"Four to Face Murder Charges in Downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17" by Andrew E. Kramer New York Times, June 19, 2019
MOSCOW — Five years after a missile shot down an airliner over a war zone in Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, international prosecutors on Wednesday indicted three men with ties to Russian military and intelligence agencies, and implicated — but did not charge — a senior aide to President Vladimir Putin.
The criminal charges and the emergence of ever more detailed evidence against the Russian government, which has denied any role in downing Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, could further cool already icy relations between Moscow and the West.
Perfect timing!
So how long were they holding the indictment for just this occasion?
At a news conference in the Netherlands, the Dutch-led investigative team announced charges against Igor Girkin, a former colonel in the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB; and Sergey Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov, both of whom have worked for the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU.
Prosecutors also charged Leonid Kharchenko, who is a Ukrainian citizen but led a Russian-backed separatist unit under the command of Dubinsky.
The Netherlands’ chief prosecutor, Fred Westerbeke, said the trial would begin in the Netherlands on March 9. The accused are unlikely to be present, since three are in Russia and the fourth is believed to be in a breakaway region in Ukraine, but investigators said they would seek international arrest warrants for the suspects and put out a new call for more witnesses.
What I remember about the crisis over several days was the plane going down to the ground, and me wondering about the wreckage. From what I saw at the time, the investigation was madness and full of turbulence. I was told that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 'disintegrated into confetti,' so there is no way MH370 and MH17 were the same plane.
Anyway, with the crisis about to go nuclear and Putin hesitating, the time is right for a ground invasion -- only one part of the three-pronged pincer, with China forced to defend the Korean Peninsula while the US and Israel invade the soft underbelly of Iran.
The suspects “formed a chain linking the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic with the Russian Federation,” the investigators said of the four men, who were charged with the murder of 298 people. “It was through this chain the suspects were able to get heavy military equipment from Russia to the battlefield of eastern Ukraine,” including the sophisticated antiaircraft missile system that downed the plane.
The announcement was the latest development in an already meticulously documented tragedy of the Ukraine war.
The Joint Investigative Team of police from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Ukraine — all countries directly affected by the disaster — had already shown that the missile came from a Russian military base in Kursk, in southern Russia, but had not identified suspects. The missile was identified as a Soviet-made Sa-11, or Buk, surface-to-air missile.
Dutch authorities said they had more than 300 witnesses, intercepted calls and messages, and radar data to support their conclusions, and that they were working to document the chain of command from foot soldiers to senior figures.
Not like any of that can't be forged, and they didn't let the Russians look at it; however, I'm left asking why they are asking for more witnesses then?
One intercepted communication pointed right to the heart of the Kremlin. It indicated that a senior Russian official, Vladislav Y. Surkov, a former Russian deputy prime minister who was a senior domestic policy adviser to Putin for more than a decade, helped coordinate the provision of the antiaircraft weapon.
The destruction of the Malaysia Airlines flight on July 17, 2014, caused the worst single loss of life for civilians during the Ukraine war, which has continued for more than five years. The 283 passengers and 15 crew members on the flight, which was en route to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from Amsterdam, came from about a dozen countries; 193 of the passengers were Dutch.
The long-haul jetliner, a Boeing 777-200ER, disintegrated in the sky, scattering bodies and debris over a large area of sunflower fields and three villages in rural eastern Ukraine.
Oh, it was a Boeing?!
Are you sure the software was working?
So why was there a fuselage on the ground?
They are describing something more akin to Shanksville.
The United States and other Western governments blamed Russia almost immediately after the disaster.
At the time, Russian-backed separatists had been targeting Ukrainian spotter planes flying into the war zone from the west at altitudes only several thousand feet lower than that of the commercial air traffic on international routes.
The Russian government has consistently denied any involvement, and in a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin did not accept the findings of the Joint Investigative Team because Russia was not a member.
Russia’s foreign ministry issued a statement saying that, “once again, absolutely groundless accusations are being made against the Russian side, aimed at discrediting the Russian Federation in the eyes of the international community.”
Girkin, the accused former FSB officer — who at the time of the downing served as defense minister of the breakaway faction calling itself the Donetsk People’s Republic — issued a statement Wednesday saying the separatists “did not shoot down the Boeing.”
The Russian state media have promoted a range of alternative theories, including that a Ukrainian fighter jet or the CIA brought down the plane.
“From the first moment on, we hear a lot of theories about the cause of the disaster, as well as the question of who is responsible,” said Westerbeke, the Dutch chief prosecutor. “Often these theories are based on mistrust, on assumptions, and regularly on deliberately presented untruths.”
