Month: July 2014

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, is to be commended for the breakthrough with the handover of the two black boxes of Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17 which was shot down in Ukraine on Thursday night and the transportation of the remains of most of the 298 victims from Torez in rebel-controlled Eastern Ukraine to Ukraine-controlled Kharkiv and onwards to Amsterdam.

For four days, the international outrage over the heinous and senseless crime against humanity in the shooting down of a civilian airliner with 298 passengers and crew on board, including 80 children, had been further incensed and aggravated by the gruesome and insensitive disrespect shown to the remains of the MH 17 victims as well as the looting and contamination of the crash site.

But it is still to be seen whether international calls for full, independent and credible international investigation into the criminal downing of MH 17, as well as the United Nations Security Council unanimous resolution last night demanding investigators to be given immediate access to the crash site and calling for a ceasefire in the area, will be heeded by all the three parties to the Ukraine conflict – the Russian-backed separatists, Russia and the Ukraine government. Continue reading “Najib commended for breakthrough with the handover of the two black boxes of MH 17 and the transportation of the remains of most of the 298 victims from Torez to Amsterdam”

Shaun Walker in Donetsk and Harriet Salem in Torez
The Guardian
Tuesday 22 July 2014

Malaysian officials receive flight recorders from downed plane in ceremony after 12 hours of negotiations

Four days after the Boeing 777 came crashing down into the fields of eastern Ukraine, the black box recorders from flight MH17 were finally handed over to the Malaysians at a surreal night-time ceremony in Donetsk.

Almost 12 hours after negotiations between the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and a Malaysian delegation began, a group of somewhat bewildered looking Malaysians were given the two black boxes – chunky devices which are in fact orange – by Alexander Borodai, the self-styled prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, in a late-night press conference guarded by dozens of Kalashnikov-wielding rebels, on the 11th floor of a government building in Donetsk that has been occupied by the rebels.

Before handing over the boxes, Borodai took the chance to insist again that the pro-Russia rebels in east Ukraine had nothing to do with the downing of MH17, and blamed the Kiev government, which he said had “both the technical ability and the motive” to bring down the plane.

Colonel Mohamed Sakri, part of the Malaysian delegation, thanked “his excellency Mr Borodai” for agreeing to the transfer, which came after Borodai spoke personally to the Malaysian prime minister by telephone earlier in the day. Continue reading “MH17 black boxes handed over by pro-Russia rebels”

By Faith Karimi
CNN
July 21, 2014

(CNN) — Amid the chaos and the grief, the politics and the finger pointing, we are no closer to answering some key questions about the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The crash, which killed all 298 aboard, has turned a volatile Ukrainian region into a global problem.

Here are eight questions we don’t yet have the answers to.

1. Who shot down the plane?

Only a full investigation can settle that. This much we know: Flight MH17 was shot down using a surface-to-air missile in Ukrainian territory that’s controlled by pro-Russian rebels.

“We have a video showing a launcher moving back through a particular area there, out into Russia, with at least one missing missile on it,” Secretary of State John Kerry said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

But Russia has denied any involvement. So have the rebels, who accuse the Ukrainians of downing the plane — without offering proof. Continue reading “Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: Eight unanswered questions”

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, SABRINA TAVERNISE and NEIL MacFARQUHAR
New York Times
July 21, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine — Dutch forensics experts gained access on Monday to the remains of the victims from the downed Malaysia Airlines jet in eastern Ukraine after days of standoffs over access to the site and growing pressure on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to clear the way for a full international investigation.

European leaders threatened new sanctions on Russia as soon as Tuesday, suggesting they were increasingly open to the harder line being taken against Moscow by the United States, which has accused Russia of providing the surface-to-air missile system that brought down the jetliner, training rebels in how to use it, and perhaps even supplying experts who helped to fire it.

Mr. Putin issued a brief statement early on Monday saying that Russia would work to ensure that the conflict in eastern Ukraine moved from the battlefield to the negotiating table. He said that a robust international investigating team must have secure access to the crash site, but also accused unspecified nations of exploiting the disaster in pursuit of “mercenary political goals.”

The slow pace at which the bodies have been recovered and the destruction or removal of potential evidence of what happened has generated growing anger at the separatist rebels and at Mr. Putin.

Even as the Dutch experts arrived on Monday in the town of Torez in eastern Ukraine, where the bodies of the victims have been collected in refrigerated rail cars, the Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, said that pro-Russian rebels who control the area were preventing the train from leaving. Continue reading “Pressure Grows on Putin as Forensics Experts Reach Crash Victims in Ukraine”

Terry Atlas and Jonathan Allen
Brisbane Times
July 21, 2014

Washington: President Barack Obama’s response to the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine reflects the conclusion of US officials that time, evidence, and world opinion are increasingly on his side as he takes on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Secretary of State John Kerry cited the tragedy on Sunday in an effort to prod Europeans into increasing sanctions against Russia, even at some peril to their own economies, in an effort to break Mr Putin’s support for pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists. “We are trying to encourage our European friends to realise this is a wake-up call,” Kerry said on Fox News Sunday, invoking a phrase used last week by Mr Obama.

