Malaysia Airlines MH370

lol "Terrorist"

xp

how conclusive are the allegations that russia has furnished the separatists with weapons?

I think the evidence of supplying them with aid and firearms is pretty conclusive. I'm under the impression the separatists acquired larger artillery from raiding Ukrainian military bases.

well you know, there's the video of some of them saying they came in from Russia. And are Russian.

Yep, there is limited evidence they're getting much in the way of material support but Russia has done nothing to stop lots of people who wanted to go and fight from crossing the border.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/the-faas-notice-prohibiting-airline-flights-over-ukraine/374622/

Apparently the FAA prohibited flying over an area in the region but it wasn't the region where the plane was shot down

https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/489912715788296192/photo/1

Here's the separatist leader, at the scene

A large contingent of those on board this flight were Aus and other European HIV/immunology experts who were all on the way here for a big AIDS conference (ive seen banners all over the city advertising it).

Jeez

Just saw via FB that a friend of mine flew on MH17 24 hours before the one that crashed

fuuck that is horrible xxp to Trayce

ugh that is brutal

The bit that staggers me is apparently it was normal for them to fly over restricted airspacce... because its cheaper!? :/ Not fuckin flying to Europe in a hurry thats for sure.

Also 18 yrs ago today was twa 800 :/

this is so horrifying and awful, sorry i don't know what else to contribute

part of me hopes the shock and international outcry over this will help end the military phase of this conflict but i suppose there isn't much reason for optimism on that front

A large contingent of those on board this flight were Aus and other European HIV/immunology experts who were all on the way here for a big AIDS conference (ive seen banners all over the city advertising it).

Yeah, my workplace is involved tangentially in that conference and some people hear knew some of them

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BsxRatyCAAAJ01g.jpg

earlier today: not much traffic above ukraine, iran/iraq, syria, israel and other warzones.

none of those planes are over Donetsk where MA was shot down though

uh... yeah exactly my point.

3 days ago in Vice!
https://news.vice.com/article/downed-planes-and-burnt-corpses-in-eastern-ukraine

That writer's twitter is spooky: https://twitter.com/HarrietSalem

Argh more dead bodies in those links, watch out folx. (fuck Vice, geez)

Seems the 23 US citizens reported was false? Dutch number climbed to 173 deaths just now.

Colleague of a friend died in the crash. It's a very sad day.

The Guardian is now saying that as many as 100 AIDS researchers, including some global leading lights, may have been on the plane. It's a horrible tragedy regardless but that's just another level of human catastrophe.

Reports out of Baltimore that at least one Johns Hopkins AIDS researcher known to have been killed.

108 Leading HIV researchers lost as flight MH17 is downed in Ukraine

just awful

It's hard to think of a more concrete metaphor for how war robs us of all the good in life, and delivers precious little in return. What a terrible waste.

Russia has confirmed it won't be taking the black boxes and won't be formally investigating the crash.

Lavrov is still claiming it was a mistake / accident from the Ukrainian military and this seems to be the position Russia's going to stick with. The Russian press has gone into conspiracy theory overload (from the suggestion of a false flag operation to the idea that Ukraine shot down the jet thinking that Putin was on it) but the government hasn't attempted to put together a convincing narrative. Domestically, there's a lot of mention of the time in 2001 that a stray Ukrainian missile brought down a Russian passenger plane on the way to Israel but no real explanation of what Ukraine would have thought they were shooting at this time.

I heard that story about them shooting down the plane because they thought Putin was on it was doing the rounds in the Russian media. Fucking clowns. I wish he had been on it.

Apparently the flight was overbooked and a British family were turned away because there was only one seat available. I genuinely have no idea how I would react to that kind of escape.

You might go on to create an animated hit series known for stealing all of its jokes from the Simpsons

An emotionally exhausting day.

Have been assigned to cover grieving families instead of the press conferences this time around, which I hate - there's basically nothing you can say or ask that's not going to make everyone feel like shit.

One of my bosses, a former air steward whose cousins and aunt were on MH370, has now lost an ex-colleague who was part of the MH17 crew. Unreal.

Good friend of mine writes for Gu4rdian Au$ and shes on this story for the (suprisingly many) Aus on board. Its weighing her down.

Igor Strelkov answered questions about the crash of the Malaysian Boeing.

Question: There is a version of the story that the civilian plane was shot down by an SU-27.

Strelkov: There is such information. But I myself have not investigated the situation fully. Therefore I have not publicized this version (just like all others).

According to information from those who collected the bodies, a significant number of the bodies are 'not fresh' -- people died several days ago. I do not vouch for the full reliability of this information -- of course, an autopsy by medical examiners is needed.

There is more along those lines here:

http://www.interpretermag.com/ukraine-liveblog-day-151-who-shot-down-mh17/

The only note of caution there is that The Interpreter is run by Mikhail Khodorkovsky's son and is about as trustworthy as Russia Today or Komsomolskaya Pravda, though from the other side.

According to information from those who collected the bodies, a significant number of the bodies are 'not fresh' -- people died several days ago.

Isn't this from an episode of Sherlock?

I was thinking the same thing!

Reminds me of similar "speculation" by western media after Flight 655.

It's also part the plot of John Varley's time travel book Millennium.

xps to Shari

yeah I saw that, fair enough. at least they seem to support their translation with a trail of links for whoever has the ability to read the sources

the sheer front of Putin's response to the MH17 tragedy is unbelievable

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/separatist-links-malaysia-airlines-mh17-removed

xpost

it's completely consistent w/ putin's behavior over the past few years, no?

it's no 'we found the wmds'

thanks for elevating the discourse, mookieproof, i look forward to a robust and fruitful discussion of geopolitics on this thread

consistent yes, but since the initial ukraine events it seems now with a heightened sense of impregnability.

Putin wishes he was Stalin so bad

why is everyone talking about putin i though it was pretty clear the separatists shot this plane down. i'm confused