Parliament to discuss MH17, also needs to look into MH370

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

20 July 2014

Malaysian lawmakers from both sides of the political divide will have a chance this coming Wednesday to discuss and condemn the missile attack that blew flight MH17 with 298 people on board out of the sky last Thursday.

It is heartening that the politicians are leaving aside their quarrel to unite against what is essentially a massacre of innocent people over the Ukrainian war zone. But what about flight MH370?

While Malaysia focuses on the second tragedy for the country and flag carrier Malaysia Airlines in four months, are we forgetting about the first one that still remains a mystery until today.

We would be remiss as a country if we file away MH370 to some distant memory just because there is no trace of the Boeing 777-200ER and the 239 people on board.

It is clear why Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Putrajaya are prepared to have a parliamentary session on MH17 – because this is a military strike and there would be no blame apportioned on either MAS or the government – notwithstanding the toxic comments that keep linking both to the crash.

So it is safe for the government to be magnanimous and call for an emergency parliamentary meeting that has been welcomed by the opposition.

The cynics will say that there is only upside for a rah-rah session, condemning terrorism, etc., but the world has to go along to make sure the perpetrators face justice.

Governing is not about only riding the upside, but assuring everyone that the country is in safe, secure and most importantly, responsible hands. And this means doing the right thing all the time.

More so at this juncture in Malaysia where we Malaysians seem to be pummelled by bad news every other day. Aside from the twin air tragedies, there have been incursions and kidnappings in Sabah, and not to mention the surge in right-wing rhetoric and real concerns about the quality and integrity of the leadership in Putrajaya.

An honest and transparent Parliament session/inquiry on MH370 will no doubt be messier and uglier than a session on MH17 with questions asked about the government’s early response to the missing passenger jet.

Also, there is the missing answers to questions about the military’s response or non-response the morning MH370 vanished into thin air without a trace.

A parliamentary session or even a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on MH370 will be the impetus to once and for all clear up some of the fog surrounding the “unprecedented aviation mystery”.

It will also provide some comfort for the families of those on board MH370, who have spent the last four months or so still wondering if their kin are dead or alive, or will ever be found.

Putrajaya’s reluctance to submit themselves to scrutiny only makes them seem more culpable and suggests that they too know that they could have done much more to detect the Boeing 777 in the early hours after it went missing.

It would appear it is easier to discuss the Boeing 777-200ER registration number 9M-MRD that carried 298 people because it is now the world’s biggest crime scene.

Putrajaya must do justice to both MH370 and MH17. The MPs cannot discuss one without referring to the other. The total of 510 passengers and 27 crew on board both passenger jets deserve that much.

As much as the lawmakers examine, debate and condemn what happened 10,000 metres above ground in Ukraine last Thursday, they should also do the same for the March 8 incident over the South China Sea, the Malay peninsula, the Andaman Sea and the southern Indian Ocean.

Our hearts are as broken as the families of those on board MH370 and MH17. The least we can do is to look into the circumstances of what happened to MH370 as much as we do for MH17.

Anything less is as great a tragedy as of both aviation incidents.

Anything less is an injustice to Malaysia Airlines and those on board MH370 and MH17. – July 20, 2014.

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Parlimen akan bincang MH17, juga perlu lihat kes MH370

KOMENTAR THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

20 July 2014

Penggubal undang-undang di Malaysia dari kedua belah pihak akan berpeluang pada Rabu ini membincangkan dan mengutuk serangan peluru berpandu yang meletupkan kapal terbang MAS MH17 bersama 298 penumpangnya Khamis lalu.

Amat berbesar hati apabila ahli politik sudi mengenepikan perbalahan mereka dan bersatu menentang sesuatu yang boleh dikatakan pembunuhan beramai-ramai manusia tidak berdosa di zon perang Ukraine. Tetapi bagaimana pula dengan pesawat MH370?

Sementara Malaysia menumpukan kepada tragedi kedua menimpa negara dan syarikat penerbangan negara Malaysia Airlines dalam jarak tempoh empat bulan, adakah kita lupa tragedi pertama itu masih menjadi misteri hingga sekarang?

Kita akan jadi sebuah negara yang lalai kiranya kita buang jauh MH370 dari ingatan hanya kerana pesawat Boeing 777-200ER dengan nombor pendaftaran 9M-MRO bersama 239 penumpangnya itu tidak dapat dijejaki.

Kita jelas kenapa Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Razak dan Putrajaya bersedia mengadakan sidang Parlimen membincangkan kes MH17 – kerana ia serangan ketenteraan dan tidak ada kesalahan yang akan dilabelkan atas MAS atau kerajaan – walaupun terdapat komen nakal yang terus mengaitkan kedua-duanya kepada kejadian itu.

Jadi, selamat untuk Putrajaya menjadi dermawan dan memanggil sidang parlimen tergempar yang mendapat sokongan pihak pembangkang. Sindiran akan mengatakan ia cuma satu sesi bising-bising mengutuk pengganas dan sebagainya, tetapi ia harus diteruskan untuk memastikan petualang dibawa ke muka pengadilan.

Menjadi kerajaan bukan hanya bermakna mempunyai lebih kuasa, tetapi juga ia mesti memastikan setiap orang di negara ini selamat dan paling penting dalam jagaan mereka yang bertanggungjawab. Dan ini bermakna melakukan perkara yang betul pada setiap masa.

Lebih-lebih lagi dalam keadaan sekarang rakyat Malaysia seolah-olah dihujani berita buruk setiap hari. Selain dua tragedi udara itu, terdapat juga serangan dan penculikan di Sabah, kebangkitan sayap kanan retorik dan kebimbangan sebenar tentang kualiti dan integriti kepimpinan di Putrajaya.

Sesi soal jawab Parlimen yang jujur dan terbuka tentang MH370 pasti akan jadi lebih berserabut dan buruk daripada sesi tentang MH17 dengan persoalan mengenai tindak balas awal Putrajaya terhadap kehilangan pesawat itu.

Juga, soalan yang tidak berjawab tentang ada atau tidaknya tindakan ketenteraan apabila MH370 lesap tanpa sebarang kesan pagi 8 Mac itu.

Satu sesi Parlimen atau suruhanjaya siasatan diraja menyiasat MH370 boleh menjelaskan habis-habisan kekaburan berkisar kes misteri penerbangan itu yang tidak pernah berlaku sebelum ini.

Ia juga akan menenangkan sedikit ahli keluarga penumpang MH370 itu yang sepanjang empat bulan lepas memikirkan sama ada mereka masih hidup, meninggal dunia atau akan dijumpai akhirnya.

Apabila Putrajaya keberatan meletakkan dirinya terbuka untuk disiasat, ia membuatkan kerajaan lebih kelihatan bersalah dan seolah-olah mengaku ia boleh lakukan lebih lagi untuk menjejak Boeing 777-200ER itu pada awal pagi kehilangannya dikesan.

Jadi, nampak lebih mudah untuk membincangkan kes Boeing 777-200ER yang bernombor pendaftaran 9M-MRD dengan 298 penumpang itu, kerana ia jenayah terbesar dunia sekarang.

Putrajaya mesti adil kepada kedua MH370 and MH17. Ahli Parlimen tidak boleh membincangkan yang satu tanpa merujuk kepada yang satu lagi. Semua 510 penumpang dan 27 anak kapal atas kedua-dua pesawat layak mendapat perhatian sewajarnya.

Sejauh mana ahli Parlimen akan meneliti, berdebat dan mengutuk kejadian 10,000 meter di udara Ukraine Khamis lalu, mereka juga mesti lakukan yang sama untuk kejadian pada Mac di Laut China Selatan, semenanjung Melayu, Laut Andaman dan selatan Lautan Hindi.

Hati kita juga sama hancur seperti keluarga penumpang MH370 and MH17. Jadi, paling kurang yang mampu kita lakukan ialah meneliti setiap sudut kejadian MH370 seperti yang kita lakukan untuk MH17.

Kurang daripada itu ialah seakan satu tragedi yang sama hebatnya seperti kedua-dua tragedi penerbangan itu. Kurang daripada itu ialah satu ketidakadilan kepada Malaysia Airlines dan penumpang MH370 dan MH17. – 20 Julai, 2014.

