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 @ISIDEWITHNewsIraqTel AvivBeirutDaily DiscussionIndiaIsmail HaniyehItalyJordan•••7mos ago

Airlines cancel Middle East flights as escalation anxiety rises

In recent days, the Lufthansa Group and Air India joined the growing list of airlines canceling flights in the region after the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31 and the killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli strike near Beirut on July 30.

The Lufthansa Group — which includes Lufthansa Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings — canceled all flights to Amman, Jordan, and Irbil in northern Iraq through Wednesday.

All group flights to Tel Aviv, Tehran and Beirut are suspended up to and including Aug. 12, extending a previous suspension on flights to and from Beirut that was in place until Monday.

Air India announced last week that it would cancel flights to and from Tel Aviv until Thursday. Italy’s ITA Airways extended a previously announced cancellation of flights to and from Tel Aviv through Thursday, citing “geopolitical developments in the Middle East” in an email to The Washington Post.

5 Replies

 @ISIDEWITHasked…7mos7MO

How would you feel if your travel plans were suddenly canceled due to rising tensions in another part of the world?

 @ISIDEWITHasked…7mos7MO

Do you think the safety concerns of airlines are justified when they cancel flights due to geopolitical tensions?

 @ISIDEWITHasked…7mos7MO

How would you balance the need for safety with the economic and personal inconvenience caused by such flight cancellations?

 @ISIDEWITHasked…7mos7MO

What impact do you think these flight cancellations have on people's perceptions of safety when traveling internationally?

 @ISIDEWITHasked…7mos7MO

If you were an airline executive, how would you decide whether or not to cancel flights in a region experiencing conflict?

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Telegram Arrest Ignites Debate Over Tech Executives Immunity

Pavel Durov, who founded the online communications tool Telegram, was arrested in France as part of an investigation into the platform’s complicity in crimes including possession and distribution of child sexual abuse imagery.Internet company executives rarely faced personal liability in Western democracies for what took place on their platforms. But as law enforcement agencies, regulators and policymakers ramp up scrutiny of online platforms and exchanges, they are increasingly considering when to hold company leaders directly responsible. That shift was punctuated by Mr. Durov’s arrest over the weekend, raising questions over whether tech executives like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg also risk being arrested when they next set foot on European soil.For now, tech executives have little to fear, with cases like Mr. Durov’s likely to be outliers, experts said. Historically, companies have been held responsible for a platform’s transgressions, rather than individuals. And legally, the bar is high in the United States and Europe to prosecute individuals for activities at their companies, especially with U.S. laws like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects internet platforms from being responsible for harmful speech.Last year, Britain passed an online safety law that can hold tech leaders personally responsible if their company is made aware of content that risks child safety and systematically fails to remove it. Even Section 230 doesn’t apply to some forms of outlawed speech, such as child sexual abuse.“There’s a 30-year arc here,” Mr. McIntyre said. Since the 1990s, he said, tech executives have not typically been held responsible for what users did on their platforms, though that approach is now being questioned by those who want stronger accountability.

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