I didn't know he read the Bo$ton Globe, too.
Among the intercepted communications released by investigators was a short message exchange between a Russian soldier with the 53rd Brigade, the Kursk-based antiaircraft unit that supplied the weapon, and a woman identified only as Anastasia, with whom he is flirting casually. The soldier says a group is heading west, into Ukraine, on a secret mission.
That cinches it! Russia or their proxies must have done it.
--more--"
Did they find any passports on the ground?
Related (found at the bottom of page C6):
"Pilots criticize Boeing for mistakes on its grounded jet" by David Koenig and Tom Krisher Associated Press, June 19, 2019
Airline union leaders and a famed former pilot said Wednesday that Boeing made mistakes while developing the 737 Max, and the biggest was not telling anybody about new flight-control software so pilots could train for it.
Chesley ‘‘Sully’’ Sullenberger’s comments to the House aviation subcommittee came during the third congressional hearing on Boeing’s troubled plane, which has been grounded for three months.
He's the pilot who landed a crippled airliner safely on the Hudson River in 2009, and he has testified before regarding pilot pay, pensions, and the ‘‘crisis of trust’’ around aviation safety.
Daniel Carey, the president of the pilots’ union at American Airlines, and Sullenberger also questioned the FAA’s independence from Boeing and other companies it regulates. Sullenberger criticized an FAA program that relies on industry employees to perform some safety tests and inspections, and he urged lawmakers to give FAA more money so it can do the work itself.
It's the fox guarding the henhou$e-type thing.
No one from Boeing Co. testified at Wednesday’s hearing. Representative Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat and chairman of the full House Transportation Committee, said his panel has received ‘‘a substantial number’’ of the documents it has requested from Boeing and the FAA about development and approval of the Max, and he will summon the company to a future hearing.
Sara Nelson, president of the largest flight attendants’ union, joined in hammering Boeing and the FAA, although she acknowledged she has recently noticed ‘‘a chastened tone’’ from the company.
Yeah, after the October crash of a Lion Air jet in Indonesia and second crash five months later in Ethiopian.
All of the comments underscore the challenges Boeing faces.
Poor Boeing!
In a statement, Boeing spokesman Peter Pedraza said Boeing was providing information to regulators, airlines, and pilots ‘‘to re-earn their trust and know we must be more transparent going forward.’’
You never regain trust; there is always doubt now.
Boeing’s path to regaining trust still looks bumpy.
Ladies and gentleman, I have illuminated the put your seat belts on sign. Thank you.
Jon Weaks, president of the pilots’ union at Southwest — which owns 34 Max jets, more than any other carrier, and is the world’s biggest 737 operator — faulted Boeing for many missteps during the crisis.
‘‘Boeing seems to receive more bad news with every passing week and still needs to learn how to rebuild trust as well as the airplane,’’ Weaks wrote in a memo to his pilots on Wednesday.....
Time to board!
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How do you rebuild trust after the design flaws and shoddy production (debris and shavings left inside the plane?).
Also see: Probe clears acting defense head of alleged bias in Pentagon
That's not why he quit, and look what the cat dragged in:
"It was a long journey. Most likely driven by hunger, the emaciated polar bear had strayed far from its natural habitat before reaching the Russian city of Norilsk. The city, a nickel-mining center with a population of about 175,000, is just inside the Arctic Circle, but residents had not seen a polar bear so far south in about four decades, according to local reports. Trudging along on mud-blackened paws that contrasted with the still-white fur across its back, the bear was seen this week roaming scrap yards, housing developments, and even in the city center. The bear would normally be in the Kara Sea area, north of the Siberian coast, some 300 miles from Norilsk. But the ravages of climate change have hit the animals, which depend on sea ice to survive, hard. Dmitry Gorshkov, head of biodiversity at the World Wildlife Fund’s Russia office, said polar bears were sometimes forced to take desperate gambles. The Arctic region is warming about twice as fast as the global average, and scientists agree that ice loss in the region is accelerating."
Or it's colder farther south, and its funny how this report is coming out JIT for first day summer!
Of course, in Russia it is a crime to insult the state, signed into law by Putin himself.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
The bear has company:
"Number of people fleeing conflict is highest since World War II, UN says" by Nick Cumming-Bruce New York Times, June 19, 2019
GENEVA — The number of people fleeing violence is the highest recorded since World War II, according to figures released Wednesday by the United Nations refugee agency, as old conflicts dragged on and new ones erupted.