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Separatists Said to Have Seized Control of Crash Victims’ Remains

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.

Senior United States and Ukrainian officials have said they have conclusive evidence that the plane was shot down by a missile from a Russian antiaircraft system, fired from within rebel controlled territory in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have been battling government forces since April.

Officials said they had photographs and other intelligence showing that three Buk-M1 weapons systems, also known in the west as SA-11 Gadfly, were transported across the border into Russia early Friday morning, within hours after the civilian plane was destroyed. A rocket was missing from the back of one system, officials said.

Despite the increasing evidence of Russia’s involvement and widespread international outrage, neither the United States nor its allies in Europe have announced any response. Russia has denied any role in the incident, and the Kremlin in recent days has stated repeatedly that the Ukrainian military has antiaircraft capabilities that could have destroyed the plane.

The Ukrainian government has said that none of its surface-to-air missiles were in position in the area at the time, and none were fired – a point that was supported by the United States in a written assessment published by the State Department.

“Pro-Russian separatist fighters have demonstrated proficiency with surface-to-air missile systems and have downed more than a dozen aircraft over the past few months, including two large transport aircraft,” the State Department wrote. “At the time that flight MH17 dropped out of contact, we detected a surface-to-air missile (SAM) launch from a separatist-controlled area in southeastern Ukraine. We believe this missile was an SA-11.”

The assessment added, “Ukraine also operates SA-11 systems, but we are confident no Ukrainian air defense systems were within range of the crash. Ukrainian forces have also not fired a single surface-to-air missile during the conflict, despite often complaining about violations of their airspace by Russian military aircraft.”

Mr. Lysenko, the spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said that heavy fighting between rebels and government forces continued through Saturday night, with eight soldiers killed and 50 wounded in the last 24 hours – a stark reminder that the crash site is in what remains an active combat zone.

Mr. Lysenko said that Russia was continuing to supply tanks, weapons and other heavy equipment to rebels in the east, and he angrily dismissed a reported demand by some rebel leaders that a cease-fire be imposed before full access to the scene is granted.

“If the terrorists wanted to get experts into the area for special investigations, they would have done this immediately after the arrival of such experts,” Mr. Lysenko said. “But the experts arrived, and still there was no cease-fire on the part of terrorists. So their statements on the conditions that they put forward have no grounds, whatsoever.”

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Bodies From Malaysia Airlines Flight Are Stuck in Ukraine, Held Hostage Over Distrust

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.

The prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, said Sunday that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was negotiating with rebels to move the bodies out of the conflict zone. “All efforts are focused on getting this train onto territory controlled by Ukrainian authorities,” Mr. Rutte said in Amsterdam, according to Reuters. He said a team of specialists was likely to enter the crash site on Monday in an effort to identify the bodies.

But for now, their train is going nowhere, a final indignity for families as they grieve over the loss of their loved ones. When asked Sunday afternoon where the train was headed, its driver said he had not been given a destination.

“Nobody knows, and no one will say,” he said.

The United States and Ukraine have criticized the rebels for what they say has been evidence of tampering and concealment at the crash site.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, said at a briefing in Kiev that Ukrainian emergency responders had been forced to turn over recovered bodies to the separatists. And other Ukrainian officials said that the roadblocks to getting experts into the site, and the bodies away from it, all lay with the rebels.

At the site itself, there was little sense of any order.

Instead of a crime scene marked with police tape, helicopters scouring its 13 square miles and specialists poring over every detail, the area was a post-Soviet free-for-all playing out in a war zone, where most of the trappings of a modern state have fallen away. With the police mostly gone, for example, militiamen now respond to traffic accidents.

“This is a disaster like no other,” said Michael Bociurkiw, the spokesman for the European security agency mission. The standard response, he said, is, “You secure the area, and then you go about the established business.”

He added: “That hasn’t happened here. And whether they even have the ability for that to happen is unclear.”

At the crash site on Sunday, rescue workers picked through a charred pile of suitcases, mangled airplane seats, and bits of metal and clothing, using nothing but their hands and a few small sticks. Cows grazed in one of the fields near the fuselage. Army green stretchers, some with dark splotches of blood, lay on the matted grass near the road.

“Body!” shouted one of the men who was wearing large, yellowish, mittenlike gloves and no mask. They dug harder, yanking unsuccessfully at a large hunk of metal that lay heavily on an unrecognizable body part.

A second asked for help. “There’s no one here,” said a third. A fourth asked: “Does anyone have a shovel?”

American intelligence officials have said a proper investigation could answer crucial questions about who is responsible for shooting down the plane, but the hopes for retrieving anything useful from the site are dwindling with each passing day.

Two days after the crash, potentially decisive evidence was lying, seemingly undiscovered, in a recently harvested field about five miles from the central crash site: a large curled sheet of metal, apparently part of the outside of the plane, that had multiple, even holes torn into it. A weapons expert who reviewed photographs said the holes were consistent with a blast from a missile of the type American officials believe brought down the plane.

Distrust poisoned the process. One rebel leader, Alexander Borodai, said Sunday that the plane’s flight recorder, which contains details about the plane’s status before it went down, had surfaced, but that he wanted to give it to international experts, not Ukrainians.

Officials in Kiev have accused the rebels of trying to spirit the recorder to Moscow and released audio recordings that they claimed proved it. And Ukraine’s government said Sunday that it had captured 23 rebels who were all Russian passport holders.

Nikolai, a coal mine worker, had driven 35 miners from their morning shift in a large, rusty white bus with blue stripes to help with the search. The miners walked seven in a line with an emergency worker, combing the fields for bodies and plane parts.

Nikolai — who would give only his patronymic, Vasilievich, and not his last name — recently had his own tragedy. On Tuesday, a bomb hit his apartment building, killing his brother. Villagers blame the Ukrainian military, which they say was aiming at a nearby rebel base, though Ukraine denies that.

“Tomorrow he would have been 55,” Mr. Vasilievich said, eating seeds in the shade of his bus. He blames the Ukrainians for shooting down the passenger jet, a common sentiment here.

Ragtag rebels were mostly gone from the site on Sunday, though one who stood guard bemoaned the primitiveness of the operation. He told of a small pack of foxes that ran through the wreckage at night, attracted by the smell.

“They could have done it all with helicopters by now, flying over the fields,” said the rebel, who identified himself only as Vova, holding a rifle made in 1954. “Grief should bring people together.”

Also gone was a trigger-happy rebel nicknamed Mosquito with a penchant for firing into the air when people disobeyed him. The European security agency monitors left the crash site on Friday after hearing shooting. But on Sunday they were walking around the site again, protected by guards, many of whom wore the blue camouflage pants and maroon berets of Ukraine’s disbanded special police.

Since the crash on their doorsteps, villagers from Grabovo have gathered for prayers and laid flowers along the road. Yellow daisies rested on one piece of black metal at the site, and beside it lay a small stuffed doll in a purple dress, left as a tribute.

President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine has claimed that rebels stole credit cards from the wreckage. One villager, Elena, who declined to give her last name, strongly disputed that.

“That is a sin, a big sin in our faith,” she said. “This is a cemetery. Who would take from it?”

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Malaysia Airlines Flight 17: Eight unanswered questions

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.

2. Why would anyone target a passenger plane?

If indeed the rebels are behind the attack, they may have mistaken the plane for a Ukrainian military craft. In the past few months, the rebels have used surface-to-air missiles to bring down more than a dozen planes, including two transport aircraft, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev said.

Shortly after the crash, Igor Strelkov, the self-proclaimed defense minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, claimed on social media that the rebels had shot down a military transport plane. Those posts were later deleted once it turned out the plane was a civilian aircraft.

“It has the earmarks of a mistaken identification of an aircraft that they may have believed was Ukrainian,” Arizona Sen. John McCain told MSNBC.

3. Why was the plane flying over a war zone?

Most airlines follow rules set by national civil aviation authorities and take the most direct route available, said Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The Malaysia Airlines flight left Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur. It flew over eastern Ukraine, which is a common route for international carriers.

Last week, Eurocontrol, the agency responsible for coordinating European airspace, said Ukrainian authorities had closed airspace in the region below 32,000 feet, but it was open at the level Flight 17 was flying (33,000 feet).