US officials, some speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss administration strategy, said the shooting down of the civilian jetliner — blamed by the US on pro-Russian separatists armed by Russia — should ignite anti-Putin sentiment and push reluctant EU countries to catch up to the more stringent sanctions the US had imposed last week. Dutch and other European citizens were among the 298 passengers and crew that perished. Continue reading “MH17: Obama gains over Putin as US pushes EU on sanctions”

By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
July 21, 2014

(CNN) — Why was Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 flying over war-torn eastern Ukraine?

“We, along with hundreds of other airlines, have flown that route safely for quite some time,” Hugh Dunleavy, commercial director for Malaysia Airlines, told CNN’s Saima Mohsin over the weekend. “Primarily we flew that route because we were advised that this was a safe corridor and there would be no incidents.”

Dunleavy said the plane, which was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, adjusted its altitude on its way across Europe under the direction of air traffic control.

Now, he said the airline is reassessing the route it uses for that flight. And since Thursday’s crash, commercial airlines that usually cross eastern Ukraine on their flights to Europe, Asia and elsewhere have been detouring away from the volatile region.

But far beyond Ukraine’s borders, analysts say the incident could pave the way for new guidelines for how close planes can fly to conflict zones. Continue reading “Should Malaysia jet have flown over Ukraine?”

By SABRINA TAVERNISE and NOAH SNEIDER
New York Times
JULY 20, 2014

TOREZ, Ukraine — Three wrenching days after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the bodies of most of those aboard have ended up here, in a fly-infested railway station in a rough coal-mining town in eastern Ukraine.

For now, they are stuck, lying in five gray refrigerated train cars in this rebel-controlled war zone, hostages to high politics and mutual distrust.

The government in Kiev has accused the Russian-backed rebels who control the area of blocking access to the bodies and the crash site and delaying what is already a very painful process for the families of the dead.

The rebels insist they are cooperating, and say they want to turn the 247 bodies they had recovered as of Sunday over to international representatives. But they say those officials have not arrived; the rebels accuse the Ukrainian government of scaring the officials off, though European officials have disputed that claim.

Neither of the conflicting story lines fully reflects the chaos at the scene, where an incoherent recovery effort is being carried out by motley groups of mostly untrained people. On Sunday, they included miners straight from their shifts; local residents who arrive on run-down motorbikes; and poorly equipped emergency service workers who sleep in the field, amid the stench of decay, in sagging orange and blue tents. Continue reading “Bodies From Malaysia Airlines Flight Are Stuck in Ukraine, Held Hostage Over Distrust”

By Charles Crawford
Telegraph
July 20th, 2014

The hours drift into days following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine. Yet there is no difficulty in identifying those responsible for this outrage. Russian military intelligence (GRU) operatives and technicians are swarming over eastern Ukraine and probably much of the rest of the country, monitoring in real time what is happening. Some are Russian troops operating illegally in Ukraine. Others are Ukrainians (or motley mercenaries from Serbia and elsewhere) on the GRU payroll.

The cause of the attack on the plane will have been known immediately to the Russian side. Missiles capable of hitting aircraft at that altitude cannot be fired without complex codes and technical support. The Russians know everything about the attack, down to the serial number of the missile and the names and breakfast rations of the people who ordered the attack. The Russians also know exactly what links there are (if any) between the people who fired the missile and their own GRU command structures.

The Americans will know a lot of this, too. We may not like global IT surveillance, but it resolves situations like this. Washington is doubtless poring through myriad satellite images and thousands of conversations in Russian military slang to establish in minute detail what happened when the missile was fired and who ordered it. Likewise, the Ukrainians know plenty – they do not have the GRU’s resources, but they are highly motivated to follow what the “rebels” and “separatists” are doing. Continue reading “Malaysia Airlines crash: How can we hold Putin to account?”

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
New York Times
JULY 20, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine — Pro-Russian separatist militiamen have seized custody of the bodies of about 200 victims of the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet that was blown out of the sky by a surface-to-air missile, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday, and rebels continued to limit access to the crash site in eastern Ukraine, blocking the work of experts even as hundreds of untrained local volunteers were picking through the wreckage with sticks.

World leaders have voiced a growing chorus of outrage over the delay in recovering remains of victims, and over the refusal by rebels to cede authority over the disaster site, where Flight 17, a Boeing 777 carrying 298 passengers and crew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed and burned on Thursday afternoon.

Ukrainian emergency responders, working under the watchful eyes of armed rebels, had recovered 196 bodies but were forced to turn them over to the separatists, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, said at a briefing in Kiev on Sunday. Mr. Lysenko said officials believed that 38 of those bodies were taken to the morgue in Donetsk, a regional capital that is controlled by separatists.

Michael Bociurkiw, the leader of an observer mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said that most of the bodies had been placed in three refrigerated railroad cars located in the town of Torez, not far from the crash site. He said that monitors were told that 167 bodies were in the cars, which were locked but under the control of rebels from the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, one of the main separatist groups.

