Gazette 072314

Wednesday July 23rd 2014

MH17 plane crash: First victims arrive in Netherlands

Two planes carrying bodies from crashed flight MH17 have landed in the Netherlands where a day of mourning for the 298 victims has been declared.

Experts there will begin to identify the dead, most of whom were Dutch.
Pro-Russian rebels have been widely accused of shooting down the Malaysia Airlines plane on 17 July.
UK government sources say intelligence shows rebels deliberately tampered with evidence, moving bodies and placing parts from other planes in the debris.
As fighting continued in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, officials in Kiev told the BBC that two aircraft, thought to be military jets, had been downed just 35km (20 miles) from the crash site.
The officials had no information on the cause of the crashes, or the fate of the pilots.
US intelligence officials had earlier released evidence to the media that they said showed the separatists' involvement in bringing down flight MH17.
Rebels have also been accused of exaggerating the number of bodies transported from the crash site to the town of Kharkiv on Tuesday.
They had claimed 282 bodies had been loaded on to a train, but experts said only 200 could be verified.
Related:
MH17: Dutch mayor wants Vladimir Putin's daughter Maria deported

MH17: US intelligence says Russia 'created conditions' for plane disaster

 Ukrainian Military Fighter Jets Shot Down In Eastern Part Of Country

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Two Ukrainian military fighter jets have been shot down in the east, according to the country's Defense Ministry.
The Sukhoi-25 fighters were shot down 1:30 p.m. local time Wednesday over an area called Savur Mogila.
Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky says the planes may have been carrying up to two crew members each.

Plane reportedly crashes in Taiwan, killing 51

A plane making a landing attempt in stormy weather following a typhoon crashed at an airport on a small Taiwanese island Wednesday, killing 51 people and injuring seven, fire officials said, according to The Associated Press. 
The pilot is believed to have tried to land the plane twice before it smashed into two homes setting them on fire, eyewitnesses told Fox News. 

Some of the injured were taken to a hospital suffering from burns. 
Taiwan was battered by Typhoon Matmo early Tuesday morning, and the Central Weather Bureau was advising of heavy rain through the evening, even though the center of the storm was in mainland China.
The flight was heading from the capital, Taipei, to the island Penghu, halfway between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait. Pictures from the airport showed a handful of firefighters using flashlights to look at wreckage in the darkness.
Penghu is a lightly populated island that averages about two flights a day from Taipei.

Gaza conflict: France jails pro-Palestinian rioters

A French court has jailed three men for rioting after a pro-Palestinian rally in a mixed suburb of Paris degenerated into anti-Semitic violence.

The three men, aged 21 and 28, were given sentences of between six and 10 months for their part in the rioting in Sarcelles on Sunday.
A fourth man was given a suspended sentence while a minor received a fine.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemned the violence, which erupted at a protest over Israel's actions in Gaza.
At least 649 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 31 Israelis have been killed in 15 days of fighting, as Israel targets militant rocket crews inside the densely populated Gaza Strip.
European Union foreign ministers condemned anti-Semitic incidents at Gaza protests across the EU when they met on Tuesday.
'No place in our societies' Jewish-owned businesses and a synagogue were targeted in Sarcelles during Sunday's protest, which had been banned by the authorities.

Lufthansa cancels another day of flights to Tel Aviv

BERLIN –  Germany's largest airline, Lufthansa, says it is cancelling all flights to Tel Aviv for at least another 24 hours because of ongoing safety concerns.
Lufthansa said Wednesday that the decision applies also to its subsidiaries Germanwings, Austrian Airlines, Swiss and Brussels Airlines. In all, 20 flights from Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Vienna and Brussels are being cancelled.

The airline on Tuesday suspended flights for 36 hours through the end of Wednesday. It said it extended the cancelations into Thursday because "at the current time there is no sufficiently reliable new information that would justify a resumption of air operations."
The European Aviation Safety Agency on Tuesday strongly recommended that airlines not fly to Tel Aviv after a Hamas rocket exploded near the Ben Gurion airport.
Related : International flights to and from Israel suspended over security concerns

Israel opens second int'l airport in response to flight cancellations 

Transportation minister orders that Uvda airport near Eilat be utilized to replace Ben-Gurion Airport beginning noon local time.

Transportation Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday instructed the relevant agencies to immediately open the Uvda airport, the country's second terminus for air traffic which lies just north of Eilat, in the wake of the spate of flight cancellations announced by major foreign airlines.
Katz convened a meeting of senior civilian aviation officials who recommended that the Uvda airport be utilized to replace Ben-Gurion Airport.
Speaking to reporters at Ben-Gurion Airport, Katz said that Uvda would begin operating at noon local time. The minister said that efforts are also being made to provide service to some 4,000 Israelis who were left stranded in Istanbul after their airlines refused to fly into Lod in light of the FAA ban announced on Tuesday.
Katz said that his ministry had urged Turkish aviation officials to transport the Israelis back home, but that the Turks are hesitant to land their aircraft in Uvda.
Air travel to Israel from all American carriers and several European ones came to a halt on Tuesday after the Federal Aviation Authority banned US airlines from traveling to and from Ben-Gurion Airport for 24 hours.
The decision followed the successful firing of a Hamas rocket into a house in Yehud, near Ben-Gurion Airport earlier in the day.