“There’s a lot of questions to be asked in a lot of different places,” CNN aviation analyst Miles O’Brien said. “Why didn’t government officials close off that airspace completely? 32,000 feet, that’s a completely arbitrary number.”

4. When will international investigators get access to the crash site?

No one knows.

A U.N. Security Council meeting ended early Monday morning, with Australia introducing a resolution that called for a swift international investigation.

“There’s no doubt that at the moment the site is under the control of the Russian-backed rebels. And given the almost certain culpability of the Russian-backed rebels in the downing of the aircraft, having those people in control of the site is a little like leaving criminals in control of a crime scene,” Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday.

But Russia, which has veto power as permanent member of the council, wants a modified resolution — one that leaves out Ukraine from any investigation.

Scattered evidence of MH17 catastrophe

Photos: Malaysia Flight 17 victims remembered Photos: Malaysia Flight 17 victims remembered

MH17: What they left behind MH17: What they left behind

Confusion, hostility at MH17 crash site

5. Where are the so-called black boxes?

The rebels say they have recovered something, but can’t be certain those are the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

“These are some technical objects. We cannot say for sure these are black boxes,” rebel leader Alex Borodai told CNN.

Finding the devices is crucial; they will offer vital clues to the plane’s last moments.

What happens to the black boxes is also unclear.

In audio intercepts released by the Ukrainian government, a rebel leader is heard saying that Moscow is very interested in the black boxes and urges his followers to look for them urgently. (CNN can’t vouch for the authenticity of the audio).

6. Have all the victims’ bodies been recovered?

There’s no way to tell.

Rebels are keeping most of the bodies in two refrigerated train cars about 10 miles away from the site. And while international observers confirmed they saw “dozens and dozens” of bodies in the train, there was no way to verify the total.

Who were the victims?

7. What will happen to the remains?

That, too, is mired in politics. No one yet knows when they will be identified or where they will end up.

Alex Borodai, the rebel leader, says he’d rather hand over the remains to relatives — but only after “experts” examine them. He says he fears if the remains are turned over to Ukraine, the government would use them as evidence to blame his fighters for shooting down the plane.

“I want the bodies,” Selena Fredriksz sobbed at a memorial at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Sunday. Her son, 23-year-old Bryce, was one of the passengers on the plane. “They can have anything, but the bodies have to come back. Take their iPhones, take their money, take everything.”

8. How will Russia respond?

If an investigation concludes the plane was shot down by rebels using a Russian-supplied missile — or, worse still, by Russians themselves — President Vladimir Putin will have two choices. And neither, says Professor Daniel Treisman, works to his advantage.

Putin could reject the conclusions and stand by the rebels. If he does so, he risks becoming an international pariah. The West might also hit Russia with even tougher economic sanctions, enough to cripple its economy and send it into a recession.

Or, Putin could sever ties with the rebels. But that could present problems too.

“A relentless barrage of propaganda has convinced many Russians that their co-ethnics in Donetsk and Luhansk are being massacred by troops commanded by a fascist regime in Kiev,” said Treisman, who teaches political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, and who authored the book, “The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev.”

“For Putin to bow to international pressure and abandon his former charges would look like cowardice.”

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MH17: Obama gains over Putin as US pushes EU on sanctions

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.

This gives Obama confidence that the US and EU can prevail over Putin in the short-run — overcoming European reluctance to expand sanctions — just as the Obama administration believes it will prevail in the long-run over a Russia that has a battered economy and a leader who is overplaying a weak hand, the officials said.

EU Shifting

While the timing for EU decisions isn’t set, two European diplomats said previously resistant members such as Italy now are shifting. The bloc’s foreign ministers are scheduled to meet July 22, and top leaders also may meet as early as this week, according to the diplomats, who asked that they not be identified because the plans haven’t been announced.

The US and its allies have the capability to further squeeze Russia through punitive measures such as sanctions against entire sectors of its economy, though they want to leave open a course for Mr Putin to back down, according to several officials.

Europeans may hesitate to ramp up a fight when they need Mr Putin’s influence with the rebels to permit the recovery of passengers’ remains and an international investigation.

The EU foreign ministers at their meeting in Brussels will consider blacklisting more Putin associates and, for the first time, Russian companies accused of profiting from Ukraine’s woes.

Defence Industry

The UK is pushing for the EU to sanction the entire Russian defence industry, a British official said in London on condition of anonymity. France has repeatedly rebuffed calls to cancel its sale of two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia.

The airline disaster follows months of US efforts to persuade the Europeans to raise the costs on Putin for his efforts to destabilise Ukraine. Mr Obama now is “absolutely prepared” to consider more sanctions, and the EU should do likewise, Kerry said on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

The top US diplomat appeared on five US Sunday morning talk shows to make the case for further action.

“Since sanctions are the administration’s default instrument of coercive statecraft, I would expect an escalation of US sanctions pressure, specifically targeting more Russian financial institutions, energy companies and military firms,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Washington-based Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a nonprofit group that focuses on national security issues.

Putin’s Options

“People are looking for sanctions that are severe enough to change Putin’s mind, but won’t do harm to the US and European economies,” said Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who specialises in Russia and Eurasia.

Mr Putin has levers of influence too, including sending Russian forces into eastern Ukraine, as he did in Crimea; reducing natural gas supplies to Europe; and undermining international negotiations seeking to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, one of Obama’s top diplomatic priorities.

Some of the US officials said they see Putin fighting a losing geopolitical battle over time as neighbouring states such as Ukraine, once regarded as the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, shift toward western European economies. That also may make him unpredictable and dangerous, they said.

Russian economy

The long-term strategy, these officials said, is to further isolate Mr Putin, who they say is presiding over the decline of a country facing economic, demographic and social problems. While it has an economy comparable in size to Italy’s, Russia’s per capita gross domestic product, at $US14,612, is less than half of Italy’s $US34,619, according to World Bank data for 2013.

“From the beginning, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has been a reflection of its diminished stature and influence in Europe and the world,” said former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who worked for Vice President Joe Biden during the Russia reset and once worked in Time Magazine’s Moscow bureau.

The US last week imposed targeted sanctions on selected Russian banks, military, and energy companies including OAO Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil company, after the EU was unable to agree on more than limited additional sanctions.

European Trade

“The president imposed a greater cost on Vladimir Putin the day before this shoot-down took place,” Mr Kerry said. “And what we are doing now is trying to bring our European counterparts along” because 4 per cent of Russia’s trade is with the United States while “50 percent of their engagement is with Europe.”

The US has been urging the EU to act more forcefully despite its reliance on Russia for about 30 percent of its gas imports. U.K Prime Minister David Cameron said he agreed with his French and German counterparts that Europe should be ready to impose further sanctions this week.

“There’s value, political and economic,” in waiting to see what the Europeans do because Obama wants to show a united front, said Robert Kahn, a former Treasury official who is now a senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Incremental Action

Stephen Myrow, managing partner of Beacon Policy Advisors LLC, an independent research firm in Washington, said the US is likely to increase sanctions only incrementally absent strong steps by the EU.

“Even though some members of the Obama administration would like to take stronger action, they do not see it as plausible without the EU’s acquiescence, and the EU still is not there,” said Mr Myrow, a former Treasury Department official. “The EU is threatening another round of sanctions on its own, but the trigger is tied to Russian cooperation in the crash investigation, not its aggression against Ukraine.”

Further, there’s no guarantee that more sanctions will push Putin in the right direction, said Samuel Charap, a fellow at the Washington branch of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based policy group.

Moral Case

“The moral and political case for more sanctions is clearly easier to make now,” Mr Charap said. “The problem is that the theory of the case remains as questionable as before — that this kind of pressure will produce the kind of policy change from Moscow that the West is seeking. In fact, it might well have the opposite effect.”

In a phone call with Cameron, Mr Putin said it’s “important” to refrain from “hasty conclusions and politicised statements” before international investigators determine the reasons for the Malaysian Air crash, according to an e-mailed statement from Russian government.

EU foreign ministers this week will call for unimpeded access to the crash site for investigators and for the repatriation of remains in a humanitarian matter, according to the two EU diplomats.

Bloomberg

                This entry was posted on Monday, 21 July 2014, 11:58 am and is filed under
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Pressure Grows on Putin as Forensics Experts Reach Crash Victims in Ukraine

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.

