Flags flew at half mast yesterday as Australia held a national day of mourning for those killed in the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash in Ukraine, a day after experts suspended the search for body parts.
Australia lost 38 citizens and residents, including children, when the plane from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 on board.
Church bells chimed around the country as a memorial service was held at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, chosen as 16 of the Australians who died were from Victoria.
Photo: AFP
Melbourne was also the host city for the 20th International AIDS Conference, with six delegates heading to the summit among those killed.
Grieving families were joined in the cathedral by dignitaries including Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove.
Abbott told the service that the families of those who died had gone through an unimaginable nightmare.
“Their plane had been shot out of the sky and 298 innocent people murdered, including 38 men, women and children who called Australia home,” Abbott said. “There will be a time to judge the guilty, but today we honor the dead and we grieve with the living. We cannot bring them back, but we will bring them home, as far as we humanly can.”
Australia has committed hundreds of police, defense and other officials to the task of repatriating the bodies of the Australians who perished, but suffered a setback when the search in UKraine was called off on Wednesday.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said a deteriorating security situation in eastern Ukraine meant the mission could no longer operate safely.
So far, 228 coffins with human remains have been flown to the Netherlands, which suffered the most casualties in the crash and where the painstaking identification process is taking place.
Former Australian chief of the defense force Angus Houston, who is coordinating the Australian response to the disaster, said the teams on the ground had achieved much of what they set out to do.
“When search and security conditions improve, we will conduct a final inspection to ensure that we have recovered all identifiable remains,” Houston said in a statement.
“We are committed to honoring the victims of Flight MH17 and seeking to give their loved ones the closure they deserve,” he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of