The global population of people displaced by conflict reached 70.8 million last year, up from a little over 43 million a decade ago, the report said. Around 80 percent of the world’s refugees have been living in exile for five years and around one-fifth of them for 20 years, it noted, underscoring the intractable nature of the situation.
“We have become almost unable to make peace,” Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, told reporters in Geneva.
Then Bolton was right, you can get rid of them and no one would miss them.
Think of that statement, too, if you will. It is not only an astounding thing for the U.N. to say, it is an admission of absolute and abject FAILURE!!!!!!
The report’s total figure is conservative, Grandi said.
It includes only some of the 4 million people who have fled the economic meltdown and political turmoil in Venezuela. Thousands of Venezuelans cross the border each day en route to Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, or Peru, or take to boats for perilous journeys to Caribbean islands, and without a solution to the Venezuelan crisis, an additional 1 million people could join the exodus this year, the refugee agency warned.
Related: "The Coast Guard is approaching a tipping point when it comes to maintaining a service that can respond in times of need, the service’s top officer said Thursday, requesting more money from Congress and highlighting a backlog of projects that has stacked up for years....."
Going to have to let them all in then.
Most of those uprooted by conflict worldwide in 2018 — around 41 million — remained displaced in their own countries, while close to 26 million fled across borders and 3.5 million were seeking asylum in third countries.
Of those who fled their own countries, 80 percent of the world’s refugees were taking shelter in neighboring nations, Grandi said, pushing back at the narrative that a majority were heading to the United States, Europe, or Australia.
Five countries — Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria — produced more than two-thirds of the world’s total refugees, according to the report.
Turkey was the biggest recipient of refugees, having taken in 3.7 million Syrians since 2014. Pakistan serves as host to close to 1.5 million Afghans, and Uganda has taken in more than 1 million people fleeing conflicts in neighboring states.
None of them get any thanks from the Western warmongers that created the crisis -- even Uganda.
Among developed countries, only Germany figured among the top 10 recipients of refugees as of the end of 2018, with a little over 1 million people, half of them from Syria.
Grandi singled out Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany for praise. By contrast, he said that the United States’ policies toward migrants arriving on its southern border underscored a global “crisis in solidarity,” but solutions to the rising number of global refugees will require cooperation among global powers that is conspicuously absent in the UN Security Council even in regard to humanitarian issues, Grandi said.
Quite a switch from the past:
"A German man has been sentenced to life in prison for poisoning his co-workers’ sandwiches with mercury and other substances over several years, leaving one in a coma and two others with serious kidney damage. When authorities searched the defendant’s home they found a chemistry laboratory in his basement and a substance that Judge Georg Zimmermann described as ‘‘more dangerous than all combat agents used in World War II.’’
Thank God we are past those troubles, huh?
“If you don’t have unity in the supreme organ in the international community responsible for peace and security,” he said, “how do you expect the number of refugees to diminish?”
Oddly enough, the five permanent members of the Security Council charged with peace and security are also the five biggest weapons sellers on the planet -- with the USA being tops by a mile.
David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, a New York-based nonprofit humanitarian group, echoed Grandi’s critique.
“As the numbers of displaced grow, we are seeing a tragic retreat from diplomacy that should be addressing the root causes of conflict and displacement, whether in Libya or Yemen, Venezuela or Syria,” Miliband, a former British foreign secretary, said in a statement.
“Instead of pursuing accountability for war crimes and investing in peace-building,” he said, “we are trapped in an age of impunity that is placing civilians, as well as humanitarians, in the crossfire, and driving thousands from their homes every day.”
That's when they start waving the “children, the children,” at you!
--more--"
Related: LGBT refugees allege harassment in Kenya
That's a civil matter, and how absurd is it that the same New York Times reporter authored this story that was right below the refugees report:
"Khashoggi killing inquiry should look into Saudi prince’s role, UN expert says" by Nick Cumming-Bruce New York Times, June 19, 2019
GENEVA — Saudi Arabia is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate last year, and there is “credible evidence” justifying an investigation into the role of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, a United Nations expert said in a report released Wednesday after a five-month investigation.
The expert, Agnes Callamard, also said that the UN secretary-general should establish an international criminal investigation to ensure accountability for the crime.
HA!
Says they have “credible evidence warranting further investigation,” but with the U.N. being quite impotent.
The 100-page report report by Callamard, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions for the UN human rights agency, is the most complete set of findings made public so far on the death of Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi writer who lived in the United States.
Only 100 pages?
Mueller's was over 440!!