The body identification experts, wearing shirts bearing the insignia of the forensics unit of the Dutch national police, donned blue latex gloves and put masks over their mouths and noses, and one asked for a flashlight, as they made an initial inspection of bodies that lay in black trash bags piled toward the back of one wagon. They repeated the process in two other train cars.

The Dutch experts were accompanied by representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has been conducting an international monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine and quickly sent observers at the plane wreckage site, where they said their efforts were limited by rebels until Sunday, when they were granted broader access.

As the experts began their work, heavy fighting, including mortar shelling, was underway between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian military, in the nearby regional capital of Donetsk, a rebel stronghold about 50 miles from the crash site. A spokesman for the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, Sergei Vladimirovich, said that the government forces had begun pushing into the city from the northwest, near a market by the main train station, and a witness reported seeing heavy shelling in the area including damage at a children’s hospital.

“A fight is going on,” he said by telephone. “There are casualties but we don’t know how many. We are still trying to figure out what is happening.” A Ukrainian military spokesman, Vladislav Seleznyov, would not provide details, citing military secrecy, but confirmed the fighting, calling it “an active phase of the antiterrorist operation.”

With fighting still raging and access to the crash site still difficult, European leaders maneuvered to overcome longstanding divisions about imposing significantly tighter sanctions against Moscow.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, whose country bore the brunt of the casualties, told Parliament that “all political, economic and financial options” were available as the European Union prepared to debate measures further isolating the Russian leader.

“It is clear that Russia must use her influence on the separatists to improve the situation on the ground,” Mr. Rutte said, according to Reuters. “If in the coming days access to the disaster area remains inadequate, then all political, economic and financial options are on the table against those who are directly or indirectly responsible for that,” he said.

His words found an echo from George Osborne, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, who said Britain was prepared to tighten sanctions even if that meant losing Russian business in London’s economically vital financial services industry. “Any sanctions will have an economic impact, and we are prepared to undertake further sanctions,” he said in a BBC radio interview.

Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said he told Mr. Putin in telephone conversation on Sunday that the world expects Russia to use its influence on the separatists to open up the crash site.

“The world also wants to see a real change in the stance Russia has taken over the crisis in Ukraine,” Mr. Cameron said he told the Russian president during a visit to Wales in advance of a statement to Parliament. “We need no more weapons crossing the border, no more troops crossing the border, no more support for the separatists, respect for Ukrainian territorial integrity.”

“In terms of sanctions,” he added, “I’m very clear, having spoken to Angela Merkel and François Hollande, that the European Union will be ready for further steps in terms of other areas of, particularly, some forms of advanced industrial goods which might have dual uses for defense purposes as well.”

His remarks followed a telephone conversation over the weekend between the leaders of Britain, France and Germany who were reported to have agreed that their countries should be ready to use a meeting of the 28-nation European Union’s foreign ministers on Tuesday to introduce tougher sanctions. The comments also came a day after the American secretary of state, John Kerry, said he was warning Mr. Putin “for the last time” to stabilize eastern Ukraine and halt the flow of weapons to separatists there. He called their handling of the victims’ remains, which the rebels seized from Ukrainian rescue workers, “grotesque.”

But some European governments are cautious about supporting sanctions that would provoke reprisals from Russia — a key source of energy supplies to many European nations.

Mr. Yatsenyuk said that the emergency services and hundreds of volunteers had gathered 272 bodies from fields near the village of Grabovo. He added, however, that the area, including the rail station, remained under the control of rebels and that the train carrying the bodies was not being allowed to leave.

“These bloody guerrillas do not allow the train to leave the area,” he said at a news conference in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

Mr. Putin’s statement did not directly address the allegations that Russia supplied the weapon system and expertise needed to shoot down the plane. “Russia will do everything it can to shift the conflict in eastern Ukraine from today’s military stage to the stage of discussion at the negotiating table,” Mr. Putin said in video statement posted at 1:40 a.m. on Monday, suggesting it emerged from a late-night discussion.

It was unclear, however, whether such an indirect call to allow the investigation into the flight to proceed would satisfy the growing chorus of critics demanding that Mr. Putin intervene directly with the pro-Russian separatists.

Later on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said a briefing that images that purported to show a surface-to-air missile system being driven toward Russia after the downing of the plane were fake, Interfax reported. The Defense Ministry also said that an American satellite was flying over eastern Ukraine at the time of the crash, Interfax reported, and it asked Washington to release the satellite imagery.

In Torez, about 40 miles east, where the bodies of Flight 17 victims were being held, the Dutch forensics specialists arrived at about 11:30 a.m. and bowed their heads for a few seconds of silence. The first wagon was opened by a woman, apparently a railroad worker, in a tight satiny black skirt, tight white shirt and high wedge heels with purple straps.

After a preliminary inspection, Peter van Vliet, one of the Dutch investigators, said, “I think the storage of the bodies is of good quality.” He then turned away and walked back with his colleagues to the train, where O.S.C.E. workers said they would seal the wagons.

The Ukrainian government had said it planned to base the investigation into the downing of the jet in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine’s biggest city, which lies around 190 miles north of the crash site and is under the control of the government in Kiev.

A larger team of forensic experts, including 23 from the Netherlands, two from Germany, two from the United States, and one from Britain, arrived in Kharkiv early Monday.

“We are here to get the bodies back to their countries and to their families. We will try our utmost to do this as quickly as possible,” Michel Oz, the group’s Dutch coordinator, said. But he added that it was still unclear whether the separatist rebels who control the crash site and the nearby railway station at Torez would allow a train loaded with corpses to leave for Kharkiv. “We have no information,” he said.

Mr. Oz said the international team now assembling in Kharkiv included experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a unit of the German federal police that handles the identification of disaster victims, as well as officials from Britain and Australia. Malaysia is also due to join the effort.

An Australian official who declined to be identified voiced dismay that the bodies were effectively being held hostage by separatist rebels. “We have no idea what is going on and when we can get the bodies,” he said. Igor Baluta, the governor of Kharkiv, complained that the separatists were frustrating efforts to identify corpses and return them to their families.

“We are all ready here. We are prepared to receive the bodies but everything depends on getting an agreement” with the rebels, Mr. Baluta told reporters on Monday.

David M. Herszenhorn reported from Kiev; Sabrina Tavernise from Torez, Ukraine; and Neil MacFarquhar from Moscow. Reporting was contributed by Noah Sneider in Torez; Michelle Innis in Sydney, Australia, and Andrew Higgins in Kharkiv, Ukraine; Alan Cowell in London; and James Kanter in Brussels.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 21 July 2014, 10:55 pm and is filed under
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Should Malaysia jet have flown over Ukraine?

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.

“The rules in aviation are written in blood, or a tombstone mentality if you like,” CNN aviation analyst Miles O’Brien said. “What happens is, people die, and things get safer.”

David Soucie, a CNN safety analyst and former FAA safety inspector, said the situation highlights the need for change in an antiquated system that has what he calls a “flaw in the evaluation of the risk.”

“There had been aircraft shot down just prior to this,” Soucie said. “Someone should have taken action.”

Last week Eurocontrol, the agency responsible for coordinating European airspace, said Ukrainian authorities had closed airspace in the region below 32,000 feet, but it was open at the level Flight 17 was flying (33,000 feet).

“There’s a lot of questions to be asked in a lot of different places,” O’Brien said. “Malaysia, for example, what about the airline policy? What did they inform crews and flight dispatchers about flying through that particular part of the world? And why didn’t government officials close off that airspace completely? 32,000 feet, that’s a completely arbitrary number.”

The president of Dubai’s Emirates airline is calling for an international meeting of carriers to come up with a response to the downing of the plane, Reuters reported on Sunday.

The U.N.’s International Civil Aviation Organization can’t close airspace, Emirates President Tim Clark told Reuters, “but they can issue advisories and they may be a little more active.”

And national regulators “may start getting involved a little more than they have,” Clark said, according to Reuters. “They have perhaps left airlines to their own devices.”

The airline chief’s comments are a good sign that changes soon could be in the works, O’Brien said.

Les Abend, a CNN aviation analyst and commercial pilot, said before last week’s crash, pilots weren’t worried about missiles hitting planes they were flying.