Monitors were permitted to make a brief inspection, Mr. Bociurkiw said, speaking by phone from eastern Ukraine, and the body bags all appeared to have tags on them. “We were escorted to the railway station by heavily armed guards of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” he said. “They are the ones in charge of that area.”

The chaos and potential mishandling of evidence at the crash site, near the village of Grabovo, and the uncertainty over when relatives would be able to reclaim the remains of their loved ones, added a frustrating and emotionally wrenching dimension to the looming geopolitical confrontation over Russia’s possible role in the downing of the aircraft. Continue reading “Separatists Said to Have Seized Control of Crash Victims’ Remains”

By David Willman
Los Angeles Times
July 19, 2014

Whoever fired the surface-to-air missile that brought down a passenger jet over eastern Ukraine would have needed extensive training to execute the mission, according to military experts.

Taking down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, traveling about 600 mph at an altitude of 33,000 feet, required vastly more expertise than, say, firing a shoulder-braced rocket-propelled grenade at a slow-moving helicopter. A crew of at least four would have been needed to accurately fire the truck-mounted Russian-made SA-11 missile, also known as a Buk missile system.

“You’ve got to have people who are technically competent,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Stephen V. Reeves, who served as an intelligence officer in Western Europe.

The SA-11 is a 1972-era weapon system, and is not as technologically advanced or easy to operate as more modern weaponry. Continue reading “Experts: Whoever brought down Malaysian jet had extensive training”

Filip Warwick and Doug Stanglin
USA TODAY
19.7.14

HRABOVE, Ukraine — Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists agreed Saturday to set up a security zone around the crash site of a Malaysia Airlines jet to allow the orderly removal of the bodies of the 298 people killed in the shootdown of MH17 over eastern Ukraine two days ago.

The Malaysian airliner — en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 183 passengers and 15 crew members — crashed into rebel-held territory on Thursday after being hit by what U.S. officials say was a SA-11 surface-to-air missile. There were no survivors.

Ukrainian Security Service head Valentyn Nalyvaychenko said in televised remarks Saturday that trilateral talks, involving Russia, had agreed on a 7-square-mile security zone “so that Ukraine could fulfill the most important thing — identify the bodies (and) hand them over to relatives,” Ukrinform reports.

The announcement of an agreement followed charges by Ukraine that local militia in the restive eastern Ukraine region near the Russian border had removed at least 38 bodies from the crash site near the village of Hrabove. Continue reading “Ukraine, rebels agree on security zone at crash site”

BBC News
19.7.14

Ukraine has accused pro-Russian rebels of trying to destroy evidence of “international crimes” at the crash site of a Malaysia Airlines plane.

The government said the rebels led by Russia were preventing international representatives and its own experts from starting their investigation.

It is believed flight MH17 crashed after being hit by a surface-to-air missile fired from a rebel-held area in east Ukraine on Thursday.

All 298 people on board died. Continue reading “Ukraine rebels ‘destroy MH17 clues’”

BBC News
19 July 2014

The investigation into the MH17 air disaster is fraught with difficulties.

The crash site is in territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Jurisdiction and control over what emerges as the full account of what happened will be contested fiercely. Even beyond the human tragedy, the stakes could scarcely be higher, with the future direction of the Ukraine crisis seemingly in the balance.

As global anger and shock mounts over the apparent shooting down of the passenger aircraft, here are some of the key issues surrounding what could be a highly contentious air crash investigation. Continue reading “MH17 air crash: Battle for control of disaster inquiry”

by Jahabar Sadiq
Editor
The Malaysian Insider
19 July 2014

No words can take away the great pain that all of us feel for flight MH17. Nothing could have prepared us for what happened on July 17 as much as nothing had prepared us for flight MH370’s mysterious disappearance on March 8.

No country, no airline and no one deserves a single or double tragedy that has struck Malaysia Airlines, Malaysia and Malaysians. And those who died or vanished in either MH17 or MH370.

It goes without saying then that we should not add words to deepen the pain in our hearts for these two tragedies. Malaysia Airlines – one of the world’s safest carrier – lost 510 passengers, 27 crew member and two planes in the space of 131 days. Continue reading “Stop blaming Malaysia Airlines for downed MH17”

By KEITH BRADSHER, C. J. CHIVERS and NICOLA CLARK
New York Times
JULY 18, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — As this Southeast Asian nation mourned the loss of scores of passengers aboard another lost Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200, the precautions instituted by the aviation authorities and flight planners to protect commercial aviation along the Russian-Ukrainian border have been shown to be catastrophically insufficient.

The downing of the passenger plane over eastern Ukraine on Thursday occurred shortly after the authorities in Russia and Ukraine, citing dangers presented by the conflict around the city of Donetsk, Ukraine, closed air space up to 32,000 feet along the passenger jet’s planned route. Ukraine made the changes on Monday, the same day a Ukrainian AN-26 military cargo plane was destroyed by a missile while flying at 21,000 feet. Russia followed with similar restrictions effective at midnight on Wednesday, hours before Flight 17 took off from Amsterdam.

The decision by government officials to restrict the airspace, rather than close it completely, raised unanswered questions. Continue reading “Downing of Jet Exposes Defects of Flight Precautions Over Ukraine”