PLO Backs Hamas Truce Demands

* PLO endorsement could help Cairo's truce bid
* Israel presses offensive, Gaza toll hits 624
* Slain officer brings Israeli losses to 31
* Foreign airlines shun Tel Aviv over rocket risk (Updates Israeli death toll)
 

The Palestinian decision-making body led by U.S.-backed President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday endorsed demands by Hamas for halting Gaza hostilities with Israel, a closing of ranks that may help Egyptian-mediated truce efforts.

With Israeli and U.S. encouragement, Egypt has tried to get both sides to hold fire and then negotiate terms for protracted calm in the Palestinian enclave where officials said 624 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in 15 days of fighting.

Hamas, the Gaza Strip's dominant Islamists, and other armed factions had balked at Cairo's offer, saying they wanted assurances of relief from an Israeli-Egyptian blockade and other concessions. The dispute was further complicated by distrust between Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Hamas.

In a move that could effectively turn Abbas into the main interlocutor for a Gaza truce, his umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on Wednesday formally supported core conditions set by the Hamas-led fighters.

"The Gaza demands of stopping the aggression and lifting the blockade in all its forms are the demands of the entire Palestinian people and they represent the goal that the Palestinian leadership has dedicated all its power to achieve," senior PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo said in Ramallah, the hub city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where Abbas is based.

"We are confident Gaza will not be broken as long as our people are standing beside it to support it through all possible means until the invaders understand that our great people inside the homeland and outside will not leave Gaza alone."

Signaling that Abbas, too, sought a staggered cessation of hostilities, the Palestinian leader's Fatah faction on Tuesday proposed a truce followed by five days of negotiations on terms.

There was no immediate response to the PLO statement from Hamas or Israel, which pressed the Gaza offensive it began on July 8 after a surge of cross-border rocket salvoes.

Iraq violence: Suicide car bombs kills 21 in Baghdad

A suicide bomb has killed at least 21 people in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police and medical officials have said.

At least 13 civilians were killed in the attack, which took place at a police checkpoint at the entrance to the Kadhimiya district.
Many of those killed were reportedly on their way to a Shia shrine in the area.

Iraq is experiencing an upsurge in instability. The government is battling Islamist militants, who have seized cities in the country's north-west.
At least five of those killed in the bombing were policemen, security sources said.

The area is home to the Musa al-Khadim shrine, a site of pilgrimage for many Muslims. Fallujah airstrikes

In a separate incident, at least 14 people were killed in Iraqi air strikes near the city of Fallujah.

The Iraqi government has been fighting rebels in the city for several months.
Isis militants seized Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, in June.

They have since taken over areas of the north-west and closed in on cities near Baghdad.
The current conflict in Iraq has acquired strong sectarian overtones, with disputes between the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shia.

The Shia-led government is struggling against predominantly Sunni Isis fighters, and other Sunni rebel groups. Related : Iraq to vote on president after deadly bombing that killed 31

ISIS 'burns down ancient church' as Christians are told: Convert or die

Radical insurgents in Iraq have reportedly set fire to a church, amid a wake of thefts and ultimatums directed at Christians in the country's second-largest city of Mosul.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS wrestled control of the northern Iraqi city on 10 June in an attempt to carve out a Sunni caliphate.

Large swathes of Christian and Iraqi property has been seized by the militant group as it grows its governance in the aim of making Mosul the capital of its new Islamic state.

Another property seized by militants, the ancient Catholic Mar Behnam Monastery, located 15 miles south of Mosul, was a place of pilgrimage and an important Christian landmark.

However on Sunday, it was seized by ISIS fighters and its monks expelled, who were permitted only to take the clothes they were wearing.

EU threatens to cut off oil help to Russia

The official in charge of Europe’s energy policy threatened today to cut off the technical help given to Russia to develop oil and gas fields in the Arctic if Moscow does not help to defuse the Ukraine crisis.

The comments from Guenther Oettinger, the EU Energy Commissioner, came as European governments finalised the list of Russian individuals and organisations to be targeted in a new round of sanctions. 

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Kerry flies into Tel Aviv to push for cease-fire, amid FAA flight restrictions

Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Israel Wednesday as part of his latest effort to broker an elusive truce between Israel and Hamas that would halt fighting in the Gaza Strip. 
The secretary arrived in Tel Aviv despite a Federal Aviation Administration order temporarily halting commercial flights into the city -- a ban imposed after a Hamas rocket landed less than a mile from Ben-Gurion Airport. 

Kerry was to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem and Ramallah in what appeared to be a crucial day in the flailing talks. 
U.S. officials have downplayed expectations for an immediate, lasting truce between Israel and Hamas. At the least, Kerry's mission Wednesday sought to define the limits of what each side would accept in a potential cease-fire.
Kerry flew to Tel Aviv from Cairo, where he met Tuesday with Egypt's president and other high-level officials. Egypt has proposed a cease-fire plan that is backed by the U.S. and Israel but been rejected by Hamas. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri said Tuesday's talks were focused "to not only resolve this issue, but also to set in motion once again the peace process that Secretary Kerry has been so actively involved in so as to end this ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis."