“None of us, I think, would have conceived that kind of devastation from a surface-to-air missile,” he said. “Evading missiles (is) not part of our training. That’s just something that’s not in our vocabulary at this point and time.”

But now, he said, guidelines for pilots will likely change.

“Now we’ve got a new threat that we’ve got to deal with,” he said. “Now we’ve lost lives.”

                This entry was posted on Monday, 21 July 2014, 11:30 am and is filed under
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After Karpal’s sedition conviction, IGP Khalid wants my “scalp”, knock me out of Parliament  and even jailed for sedition?

The Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, probably hopes to get the second scalp of a DAP leader to be jailed and be disqualified and knocked out of Parliament for conviction of sedition – targeting me after Karpal Singh’s most unwarranted conviction for sedition and RM4,000 fine which would have ejected Karpal from Parliament if he is still alive and his appeal against conviction or sentence had not been overturned.

I was surprised when I first learned  that the Police was coming after me under the Sedition Act, although I was  nonplussed as to what seditious statement I had made to warrant a police investigation against me under the Sedition Act – especially when the Police had been infamously passive and notoriously inactive when there had been a crescendo of seditious utterances and threats by extremist individuals and NGOs inciting racial and religious hatred, including May 13 threats about racial riots uttered at least thrice this year alone!

Malaysians must commend the Malaysian Police for having the outstanding qualities not to be found in other  police forces in the world, i.e. its enormous ability to turn the blind eye to flagrant criminality right in their faces when committed by certain privileged groups of people  but extraordinary ability  to discern crime or sedition when they don’t exist when  another targeted group of people is involved!

In a buka puasa event last night, Khalid announced that the police will record a statement from me for my recent comment on the fifth death anniversary of  Teoh Beng Hock (TBH)  that Beng Hock had been murdered and that the killers are still at large.

Khalid said what I said could be seditious and I will be investigated under the Sedition Act.

He said: “Do not try to create something which is not true but can cause the people to be angry and suspicious.”

How does the Inspector-General of Police know that it is not true that Beng Hock had been murdered or killed at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) premises in Shah Alam five years ago  on 16th July 2009?

I would commend Khalid to read the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on TBH, for anyone reading it would find that the Report was screaming “Murder! Murder! Murder!” if not “Manslaughter! Manslaughter! Manslaughter!” although the RCI Report evaded the issue altogether in its conclusion with the  finding that TBH was  driven to commit suicide by aggressive and continuous questioning by MACC officers!

Is there such a “animal” as “forced suicide” which is not homicide or murder?

The TBH RCI found that MACC officers had acted with impunity in utter disregard of the law, resulting in TBH’s death, and then conspired to cover up the truth and commit the crime of perjury at the RCI public hearing with false evidence.

Can Khalid explain why the police had not launched investigations into the MACC officers implicated in TBH’s death, whether under sections 304 and 304A of the Penal Code, namely for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and for causing the death of TBH by negligence, respectively, or even under Section 302 for murder?

What was a great travesty of justice was the MACC statement on the fifth anniversary of the death of TBH on July 16 that the three MACC officers implicated in the death of Teoh Beng Hock by the RCI had been cleared of indiscipline by the MACC special investigation team comprising its disciplinary board and the complaints committee.

This was a most shocking and scandalous announcement – as not only the memory of Teoh Beng Hock and TBH family, but decent Malaysians as a whole deserve full explanation how the three MACC officers implicated in TBH’s death could be cleared of indiscipline by the MACC special investigation team, without having to suffer any penalty whatsoever!

Is the life of a person, who is not an important personage in the corridors of power in Malaysia, so cheap that it could be snuffed out in a most criminal manner without anyone having to suffer any retribution – like the 537 passengers and crew  from over 10 countries whose lives were snuffed out in an instant in the two air disasters within five months, MH 370 and MH 17?

Anybody who revisits the Report of the TBH RCI can only feel outraged and scandalized by the announcement of the clearing of the three MACC officers implicated in TBH’s death.

Although the RCI Report did not pinpoint Beng Hock’s killers, it was clearly established at the RCI that there was a conspiracy of “blue wall of silence” among the MACC officers to “cover up” what actually transpired at the MACC resulting in Beng Hock’s death, with the RCI publicly condemning the MACC Selangor officers (except for two “brave” witnesses) as a pack of liars who blatantly told lies and perjured at the RCI.

But now, the MACC trio implicated in TBH’s death had been completely exonerated and not “penalised” in any manner by the triumvirate of police, AG’s chambers and the MACC.

The  Conclusion of the TBH RCI Report referred to the criminality of the MACC officers in “’a blue wall of silence’ based on brotherhood ties among those (MACC) officers” resulting in  “the untruths spouted by the MACC officers to cover up the nefarious activities that took place on the 15th and the 16th”, i.e the events leading to the death of TBH.

Para 363 of the Report of the TBH RCI is most revealing:

“363. But what is most saddening and regrettable is that the operation that the Selangor MACC embarked upon led to the death of TBH, a promising young man in the prime of life who had everything to look forward to. His family was robbed of a son and brother, his fiancée of a husband and his then unborn child of a father. We can feel the pain and anguish that they must have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the callous machinations and attitudes of the MACC officers who were involved in the operation. We express our heartfelt sympathies on the loss that the family of TBH and his fiancée and son have had to bear and continue to bear. We can only hope that time will assuage their pain.”

The TBH RCI was established not “to feel the pain and anguish” of TBH family or to convey condolences to TBH family for the death of TBH but to ascertain, among other things, TBH’s killers and to act against the MACC and its officers for their “nefarious activities” and “callous machinations” resulting in TBH’s death.

Did the police follow up on the Report of the TBH RCI to investigate the MACC personnel implicated in TBH”s death despite the damning findings of the RCI on their  “nefarious activities” resulting in TBH’s death, and if not, why not?

Can Khalid answer these questions about the police conduct on TBH’s death?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 22 July 2014, 3:41 pm and is filed under
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MH17 black boxes handed over by pro-Russia rebels

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.

Most western capitals have accused the pro-Russia rebels of bringing down the plane using a Buk missile, possibly brought to Ukraine from Russia. Sakri refused to take questions on who might be to blame for the tragedy, and said that after the mystery of MH370 it was important to recover the black boxes this time.

“We show to the people of Malaysia that we are so serious to make sure that these things are recovered for Malaysia,” he said. The Malaysian delegation, having signed documents to recover the black boxes, hoped to leave “immediately”, Sakri said.

Ukraine’s security services had previously released recordings of what it said were rebel leaders coordinating a ground search for the black boxes and insisting that they not be given to international leaders, as Moscow wanted to get them first. The rebels denied that the recordings were genuine.

Earlier in the evening, a train of refrigerated carriages finally rolled out of the station in the rebel-controlled city of Torez carrying bodies collected from the crash site in recent days. Borodai said the train contained the bodies of 282 of the victims, as well as 87 “other body fragments”, and said that it had arrived in Donetsk after leaving the station of Torez near the crash. This came despite heavy fighting in the area around Donetsk train station on Monday. Borodai said the train would be joined by Dutch forensic airports and depart “soon” to the Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Bound for the city of Kharkiv, the bodies’ departure from the crash site is likely to bring a small amount of respite to relatives, after a chaotic and controversial clear-up mission complicated by a military conflict rumbling nearby, the summer heat and what at times has appeared to be deliberate obstruction.

During the day, a trio of Dutch experts, the first to reach the train holding the bodies, paused, hands clasped together and heads bowed, before clambering up to the grey train carriages to inspect the interior. One of the three, Peter Van Vliet, said the experience had given him goosebumps, despite the sweltering heat.

In a whispered conversation on the station platform, observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) urged the rebels to do everything in their power to speed up the process of moving the bodies out of the conflict zone

“This train must move today, it cannot wait any longer. It will not be good for anyone – not the experts, not the families, not you,” Alexander Hug, deputy of the special monitoring mission to Ukraine, was overheard saying to the rebels.

At 7pm local time, the train did indeed pull out of the station. When the bodies reach the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kharkiv, it is expected that the bodies of the victims will be loaded onto a transport plane and flown back to the Netherlands as soon as possible. The Malaysian delegation confirmed that all the bodies would be flown to the Netherlands, and would only then be sorted by nationality.