“Evidence points to the 15-person mission to execute Mr. Khashoggi requiring significant government coordination, resources and finances,” Callamard wrote, [and it is] “inconceivable that an operation of this scale could be implemented without the crown prince being aware.”
That's why the 28-page file on them was classified.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, dismissed the findings as a repetition of questionable claims made before. Saudi Arabia has put 11 officials identified as being linked to the killing on trial, but has conducted the proceedings in secret.
Callamard said that the trial had failed to meet international standards. She called for Saudi Arabia to suspend the trial and cooperate with the United Nations in conducting further investigations and in deciding on the format and location of a trial. Failing that, she said, it should carry out further investigations and allow international participation in the trial.
She urged the FBI to open an investigation, if it has not already done so, and she asked the United States to make a determination under US law on the responsibility of the crown prince for Khashoggi’s death.
Not that I'm a defender for the head-chopper, far from it; however, that sure looks like a call for a violation of their sovereignty and what the hell business is it of the FBI? They are a domestic law enforcement agency!
Callamard also called on the international community to impose targeted sanctions on Saudi officials said to have been involved in the murder, including Prince Mohammed. The sanctions should focus on the prince’s personal assets abroad “until and unless evidence has been produced that he bears no responsibility for the execution of Mr. Khashoggi.”
Yes, he must prove his innocence! That's global ju$tu$ for you in the 21st century!
As for the actual crime, other than what certain Depp State factions and their pre$$ mouthpieces claim, all we know -- if we can trust the video, by no means a certainty -- is that we have been told Khashoggi disappeared.
Callamard is to present her findings to the Human Rights Council in Geneva next week in a session that will also be addressed by his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz.
That's where my printed paper got decapitated.
Callamard coupled her recommendation with a scathing assessment of Saudi Arabia’s actions after the murder. She said that the Saudi investigation of the crime had not been conducted in good faith and that it may have amounted to obstruction of justice, citing evidence that officials hindered the work of Turkish investigators, including having the murder scene forensically cleaned before it could be examined.
She said that Saudi Arabia did not respond to her requests to visit the kingdom and did not reply to questions she submitted. Turkish authorities gave her only limited access to evidence, allowing her to listen to about 45 minutes of the seven hours of recordings they had of Saudi officials in the period of Khashoggi’s death.
Despite such obstacles, her detailed report presents a damning picture of meticulous Saudi preparations for dealing with Khashoggi that began as soon as officials knew which day he would visit the consulate.
She cited recordings of a conversation between Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, a Saudi intelligence officer frequently seen in the company of Prince Mohammed, and Salah Mohammed Tubaigy, a forensic expert with the Saudi Interior Ministry, in which they appear to discuss dismembering Khashoggi. Tubaigy was on the team flown to Istanbul to deal with the dissident.
“Joints will be separated. It is not a problem. The body is heavy,” Tubaigy is quoted as saying. “If we take plastic bags and cut it into pieces, it will be finished. We will wrap each of them.”
Callamard said she did not have evidence pointing to the guilt of specific individuals, or indicating who ordered the crime. “What I do present is information that points to the potential responsibility of individuals and that is what needs to be investigated as a next step.”
What are they going to do, rebuke him, and what are they building in the desert?
--more--"
The war criminal MBS and all the blood and destruction because of him, and they are worried about one man:
"Yemen’s civil war has killed at least 91,600 people so far, a database tracking violence said Wednesday, presenting a new estimate after completing reporting for the first months of fighting in 2015. The conflict began with the 2014 takeover over of northern and central Yemen by the Iranian-backed rebels, driving out the internationally recognized government from the capital, Sanaa. Months later, in March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition launched an air campaign to prevent the rebels, known as Houthis, from overrunning the country’s south. In the relentless campaign, Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals, and wedding parties, killing thousands of Yemeni civilians. The Houthis have used drones and missiles to attack Saudi Arabia and have targeted vessels in the Red Sea. Civilians have borne the brunt of the conflict, which has created what the United Nations says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis....."
When the hell is that war going to end?
"Two rockets struck separate targets Wednesday in oil fields just outside Basra, not far from the headquarters of many international and domestic oil companies. Though a bit more frequent in recent weeks, rocket attacks have been rare since the Islamic State group was pushed out of Iraq more than 18 months ago, and oil fields generally have not been targets. Basra, in southwestern Iraq just north of the Persian Gulf, is one of the richest oil production regions in Iraq. There were no injuries reported in the second attack. No other details were available about the strike, and officials would not say who they believed was responsible. The rocket strikes come as tensions are escalating between the United States and Iran....."