Undercover Probe Finds Serious Problems With Obamacare

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional investigators using fake identities were able to obtain taxpayer-subsidized health insurance under President Barack Obama's law, according to testimony to be delivered Wednesday.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office says its undercover investigators were able to get subsidized health care under fake names in 11 out of 18 attempts. The GAO is still paying premiums for the policies, even as the Obama administration attempts to verify phony documentation.

The agency's findings are contained in testimony to be delivered at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing Wednesday. An advance copy was provided to The Associated Press.

Seto Bagdoyan, head of GAO audits and investigations, will also testify that there's still a huge backlog of applications with data discrepancies, even though the administration has resolved some 600,000 cases.

Brooklyn Bridge 'white flags' stump police

Authorities in New York are investigating who raised two large white flags on the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge early on Tuesday.

The flags briefly flew atop two towers at either end of the landmark in the place of two American flags apparently removed by the perpetrators.
As many as five people were caught on CCTV on the bridge in the minutes prior to the switch.
Police officials said they would not treat the prank as a joke or statement.
"We keep these things in perspective for what they are, but we also want to send a clear message that there will be an investigation," John Miller, deputy New York police commissioner for intelligence and counter-terrorism, told reporters.
"They will be prosecuted. We don't take these things lightly or as a joke or as art, or within the realm of speech."
He said the incident would be treated as trespassing that endangered the perpetrators and others.
"I'm not particularly happy about the event," Commissioner William Bratton said.
'Pre-operational planning' Mr Miller said security video showed four to five people crossing the bridge at 03:10 local time (07:10 GMT) on Tuesday.
Around 03:30, a light illuminating the American flag on the Brooklyn side of the bridge appeared to go out. The same occurred on the Manhattan side of the bridge around 03:42.
At 05:30, construction workers on the bridge noticed the American flags had been replaced with the white flags.
Police officers trained to climb the bridge found two large flags - 20ft (6m) by 11ft - which appeared to be American flags with the red stripes and blue canton bleached white.

Wait, Lois Lerner’s missing e-mails may still be available?

House Republicans on Tuesday said the faulty hard drive of former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner was less damaged than the agency let on and that backup tapes containing her missing e-mails may still be available.
GOP lawmakers are likely to raise the issues on Wednesday at a hearing with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who is scheduled to testify about issues related to the agency’s targeting of tax-exempt groups based on their names and policy positions. The hearing, which begins at 10 a.m., can be viewed live through the panel’s video feed.
“If the IRS would just come clean and tell Congress and the American people what really happened, we could put an end to this,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our investigators will not stop until we find the full truth.”
House Ways and Means Republicans said Tuesday that they learned that Lerner’s hard drive was only “scratched” and that the data was recoverable. They said the Internal Revenue Service ignored in-house advice to seek outside help to retrieve the information.
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L.A.-bound Obama sticking to fundraising, event schedule amid protests 

Angelenos, get those alternative traffic routes ready.
President Obama  will arrive in Los Angeles this afternoon on the third stop of a three-day West Coast swing that has combined a heavy dose of fundraising and a few official duties. The commander in chief will be raising money for November’s midterm elections and speaking at Los Angeles Trade Technical College about the importance of “job-driven skills training,” according to the White House.
That event may be the most visible part of his Los Angeles stay, but it’s the fundraising -- in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, for Democratic candidates in November’s races -- that has drawn harrumphs from critics.
“With all that’s happening in our country and around the world -- wildfires, droughts and international crises, I think everyone can agree the last thing the president should be doing is fundraising,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said in a statement Tuesday.
White House officials have defended sticking with Obama’s schedule, noting that the president has access to the same communications, advisors and intelligence whether he is in Washington, D.C., or traveling. But the international events have already influenced one decision -- to not appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Wednesday.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday that although the administration had been in talks with the ABC show to appear, “We ultimately elected not to have the president do that interview over the course of this trip, and that is at least in part related to the challenges of doing a comedy show in the midst of some of these other more serious matters that the President is dealing with in the international scene.”

Veteran Says He Was Forgotten Inside VA Clinic

DELTONA, Fla. (AP) — A veteran of the U.S. Marines says he was locked inside a central Florida community clinic operated by the Veteran's Administration.
Jeffrey Duck told WKMG (http://bit.ly/WCJOHU ) he arrived as a "walk in" patient at the clinic around 1 p.m. Monday and sat in a consultation room for more than three hours before realizing he was alone in the building.
Duck says he was worried he'd be accused of trying to steal something so he took cellphone video of himself walking around the lobby. That set off the alarm. So, he called 911.
The Veteran's Administration issued an apology to Duck on Tuesday and said they are reviewing their closing procedures.
Duck says he isn't angry, just disappointed.
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