There is much work still to be done in Donetsk and at the crash site itself, but renewed fighting near the city’s train station between pro-government forces and rebels, which left several civilians dead on Monday, provides an additional obstacle for any international experts trying to reach the site.

Getting appropriate permissions for international experts to enter the war-torn region has proved problematic. Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for the OSCE, called the process a “logistical nightmare”. The three Dutch specialists, who travelled from Kharkiv, said that they had been accompanied part of the way by the Ukrainian army before being passed over to an escort of rebels.

Monday’s violence made Donetsk an even more daunting venue to travel for international experts hoping to examine the MH17 crash site. The city’s mayor advised all residents to stay indoors, the streets were largely deserted and there were reports that damage to infrastructure meant that the city would run out of water in a matter of days.

While the rebels have been heavily criticised for blocking access to the crash site, it was the Ukrainian army that seemed intent on disrupting expert work on Monday, as they apparently launched an offensive against rebel positions close to Donetsk railway station, as well as in other towns across the region.

The Ukrainian authorities said they were not targeting residential areas. “We are coming to the city, special assault groups are working there,” Vladislav Seleznev, spokesman of anti-terrorist operation, told the Guardian. “Within city boundaries we are not using heavy artillery,” he added.

However, there were a number of cases where what appeared to be Grad rocket fire had landed in residential areas. At one school building near the railway station terrified locals hid in the basement all morning, and two men were killed by shrapnel in the playground. A local named Sergei, who lives near the school, said he had helped to load dead bodies onto a truck provided by the rebels.

Adding to the sense of chaos, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s national security council in Kiev, denied that the Ukrainian army was responsible for explosions in central Donetsk but said small groups of partisans could be engaging the rebels.

“We have strict orders not to use air strikes and artillery in the city. If there is fighting in the city, we have information that there is a small self-organised group who are fighting with the terrorists,” he said.

The Ukrainian president ordered a ceasefire across a 40km (24 mile) radius from the crash site, but this does not include Donetsk, which is farther out.

The fighting near the station was an “added complication” for moving the train with the bodies, said the OSCE. They also said the body bags inside the train were tagged using a numbering system and stored at a temperature between 0C and -5C. Experts from several countries including the UK are in Kharkiv. The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, said the swift return of the bodies was his “number one priority” at a news conference on Monday.

With most of the bodies now removed from the site, attention will turn to the other tasks of the crash investigation, most importantly attempting to find some proof of what exactly brought the plane down.

David Gleave, a former aviation safety investigator, confirmed that pictures appeared to show shrapnel damage from a missile to a section of fuselage from the stricken aircraft. “The markings are consistent with something external hitting the aeroplane,” he said, describing the indentations as indicative of a missile strike.

“It looks like there are markings on the external to the internal of the aircraft, meaning it’s not a bomb blowing outwards. That’s not the main bit where the missile hit, it’s the periphery of the explosion. It looks like secondary damage.”

In spite of the delay in investigators arriving at the crash site, Gleave said it would still be possible to trace the manufacturer of the missile by forensically examining bits of wreckage and human remains for chemical traces.

“I’m not convinced [the contamination of the crash site] is quite as bad as people say. If it’s a missile then all the conventional stuff we need for data-gathering goes out of the window. A black box isn’t going to tell you it was a missile,” he said.

The cleanup operation, which has been roundly criticised by the international community who fear pro-Russia rebels are contaminating the site to cover up signs of their involvement, was cautiously praised by Van Vliet, at least when it came to the collection of the bodies.

Given the hot weather, the size of the crash site and the military operations going on in the vicinity, the operation was “very difficult” and he was impressed with the efforts of local emergency workers and volunteers, who have spent three days sifting corpses and body parts from the crash site. He added though, that the area needed a “full, forensic sweep” by proper experts.

Additional reporting by Oksana Grytsenko in Donetsk and Josh Halliday

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 22 July 2014, 9:20 am and is filed under
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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

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.

All Malaysians and the world  community as the victims of the MH 17 air disaster come  from some 10 countries are entitled  to know as to who  shot down the  MH 17 civilian airline!

But Malaysians and the world must be prepared for a long haul for the  horrendous and horrific MH 17 disaster,  as experts have warned that the probe into the air tragedy in Ukraine could be a long drawn-out affair which may take up to three years.

Be that it as it may,  Malaysians must remain united as one people on the MH 17 disaster continuing to give full backing to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the government to demand “swift justice” against the perpetrators of the crime against humanity who blew the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 jetliner out of the Ukranian skies and murdered the 298 passengers and crew on board in cold blood on July 17, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 22 July 2014, 11:08 am and is filed under
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Cockpit of MH 17 found sawed in half at crash site in Ukraine

By Filip Warwick and Doug Stanglin

USA TODAY

Detroit Free Press

July 22, 2014

HRABOVE, UKRAINE — International monitors who gained full access to the Malaysia Airlines crash site in eastern Ukraine said Tuesday the Boeing 77’s cockpit inexplicably had been sawed in half while under the control of Russian-backed separates.

The monitors said large parts of the cockpit — and every part of the fuselage — were carried off. They said they are not sure why such vital pieces of evidence from the downed plane were tampered with.

Flight 17, carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members, crashed Thursday after being hit by what U.S. officials suspect was a surface-to-air missile launched from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

U.S. officials said Tuesday that intel suggests separatists shot down the plane, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, and that no link to Russia was found.

The cockpit was found in a section of the crash site that had been immediately cordoned off during the first two days after the plane went down. Witnesses tell USA TODAY that this was also the area where the first bodies were removed.

The cockpit apparently was cut in half with diesel-powered saws.

“The rear part of the aircraft, one of the biggest intact pieces, has definitely been hacked into,” said Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for the group of international monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

On Monday, President Barack Obama had called on Russia to get separatists to stop hampering the crash investigation and allow international experts free access to the crash site.

“The separatists are removing evidence from the crash site,” he said. “All of which begs the question: What are they trying to hide?”

In a related development, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said Tuesday in Brussels that the European Union is imposing new sanctions against officials deemed responsible for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Timmermans said the EU’s “forceful decision” imposes visa bans and asset freezes on more officials.

He says the ministers also asked the 28-nation bloc’s executive arm to prepare for more forceful economic sanctions — including targeting the arms, energy and financial sectors — if Russia fails to back down from destabilizing Ukraine.

Timmermans did not specify how many officials were targeted under the latest sanctions, nor did he reveal their names.

After a four-day standoff, international teams were allowed into the crash site to look for more bodies and to gather evidence, but they are cognizant of the political upheaval in the area, which Russia-backed rebels have claimed as independent of Ukraine.

“It has been a different group of separatists every day It is very difficult to actually get any insight as to which battalion or which group they belong to,” Bociurkiw said.

Two hundred bodies of victims have been taken from the site and sent by refrigerated rail cars to the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where they are expected to be transported by a cargo plane on Wednesday to the Netherlands. Nearly two-thirds of the victims were Dutch citizens.

Dutch officials noted that rebels had said that the train was carrying 282 bodies but that a hard count showed only 200 on board, the BBC reported. They had no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

Small teams continue to search for more bodies from among the 298 victims, but monitors suggested that it could take months to scour the crash site’s 6-mile radius.

The personal belongings — luggage, clothes, toys, books — found at the crash site so far have been collected under four tents. One pile was taken to the train station in nearby Tore, but was left on the platform when the train carrying the bodies departed abruptly on Monday for Kharkiv.

The train was met in Kharkiv by police forensic experts as well as representatives of countries whose citizens were aboard the ill-fated plane.

Under mounting world pressure, pro-Russian rebels also handed over data-filled black boxes from the Boeing 777 to Malaysian officials.

A senior separatist leader, Aleksander Borodai, gave the data recorders to a Malaysian delegation early Tuesday in the city of Donetsk, a rebel stronghold.

“Here they are, the black boxes,” Borodai said at the headquarters of his self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Reuters reported.

Col. Mohamed Sakri of the Malaysian National Security Council told the meeting the two black boxes were “in good condition.”

On Monday, the UN Security Council passed a resolution unanimously calling for an international investigation into the downing of the Malaysian plane.

Contributing: Filip Warwick in Torez, Ukraine, William Welch in Los Angeles, and the Associated Press.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 July 2014, 8:10 am and is filed under
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Malaysia Flight 17 prosecution faces major evidentiary and legal obstacles

By Ernesto Londoño

Washington Post

July 22 2014

Despite mounting evidence that Russian-backed separatists downed a commercial aircraft over Ukraine last week, Western diplomats and law enforcement officials face significant obstacles prosecuting the culprits, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that they have not yet identified the separatists who operated the missile system that apparently destroyed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, presenting investigators with their first and perhaps most daunting challenge.

But in a briefing with reporters, the officials continued to build the Obama administration’s case of Russian complicity in a shoot-down by separatists. The officials provided intelligence material on the path of the missile, voiceprint analysis of separatists discussing bringing down a plane, shrapnel markings on the aircraft, and material from social-media sites to back administration claims.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, also identified a Russian military installation as a training hub for the separatists and a conduit for weapons to be sent into eastern Ukraine.

Even if the perpetrators are identified, determining their motive and proving their guilt would pose evidentiary and legal challenges for which there is little precedent, according to experts in international law. Establishing a venue for a trial would almost certainly entail intense diplomatic wrangling. Moreover, as crimes scenes go, the area in eastern Ukraine where the plane’s wreckage fell is a prosecutor’s nightmare, amid reports of looting and tampering with evidence by separatists.

“This is going to be one of the hardest prosecutions imaginable,” said William W. Burke-White, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania who served as a senior policy adviser from 2009 to 2011 to then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Figuring out who actually launched the missile is going to be near to impossible, and any evidence that was there has probably been destroyed.”

Dutch officials said Monday that the Netherlands would take the lead in investigating the doomed flight, which took off from Amsterdam with 298 on board, including 193 Dutch citizens. There were no survivors.

“Once the investigation ascertains who was responsible for the downing of the Flight MH17, accountability and justice must be pursued and delivered,” Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said Monday in an emotional speech at the United Nations. “We owe it to the victims, we owe it to justice, we owe it to humanity.”

On Tuesday, President Obama visited the Dutch Embassy in Washington to offer condolences and pledge to support the investigation. “We will work with them to make sure their loved ones are recovered and justice is done,” Obama said after he signed a condolence book.

A senior White House official said the contours of any prosecution are still being discussed.

“The precise shape of an international investigation — and what prosecution alternatives might be available — is still coming together,” said the official, who would only discuss the matter on the condition of anonymity. The official said the United States was encouraged by the fact that Ukraine has decided to let the Netherlands lead the investigation.

The two top lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee called on the U.N. Security Council and the Obama administration to do more to ensure that international investigators have access to the crime scene.

“The credibility of the investigation into this horrific tragedy already has been severely compromised,” Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.) and Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday in a letter to Secretary of State John F. Kerry. They called the incident a “crime against humanity.”

Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations pledged Monday that his country would assist the investigation, but Western officials and analysts said they suspect that Moscow would be noncooperative, if not outright obtrusive.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “has an obvious strategy of denial,” Burke-White said. “It could well be that whoever did this has gone back to Russia and is able to lay low and use the Russian government as a shield.”

At first glance, the Netherlands, home to the International Criminal Court, where complex legal crimes have been tried, might seem like an ideal venue.

The ICC, however, is unlikely to have jurisdiction because Ukraine and Malaysia are not member states of the global tribunal. A Security Council referral to try the case there would require the endorsement of Russia, which holds a veto.

The Netherlands may seek to try the case in its own courts, based on the number of its citizens killed, but Russia or other nations could contest its jurisdiction unless prosecutors were able to prove that the victims were targeted because of their citizenship.

It is also possible the United States could bring a criminal case because one of the victims was an American citizen.

A prosecution in this case is almost certain to be preceded by intense diplomatic negotiation, said Phillip B.J. Reid, a retired senior FBI agent who was among the lead investigators of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which was downed over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

“It’s going to have to be a compromise, some sort of agreement that takes place if it’s going to happen,” Reid said.

At the main crash site Tuesday, only two guards watched over a vast area, and they did nothing to stop onlookers from walking through wheat fields that contain the charred and twisted wreckage of the plane.

In nearby villages, potentially important scraps of fuselage that appeared to be pitted with shrapnel marks — potential evidence of an antiaircraft missile strike — lay along the side of the road. International observers have said that local workers used power tools to slice away portions of the cockpit and first-class cabins.

Reid said that any forensic evidence from the crash site in Ukraine that would be valuable to investigators has probably vanished.

“That crime scene has been contaminated in the worst way,” he said. “This is a war-torn area. There is no law.”

Michael Birnbaum in Hrabove, Ukraine, and Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 July 2014, 8:52 am and is filed under
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The danger of a former judge dressing up opinions as facts

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

23 July 2014

Want to know what has troubled the Malaysian judiciary all these years? Why it is the butt of jokes and why it has as much credibility as Datuk Ibrahim Ali?

Look no further than former chief justice (CJ) Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad (pic).

This is a man who shades the truth: who spews half-baked nonsense and tries to dress it up as fact. But most alarmingly, this is a man who is not averse to using his standing in society to divide Malaysians.

He is not what a judge or a former judge is supposed to be: courageous, full of integrity, but most of all, honest.

Just listen to his latest diatribe at a gathering before Muslim groups in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. In a nutshell, this is what he said:

* Islam is under threat in DAP-held Penang, because some unnamed mufti told him that obtaining an allocation for Islamic activities was difficult.

Did he verify the allegation? No. Instead he repeats this allegation to an audience of several hundred just to spark their anger against the DAP (read: non-Muslims).

* That during the opening of some building in Penang, in addition to prayers by Muslims, there were also prayers by Christians and Buddhists. The former CJ said that this was an example of the role of Islam under the Constitution being usurped by other religions.

What a sorry individual this man is. Malaysians are God-fearing people and what is wrong with each community being allowed to say prayers to commemorate a special event?

* That the Catholic Church was pressing the use of the word Allah because it wanted to convert Muslims. That Malaysia was different from the rest of the Muslim world where Christians were allowed to use the word Allah.

At the very least, you would expect the former CJ to do some research. Obviously, diligence is not his strong point. For starters, Christians have used the word Allah in their worship for more than 100 years and there were no problems with regard to the usage, until Umno politicians stirred the pot.

Secondly, there have only been few conversions from Islam to Catholicism in Malaysia in the last 10 years.

* That non-Muslims want the same rights as Muslims in Malaysia. This is a strange statement coming from someone who used to be at the apex of the judiciary.

The Federal Constitution guarantees Malaysians the right to practise their religion. This is what Malaysians want: what is guaranteed by the most important piece of legislation in the country.

There could be a number of reasons why Tun Abdul Hamid is stirring the pot with his incendiary comments and half-truths. He could be missing the spotlight, thinking that only speaking for Perkasa and Isma will get him headlines.

Perhaps he believes he needs to “defend” Islam to make amends for his sins. He won’t be the last person to go down this path. Malaysia is full of personalities who have suddenly grown a religious conscience after years and decades of sins of commission and omission.

Whatever his reason, make no mistake that the former CJ is a dangerous and irresponsible man, cut from the same cloth of Umno, Perkasa, Isma – men who make sweeping and unverified statements with the sole purpose of sowing hatred. – July 23, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 July 2014, 11:22 am and is filed under
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Analysts say justice for MH17 victims will be very difficult

Tom Allard

Sydney Morning Herald

24th July 2014

The battle to bring to justice the perpetrators of the apparent missile attack on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 will be extremely difficult, not least because Russia is in a position to thwart any attempt to bring it or its citizens before any international or domestic court, analysts said.

The hurdles are immense even after Russia this week endorsed a strongly worded United Nations convention pledging its commitment to hold those responsible to account, analysts said on Wednesday.

Whoever was behind the downing of MH17 remains uncertain, although US intelligence officials believe the most likely scenario was pro-Russian separatists hit the plane by accident, mistaking it for a Ukrainian military transport plane.

There also has been speculation that Russia supplied the Buk-M1 surface to air missile system, also known as a SA-11, to the rebels and trained the separatists in how to use it.

Russia and the separatists deny the accusations, blaming Ukraine – which also has the SA-11 – for the downing of MH17. If an investigation finds Russia and the separatists culpable, it will be a massive challenge to bring the matter to a court, let alone get  a conviction.