Related: Iran Revolutionary Guard shoots down US drone amid tensions
The circumstances are under dispute and whether the incident was over Iranian airspace or international airspace, as claimed by two US officials, while separately, Saudi Arabia said on Thursday that Yemen’s Iranian-allied Houthi rebels launched a rocket targeting a desalination plant in the kingdom the previous night.
Trump has been briefed not to look soft, and all this has raised fears that a miscalculation, even though I am assured that casualties will be minimal.
I miss John Kerry, who got a leg broken to make the deal.
Meanwhile:
"Democrats have wrestled with whether the party would tolerate dissenting views on Israel. Many Democrats are able to navigate the terrain between their support for Israel and their criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Some take official visits to Israel and attend the annual AIPAC conference, a premier event of a prominent lobbying group....."
Related: Israeli electoral committee bans Arab candidates, allows extreme right to run
How odd that Congre$$ defends that racist apartheid state (wall included) and its supremacism as they pass a bill condemning all others.
F.B.I. Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide
They then clammed up.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Now it is over the mountain and into Asia:
"Climate change is “eating” the glaciers of the Himalayas, posing a grave threat to hundreds of millions of people who live downstream, a study based on 40 years of satellite data has shown. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, concluded the glaciers have lost 1.5 feet of ice every year since 2000, melting at a far faster pace than in the previous 25-year period. In recent years, the glaciers have lost about 8 billion tons of water a year. The study’s authors described it as equivalent to the amount of water held by 3.2 million Olympic-size swimming pools. The study adds to a growing body of work that points to the dangers of global warming for the Himalayas, which are considered the water towers of Asia and an insurance policy against drought....."
Forget about record cold winters, floods, etc, etc. Summer is here and time for mind-f*** stories about how hot it is, etc, even as the damp and cold kill you!
Be$ides, there are other things to worry about:
"Will the trade war cut the number of tourists from China? The tourism industry is wary" by Max Reyes Globe Correspondent, June 19, 2019
Boston’s tourism industry works hard to accommodate Chinese tourists, and with good reason: They’re the largest source of overseas visitors to the city.
For instance, some businesses have adopted WeChat Pay and Alipay, payment apps that are ubiquitous in China; Boston Duck Tours offers tours translated into Chinese languages; and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel hired Mandarin-speaking employees and rearranged its floor plan according to the principles of feng shui, but as trade tensions between China and the United States remain unresolved, some people who count on Chinese spending here are starting to worry.
The festering dispute is “kind of . . . the elephant in the room,” said David O’Donnell, a spokesman for the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We’re all concerned that if it continues to escalate, it will hit the travel trade.”
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All part of Trump’s trade war, and how do you keep China off balance?
With $900,000 in state tax credits and $272,000 in property tax breaks, and still do plenty of offshoring, too -- for their fight for freedom is ours, too!
Of course, you won't be paid as much.....
"The state Economic Assistance Coordinating Council on Wednesday approved $1.825 million in state tax credits to help subsidize Dutch robotics company Prodrive Technologies Inc.’s plan to open a facility in Canton, where it expects to add 146 jobs. Prodrive plans to occupy 53,000 square feet in a building on University Drive in September. The company had initially expected to go to the Union Point development in South Weymouth, but the site infrastructure was not done in time and construction costs were deemed too expensive. The state had originally pledged $1.375 million in tax credits for Prodrive if it were to move to Weymouth."
"Real-life ethics and artificial intelligence rarely go hand-in-hand but an American billionaire wants to change that. Stephen Schwarzman has given Oxford University $188.6 million for a new institute that will study the ethical implications of computing technologies. The donation from Schwarzman, (right) chief executive of the private equity firm Blackstone, will also fund a center to house the university’s humanities subjects in a single space to encourage collaborative study. Schwarzman, in an interview with the BBC, compared the rise of AI to the rise of the Internet, which was launched by computer scientists who thought it was ‘‘cool.’’ Schwarzman co-founded Blackstone, which has some $512 billion assets under management, making it a major investment firm. In recent years, he has made other sizable donations to educational institutions, including $350 million to establish the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Schwarzman College of Computing, which will also address the challenges of AI."
He is just pouring $alt in the wound as he considered running for president.
At least General Electric’s aviation business a bright spot.
Related:
Astronauts, Jeff Bezos discuss future of space exploration at anniversary celebrating moon landing
The bigger and longer the lie..... he hears you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake.
Robotic farming: It looks to be a growth industry
Yeah, keep your head up because the China and Russian fleets are on the way.
