
Re:the rest of the EU (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you want World War III ? Because that's how you get World War III.
Belarus is essentialy Russia, and Lukashenko is basically Putin's little lap dog.
First Crimea. Then Eastern Ukraine. Now Belarus.
Seriously, you have to be either brain dead or a russian shill to claim that Putin's plan wasn't all along to recreate to former Soviet Union. Every one on Earth and his dog knows this. The question is: What do we do about it ?
So far the answer to this has been nothing. And Putin knows that. He knows that more than anyone.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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That would qualify as being "puppets for Russia" by any def
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You do realise that a multi-year investigation found.. fuck all.
Then Trump was farcically impeached for trying to investigate actual collusion with Russia and Ukraine by Hunter Biden.
Now the demented paedophile in the White House is vulnerable to blackmail by Ukraine, Russia, China and anybody else that's been bribing him and his incestual son.
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The demented pedophile has been voted out.
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That investigation found enough evidence to impeach him on 2 charges: pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, and obstruction of Congress. One of only three presidents to have been impeached, and the only one to have been impeached twice.
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So much evidence that they had to actually fabricate some. Something for which they've received no censure.
Justice in the US? Not a chance.
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Re:the rest of the EU (Score:5, Informative)
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The Kremlin propaganda efforts in the last couple of decades have created so many Kremlin sympathizers and Stalin apologists in the West that anything will be met with resistance from our own societies.
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Seriously, you have to be either brain dead or a russian shill to claim that Putin's plan wasn't all along to recreate to former Soviet Union. Every one on Earth and his dog knows this. The question is: What do we do about it ?
The problem is that military action isn't an option because of the risk of escalation. And threatening potential future sanctions isn't sufficient to get someone to stop while reactive sanctions aren't sufficient to get someone to give up land they've already conquered.
I think the trick is to announce the sanctions now but don't have them kick in unless Putin does something like make Belarus a protectorate.
And make the sanctions heavy (applied to the economy, and not individuals) and give them a 50 or 100
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Wars are bad news for all involved and the little folks on both sides get hurt the most.
What the EU realistically can do would be to take in refugees from Belarus. I suspect that plenty of Belarus folks will skedaddle over the border to Lithuania and Poland while they still can, before Belarus builds its own Berlin Wall. The refugee camps in Lithuania and Poland will quickly fill up.
Rumor has it that Belarus has already asked Germany if they can still find the old East German plans for the Berlin Wall.
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Wars are bad news for all involved and the little folks on both sides get hurt the most.
It's always true that the little people get hurt the most. However, in contrast to earlier wars, today's leaders are personally invested in the global economy. Putin and other dictators like Xi have a huge personal fortune to lose with a global war. Hopefully, their personal financial greed overwhelms their nationalistic fervor. The one country of concern is North Korea, whose disconnected economy is more insulated against a crash in the world economy.
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Last time an EU country declared war on Belarus, 1.6 million civilians ended up dead. But I'm sure you're just trolling "for laughs" ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Did Germany invade Belarus?
Is Germany an EU country?
His statement was accurate.
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What he's written is straight out of the Russian troll playbook. Everything is a threat of an attack and with every threat of an attack the nazis are brought up. Probably works really well on Russians who take the so-called "great patriotic war" and have been trained for decades to fly into a nationalistic rage whenever WW2 or the nazis are brou
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errr, no. the country that invaded Belarus was not an EU country. next?
Sounds like yesterday was the time... (Score:2)
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Belarus becoming "Protectorate" (Score:5, Interesting)
News here is Russian troops are building on border in anticipating of agreement Belarus to become protectorate of Russia. Russia will effective annex Belarus. I am trying to get out but they are watching border too close.
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Good luck. I hope you can escape the coming storm.
Re:Belarus becoming "Protectorate" (Score:5, Informative)
Best thing to do is find a lightly guarded but heavily wooded section of border and go for a long hike before they go full East Germany.
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News here is Russian troops are building on border in anticipating of agreement Belarus to become protectorate of Russia. Russia will effective annex Belarus. I am trying to get out but they are watching border too close.
Rig the election to put a puppet in charge and then have the puppet cede sovereignty to Russia.
It's a playbook Putin has used several times.
I wish you good luck.
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Except Lukashenko has been already been in charge when Putun was just a messenger boy for the then mayor of St. Petersburg.
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missing the good old days (Score:2)
Let's bring back the Iron Curtain!
Factually incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
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Crossing land borders is not permitted. Going by air is still allowed though. I think they are trying to catch any remaining opposition members from fleeing to the neighboring Baltic states or Poland. It's much easier with airport controls.
Going by air? To Russia I guess (like that is a safer place LOL) since the EU won't accept their airline and won't let them fly over their territories after their hijacking of a Ryanair flight last week. Maybe they think the EU will reconsider if that is the only way Belarus citizens are able to flee?
Arm the opposition, heavily. (Score:2)
Support a civil war on Russia's border, just like they would (and do) in the same situation. I'd even donate to the cause.
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Any kind of western intervention (either directly or indirectly by somehow arming or supporting those who are trying to overthrow Lukashenko) is likely to lead to a repeat of what happened in Syria where Russia gets directly involved in order to keep their pet dictator in power.
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Syria isn't even close to be comparable - Belarus has a mutual defence treaty with Russia.
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oh, you mean like the CIA supported civil war in Ukraine? Yeah we're already in that business
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haha you had to add "in it's entirety", cherry picking there. He already grabbed the part with the majority ethnic Russians he wanted while giving USA the finger. Our emasculated pussies in D.C. can't compete.
Iron Curtain v2 (Score:3, Interesting)
When the situation seems hopeless for the youth, they start to escape from the country.
To stop this, the One True Leader must close the borders, otherwise he will run out of cannon fodder.
I experienced this in the Communist Eastern Block once, and feeling somewhat similar now also in Hungary and in Poland...
Bela ruse (Score:1)
I never heard of Belarus until the recent brouhaha. My Conspiracy Cap say it's all a ruse to increase tourism via name recognition. The Bruges are as nice as Venice, but nobody's heard of them and thus fewer visit. Hunter Biden's alleged adventures increased Ukraine tourism.
Re:Australia leads by example (Score:5, Insightful)
Belarus: Bans citizens from returning or leaving after the political opposition was kidnapped from a flight.
One of these is not like the others.
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You can actually leave Australia - you just have to have a good reason, like for work, or othe rextenuating circumstances. Going on a holiday or other non-essential travel is not a valid reason. You have to commit to not returning for at least 3 months, and when you do return, pay for quarantine yourself.
All in all, pretty air I think.
I just wish they'd hurry up with the vaccine rollout. Progress on that is pathetic.
The Russian Propaganda Bots to be Unleashed Here (Score:2)
Right to leave (Score:2)
If a country denies you the right to leave, does that not nullify the social contract? Why should you do anything for the state if they are forcing you to be there? You owe them nothing at that point.
I guess Republicans want Mexico to deny the right of Mexicans to leave Mexico. Fitting that Republicans support Russia/Belorussia implementing this rule.
Authoritarians keep people in (Score:4, Insightful)
In general, real authoritarian states keep people in, while free states try to keep people out.
Have you ever heard of boatloads of migrants trying to get into China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, the USSR, etc? No.