For an incident like the MH17 disaster involving multiple nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) typically would be the most appropriate arenas to hear a case. The ICJ adjudicates on disputes between nation states, while the ICC hears matters involving individuals who have committed international crimes such as war crimes.

But, said Alex Oliver, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute, Russia – and Ukraine, for that matter – do not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ and don’t have to appear before it.

And Russia or Ukraine are not parties to the Rome Statute that set up the ICC, meaning its citizens are not compelled to appear before this court either.

The UN Security Council can force any matter to be investigated by the ICC regardless of whether a nation state has ratified its statutes or not, enabling it to circumvent jurisdictional issues. But Russia is one of five countries that has veto power in the council. The situation was “very complex”, Ms Oliver said.

Individual nations affected by the crash – notably the Netherlands, Australia and Malaysia – could also seek prosecutions in their own courts. But they would face enormous hurdles compelling foreign witnesses to appear.

At a Lowy Institute discussion on Wednesday, University of Tasmania academic Matthew Sussex noted that the Russian constitution forbids it from extraditing its citizens to another country.

It won’t be any easier to bring pro-Russian separatists before a court either, as Russia can grant them citizenship.

Australian National University international law expert Don Rothwell noted that the Lockerbie disaster, when Libyan agents organised the bombing of a Pan Am passenger jet in 1988, was heard in a domestic court.

The aircraft – en route from Frankfurt to Detroit – crashed in Scotland and the Libyan agents were tried in a specially convened Scottish court set up in the Netherlands. A Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, although he was released in 2009 on compassionate grounds.

But the Lockerbie trial only came about after a decade of sanctions forced Libya’s then leader Muammar Gaddafi to agree to the trial in exchange for them being dropped.

The case highlights that the most effective way to bring perpetrators of international crimes to justice is often through economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure and sustained adverse media coverage.

Diplomatic pressure and widespread global criticism led to Russia endorsing a UN resolution this week for an independent investigation into the MH17 crash which – critically – also demanded “that those responsible for this incident be held to account and that all states cooperate fully with efforts to establish accountability”.

Ms Oliver said the resolution was a hugely positive step on the road to justice but noted that Russia “haven’t committed to submitting to any jurisdiction”.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 July 2014, 1:37 am and is filed under
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Flight MH 17 – Some Questions & Answers

Sri Lanka Guardian

Ruwantissa Abeyratne

July 23, 2014

( July 23, 2014, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) When the aircraft operating Flight MH 17 was shot down last week, I was vacationing in Melbourne. The ever vigilant media lost no time in tracking me down from my home in Montreal all the way to Australia within a few hours of the disaster with a list of questions. I thought I would share with the reader the questions that were put to me and my answers.

Q. Would the International Civil aviation Organization (ICAO) be able to issue warnings about a route related to potential dangers from violence/war? Would ICAO be able to issue warnings about a route related to potential dangers from violence/war?

A. ICAO has no mandate or competence to issue warnings based on political and war situations. This is entirely dependent on the State concerned which has the responsibility to issue what is called a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) which advises aircraft which airspace to traverse and which not to. If a pilot traverses many airspaces he/she has to consider all relevant NOTAMs .

The Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention) prescribes in Articles 9 and 12 this principle of the right of States to prescribe where aircraft should go and should not, in accordance with requirements set by such States. Article 12 on rules of the air provides that where flights over the high seas are concerned the rules prescribed under the Chicago Convention shall prevail. Those rules are contained in Annex 2 to the Convention.

Q. Does ICAO usually inform states about what other countries’ authorities are doing. For example the FAA’s April Notice to Airmen advising U.S. airlines to avoid eastern Ukraine?

A. No, it is not ICAO’s duty to advise States. NOTAMs are strictly between States and airlines.

Q. Which body inside ICAO takes the decisions on what warnings to issue?

A. ICAO does not usually issue warnings. The Council may, if it wishe,s pronounce on some issue relating to a principle or technique of air navigation.

Q. On a technical matter, given that the ICAO does not “close” routes, what kind of advice/warnings can it give?

A. ICAO does not issue “warnings” (nor is it obligated to) based on political friction or war if the exigency is formulated on the mere possibility of damage. This is purely the within purview of the State concerned ( e.g. precaution taken by the US FAA). However, the ICAO Council, if it is aware of an inevitable or imminent threat to civil aviation, could issue notification to States. In this case the President of the Council and Secretary General could notify States through an electronic message.

Q. Does ICAO usually inform states about what other countries’ authorities are doing. For example the FAA’s April Notice to Airmen advising U.S. airlines to avoid eastern Ukraine?

A. ICAO does not advise States on Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs)..

Q. many organizations are still calling for change in the way we regulate the safety of our skies, in cases where governments in war-torn states aren’t equipped to do the job. If ICAO is not the best group to do it, than what other options do we have? Any thoughts?

A. I have pointed out in my publications that ICAO is an “epiphenomenon” which Nazim Nicholas Taleb in his book Black Swan describes as a causal illusion that gives the perception that someone or something is giving direction to a process. The example Taleb cites is a compass in a ship which seems to give direction for the ship’s course but is actually only showing where the north is.

ICAO is very similar and is largely a reactive organization, although in the technical side it has taken some significant initiatives over the years. People may cancel their plush foreign trips and rush to Montreal just to give the illusion that they are hastening to give direction and a solution. The lack of anticipation and risk management is a stark fact, two glaring recent examples being ICAO scrambling to appear to be taking action in the global tracking of aircraft after the disappearance of MH 370, and appearing to take action on fraudulent passports when it could have, together with INTERPOL, advised States of the database of fraudulent passports maintained by INTERPOL. NATO or similar strategic organization is the best to handle advisories. Civil aviation will change after MH 17 just as it changed after 9/11. I suspect ICAO will keep on reacting. There is no area in the organization that evaluates risk to the safety of air navigation and recommends how to address such risks.

Q. We are hearing calls for ICAO to take a bigger role in terms of oversight. In other words publishing advisories over airspace deemed unsafe. What are your views of that and what potential would that have in opening ICAO up to liability in a case like MH17?

A. ICAO cannot take on the task of publishing advisories on navigation in airspace. That is not ICAO’s job, which is clearly enshrined in Article 44 of the Chicago Convention. According to this provision, ICAO is only required to develop principles and techniques of air navigation and foster the development of air transport. Advisories are purely matters of State which have sovereignty over the airspace above their territories.

ICAO, as a specialized agency of the UN enjoys immunity from liability, in performing its functions.

Q. We are looking into a story in Canada on whether international carriers are exposed to liability due to code share agreements with partners who suffer tragedies such as the Malaysian one.

Does it represent a risk for carriers who would not/do not themselves fly over conflict zones but have sold tickets to passengers for a partner airline that does. And would airlines need to change their practices/inject some sort of legal protection to take this in account, given what has happened with MH17?

A. The liability of a carrier is prescribed in the Montreal Convention of 1999. According to this Convention it is carrier who liable for damage sustained in the event of death or injury. It is usually the actual carrier that is liable and code sharing does not come into play or who sold the ticket (if it is a carrier other than the actual carrier).

Q. One aviation lawyer said the question of negligence would arise: can a carrier be deemed negligent for continuing a flight over territory where a conflict was going on. As an example, Air Canada said it made a decision to avoid the region (still not clear whether just Crimea or also eastern Ukraine) three months ago. But, until a couple of weeks ago, its code share partner Jet Airways of India was still flying over eastern Ukraine. In the MH17 crash, KLM was the code share partner.

A. The lawyer is absolutely right. Negligence is definitely a factor if the conduct of the carrier was consistent with the legally acceptable criteria for negligence.

Post Scriptum: In the MH 17 disaster, there are currently more questions than answers, and issues will unravel with the ongoing investigation. In the meanwhile there are several misconceptions tfloating around, one of which is that the shooting down of the aircraft operating Flight MH 17 was ICAO’s fault in that ICAO should have issued warnings to aircraft in the context of the air space concerned. This is an assumption that is absolutely without basis.

The author is an aviation consultant who worked as Senior Air Transport Officer and Senior Legal Officer during his tenure at the International Civil Aviation Organization

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 July 2014, 8:19 am and is filed under
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