International investigators tomorrow are to release their final report into the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over war-torn Ukraine, but the burning question of who was to blame is to remain unresolved.
The Dutch Safety Board, leading a team of international investigators since the Boeing 777 went down last year, is to release the report at the Gilze-Rijen Air Base in southern Netherlands.
All 298 people on board — most of them Dutch — including the 15 crew members died when the routine flight between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur was brought down, possibly by a missile, during heavy fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists.
Tomorrow’s report — 15 months after last year’s July 17 crash — is to focus on four subjects, the Dutch board said in a statement.
“The cause of the crash; the issue of flying over conflict areas; the question why Dutch ... relatives of victims had to wait two to four days before receiving confirmation from the Dutch authorities that their loved ones were on board; and lastly, the question as to what extent the occupants of flight MH17 were conscious of the crash,” the board said.
However, as the board has pointed out many times, it will not assign blame nor say who pulled the trigger.
“It is the purpose of the criminal investigation to answer those [questions],” it said.
However, Kiev and the West have pointed the finger at the separatists, charging they might have used a BUK surface-to-air missile supplied by Russia to blow the airplane from the sky.
The Russian maker of the BUK missile said it too is to hold a press conference in Moscow tomorrow to explain the “real reasons” for the disaster after holding an “experiment” that entailed detonating a missile next to an airplane.
The downing of MH17 further strained relations between Russia and the West, already at their lowest since the Cold War due to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The UN estimates about 8,000 people have been killed and 18,000 others have been wounded since clashes erupted there in April last year.
The report’s release also comes amid heightened concern over Moscow’s role in Syria, where it has launched air strikes that it says are aimed at routing extremists.
Relatives of the victims, who in July marked the first anniversary of the crash with an emotional gathering attended by more than 2,000 people, said they believed the final report will at least answer some questions.
They will also for the first time be confronted with the harrowing sight of a partial reconstruction of the doomed airplane made from pieces of wreckage brought back from the crash site.
“The report will throw new light onto the case as we know it at the moment,” MH17 Air Disaster Foundation chairman Dennis Schouten said.
Relatives understand that the criminal probe has not yet been completed to answer who was behind the probable firing of the missile, he told reporters.
“That must come from the criminal probe and has to be proved properly,” Schouten said.
However, with the release of tomorrow’s report “the net is certainly drawing a little closer,” he added.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese