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Bill Clinton warns Israel on 'isolating itself from world opinion'

AFP
9 hours ago
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Smoke billows from a beach shack following an Israeli military strike, on July 16, 2014 in Gaza City which killed four children
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Smoke billows from a beach shack following an Israeli military strike, on July 16, 2014 in Gaza City which killed four children (AFP Photo/Thomas Coex)

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New Delhi (AFP) - Former US president Bill Clinton has warned Israel about "isolating itself from world opinion" due to repeated conflicts in Gaza after four children were killed on a beach in the latest violence.
More than 220 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have died during 10 days of Israeli bombing and shelling in Gaza in retaliation for over 1,200 rocket attacks from Hamas militants.
"Over the long run it is not good for Israel to keep isolating itself from world opinion because of the absence of a viable peace process," Clinton told the Indian NDTV news channel on Wednesday.
"In the short to medium term, Hamas can inflict terrible public relations damage on Israel by forcing it to kill Palestinian civilians to counter Hamas," he added.
Hamas had a "strategy designed to force Israel to kill their own (Palestinian) civilians so the rest of the world will condemn them," while Israel couldn't "look like fools" by not responding to the heavy missile attacks.
Clinton, who pushed hard while president for a comprehensive peace deal at a Camp David summit in 2000, urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resume serious talks.
"I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu could and should make a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians," he said, adding that he believed 60 percent of Israelis would support him.
The objective of all should be "a peace process that gets Israel security recognition and peace and that gets the Palestinians their state," he said.
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Ukraine: 295 on Malaysia plane shot down over east

HRABOVE, Ukraine (AP) — A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said, and both the government and the pro-Russia separatists fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the aircraft.
Associated Press50 mins ago
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ISRAEL STARTS GROUND AND AIR WAR IN THE ABRAHAMIC LANDS.
On the seventeenth day of July 2014 (07/17/2014) giving a total providential number of 22, not auspicious for the Christian numeral symbols of heaven and for mankind; with global opposition and intervention to halt such invasion and against the will and directions given by Yesu Kristo and the Messiah before leaving earth for the peace process in Israel at the U.N, against Advice by President Clinton, and many world leaders including the U.N,  Israel unilaterally is on an offensive war against the Palestinians in the Age of Cheon Il Guk.
 
 
Israel starts Gaza ground offensive
Smoke rises from flares in Gaza as Israel announces a ground offensive, 17 JulySmoke rises from flares in Gaza as Israel announces a ground offensive
The Israeli military has begun a ground offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, extending its 10-day-old Operation Protective Edge.
It said it was in response to continued militant rocket fire and to strike a "significant blow to Hamas", which controls Gaza.
Hamas said Israel would pay a high price for the ground offensive.
There had been a five-hour humanitarian truce on Thursday, but exchanges of fire resumed when it ended.
Some 230 Palestinians and one Israeli have died during the Operation Protective Edge period.
Tunnels
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said: "Following 10 days of Hamas attacks by land, air and sea, and after repeated rejections of offers to de-escalate the situation, the IDF has initiated a ground operation within the Gaza Strip."
"Clearly this is a major escalation of this conflict," reports Quentin Sommerville in Tel Aviv
It said the goal was to "establish a reality in which Israeli residents can live in safety and security without continuous indiscriminate terror, while striking a significant blow to Hamas' terror infrastructure".
Military spokesman Gen Moti Almoz said: "I ask the residents of Gaza to evacuate the areas in which the army is operating. This operation will be extended as much as necessary."
Israel has approved the drafting of 18,000 more reservists.
One Hamas spokesman told Reuters news agency the ground offensive was "foolish" and would have "dreadful consequences".
Another, Fawzi Barhum, said: "The start of the Israeli ground attack on Gaza is a dangerous step, the consequences of which have not been calculated. Israel will pay a high price and Hamas is ready for the confrontation."
Graphic
Palestinian militants fire missiles at Israel amid Israeli air strikes, 17 JulyPalestinian militants fire missiles at Israel amid Israeli air strikes
An intensive bombardment of Gaza by Israeli planes, artillery and ships has been taking place.
Media in Gaza have reported seeing Israeli commandos on the beach there.
The BBC's Yolande Knell in Gaza says journalists were warned to take shelter, shortly before the ground offensive announcement was made.
Other Gaza witnesses say 10 tanks have crossed the border into north-west Gaza.
Israeli media said one key aim of the ground offensive was to destroy tunnels that could be used to infiltrate militants into Israel.
Are Israeli strike warnings effective? The BBC examines footage from both sides
An attempt by 13 militants to tunnel into Israel to attack a kibbutz on Wednesday had been thwarted by the Israeli military.
The BBC's Kevin Connolly in Jerusalem says it is possible that with the ground invasion Israel is seeking to improve its military position in advance of any deal, but that more probably it has concluded that a ceasefire at the moment in unlikely.
Israel says it has carried out more than 1,960 attacks on Gaza since 8 July, while militants have fired some 1,380 rockets at Israel.
The UN says at least 1,370 homes have been destroyed in Gaza and more than 18,000 people displaced in recent hostilities.
It says most of those killed in Gaza have been civilians.
Humanitarian truce
The ground offensive follows attempts in Cairo to negotiate a new ceasefire.
Egypt has been mediating the negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
There had been some reports that a new truce would start at 06:00 local time (03:00 GMT) on Friday.
However, both Israel and Hamas later dismissed the reports.
Thursday's temporary ceasefire had been requested by the UN and other international organisations to provide emergency relief and distribute water, food and hygiene kits to the people of Gaza.
The truce lasted from 10:00 and 15:00 local time, although both sides reported violations.
But almost immediately after it ended, Israel reported renewed militant rocket fire and there were fresh air strikes on targets in Gaza.
The health ministry in Gaza said one Israeli air strike had hit a home in the Sabra area of Gaza City, killing three children - aged between seven and 10 - from the same family.
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It's Obama's presidency, but Bush's world

By Matt Bai July 3, 2014 4:37 AM Yahoo News
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U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about Iraq in the Brady Briefing room of the White House on June 19, 2014 in Washington, DC. Obama spoke about the deteriorating situation as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants move toward Baghdad after taking control over northern Iraqi cities. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about Iraq in the Brady Briefing room of the White House on June 19, 2014 in …
Believe it or not, it was 10 years ago this month that Barack Obama, then a candidate for the U.S. Senate, introduced himself to America with a speech that shook the Fleet Center in Boston. The main theme of that Democratic convention was the litany of George W. Bush's failures — an unpopular and unending war in Iraq, a faltering image abroad, a stagnating middle class. Obama gave eloquent voice to those frustrations, arguing that all of them could be addressed if only we reunited the electorate.
Probably Obama himself would not have guessed then that he would ascend to the White House just four years later. But he certainly wouldn't have imagined that a full decade on, nearing the halfway point in his second term, he would find himself dragged down by precisely the same set of issues that vexed his predecessor.
After a month that saw Iraq unravel and job growth continue to plod along, while the stock market soared, the central paradox of the Obama years, as historians will undoubtedly view it, has never been clearer. It's Obama's presidency, but he's still governing in Bush's world.
Obama's critics will no doubt hear in this an excuse for his stymied agenda and limp approval ratings, but that's not the point. The fact is that it's always hard to assign credit or blame for conditions in the country to any president at any one time; the lines demarcating one presidency from the next are like arbitrary and porous borders, freely traversed by longer-term trends that don't neatly conform to the timelines of our elections.
Did the fault in Vietnam lie with John F. Kennedy (who committed troops in the first place), or with Lyndon B. Johnson (who escalated the war), or with Richard Nixon (who failed to end it)? Did we owe the '90s economic expansion to Bill Clinton, or did the recovery take root under George H.W. Bush?
The political reality is that a president has to own whatever happens on his watch, for better or worse, and without any whining. Polls show the voters now blame Obama more than George W. Bush for the painfully slow economic recovery, and after enduring five and a half years of constantly shifting rhetoric and strategy and White House staff, you really can't blame them.
But it's hard to think of any second-term president in the past century, at least, who's been so completely consumed by issues he inherited. With the notable exception of the health care law, which will stand as his signature initiative, Obama's agenda has been dominated by crises that predated his tenure and have eluded his grasp.
The most obvious of these at the moment is the situation in Iraq, which Obama had vowed to put behind us once and for all, and which is now devolving into a morass of tribal and sectarian warfare — an outcome that should have seemed inevitable to anyone who ever visited the country or bothered to read a history book. There's also the mess in Afghanistan and the cresting tide of Islamist militancy in Syria and throughout the region, all of which came in a package deal with Bush's global war on Terror.
Then you have to consider security conundrums closer to home, like domestic spying (which Obama had excoriated as a candidate) and the quasi-legal prison at Guantanamo Bay (which he had vowed to shutter). Turns out that it takes an awful lot of resolve for any president to turn off the giant sucking machine of high-tech intelligence once the government has turned it on. And what do you know: There's no good place to send the prisoners at Gitmo, after all — unless you want to unload them for an American prisoner of war, like the Marlins at the trading deadline. Obama hasn't yet solved either problem.
The defining issue of Obama's presidency remains an economic recovery that continues to leave behind most Americans while enriching a relative few, for which the president mostly blames Congress, almost six years after the Wall Street meltdown that helped propel him to the White House. The mounting debt Democrats derided as irresponsible in the Bush years has only intensified under Obama, with no greater clarity on how to get it under control.
And let's not forget the toxic, paralyzing political atmosphere Bush bequeathed his successor. Obama's central promise as a candidate was to unstick us from all of that (hope and change, etc.), but his presidency has been swallowed by it, instead. Now he's resorted to exactly the same type of governing by executive fiat for which Democrats assailed Bush.
The question great thinkers will long debate, of course, is exactly why Obama has remained so imprisoned by his predecessor's choices. Will history treat Obama as a victim of dire circumstance? Or was he too little prepared for what his first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, once described to me as the "shit sandwich" he inherited?
You'd have a hard time arguing that Obama didn't underestimate or mishandle a lot of the challenges that have shaped his presidency. His economic policies may well have averted the worst-case scenario, which seemed very real and very scary in 2009, but it's also clear that the administration managed to do very little to change the long-term trajectories in housing and education, where rising costs are changing what it means to be middle class.
It was nice to talk about rebuilding America's tarnished image in the world, and when Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for no other reason than having succeeded Bush, it seemed imminently achievable. But whatever moral standing Obama had to work with was probably squandered by his own inconstancy in foreign crises and revelations that he has expanded America's spying apparatus around the world, rather than reining it in.
But the larger miscalculation here, and Obama's advisers were hardly alone in making it, was to see the destabilization of the Bush years as just another political cycle, the result of policy choices that could be readily reversed by some other set of policy choices. The mistake was in seeing the period before Obama as a moment that would pass, rather than as the onset of an entirely new era of governance, beyond any one president's control.
Bush didn't create the uncorking of religious and nationalist extremism, or the rise of borderless capital and the decline of American industry, or the retirement of the boomers, or the steadily rising temperatures in the Arctic. It's true he didn't seem very well-equipped to deal with any of them, and his policy solutions — democratization by force, bottomless tax cuts, the deregulation of industry — mostly made things worse. But we were going to have to reckon with these challenges no matter what, and no set of simple, short-term solutions exist.
Just as the end of World War II ushered in both the Cold War and the industrial boom that would define American politics for the better part of 50 years, so too did the terrorist attacks of 2001 and the subsequent economic crisis mark the arrival of what you might call the era of globalization — an era of often agonizing transformation that will span several presidencies and demand some very fundamental reforms before it's through.
Ultimately, history will likely record both Bush and Obama as presidents grappling in different ways with the same array of overarching change, at the dawn of a long period of readjustment. We may yet find some national consensus about how to confront it. In the meantime, we might as well settle in.
           
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Ukraine: 295 on Malaysia plane shot down over east

 
 
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Ukraine: 295 on Malaysia plane shot down over east
HRABOVE, Ukraine (AP) — A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine on Thursday, Ukrainian o...
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HRABOVE, Ukraine (AP) — A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said, and both the government and the pro-Russia separatists fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the aircraft.
Associated Press34 mins ago
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Group says it hits milestone in bid to turn Texas toward Democrats

By Jon Herskovitz AUSTIN Texas (Reuters) - Alumni from the Obama 2012 presidential campaign reached what they called a milestone this week in their campaign to turn Texas from a Republican stronghold into a state where Democrats post wins capable of shaking the national political landscape. The…
Reuters
 
 
 
Immigration is suddenly No. 1 issue, but what do Americans want done?
New polls show that immigration has shot up the list of American concerns. Many people agree on the potential solutions, even though they're seen as politically controversial.
Christian Science Monitor
By Mark Trumbull July 16, 2014 6:10 PM
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The border crisis involving unaccompanied children has pushed immigration suddenly to the top of the national agenda – and Americans have at least some consensus about what action Congress should take.
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Though immigration reform proposals have struggled to find support in the Republican-controlled House, recent opinion polls show substantial support for its core planks. The polls suggest that, despite poisonous political rhetoric over immigration reform, there are bridges of agreement among Americans about the steps that should be taken – and frustration over Congress's inability to act.
Specifically, the idea of tighter border security has strong majority support. So does the idea of providing for legal status – and possible paths to citizenship – for immigrants now in the US illegally.
In a new survey released Thursday, the public also weighs in on the minors who have been flooding across the border this year – the trend that has pushed immigration to the forefront. In the new Pew Research Center poll, a slim majority favors expedited decisions on deportation or asylum for those minors.
Media images of the porous southern border and of a tide of children making the perilous journey from Central America have clearly had an impact on public opinion.
A monthly Gallup poll, released alongside the Pew survey Thursday, finds that Americans’ top national priorities have changed significantly since June. Immigration is named as the No. 1 national problem by 17 percent of respondents, up from 5 percent who said that in June and 3 percent in January – and higher than at any time since 2006.
That puts immigration at the top of the list in Gallup’s new results. It’s not that the economy is no longer a big worry. That issue would still rank as a bigger concern if you lump people who put “economy” first (15 percent of respondents) together with those who say “jobs” or “unemployment” (14 percent). Still, concern about those two categories fell in July even as immigration surged.
Concern about immigration spans all regions, but it was named as the top problem most often in the West (by 24 percent of those polled) and least often in the Midwest (by 13 percent). Some 23 percent of Republicans say it’s the top issue, compared with 16 percent of independents and 11 percent of Democrats.
On the question of what should be done, the nation still shows longstanding fault lines, with substantial numbers of Americans in both the “no-amnesty” and the “path to citizenship” camps.
A May New York Times poll hints at how immigration is central to a broader debate over America’s character as a nation. It found 54 percent agreeing with the idea that the nation should be “a country with a basic American culture and values that immigrants take on when they come here.”
But another 42 percent favored the ideal of “a country made up of many cultures and values that change as new people come here.”
As divisive as the issue is, public views also point toward some possible consensus solutions.
In the new Pew Research Center poll, for example, 68 percent of Americans support the idea that “immigrants living in the US who meet certain requirements should be allowed to stay in the US legally.” That total included majorities of both major political parties, and of political independents.
Support for legal status has sagged a bit as the border crisis has emerged in the news, however. Among Republicans, only 54 percent in July favored the “allowed to stay” option in the Pew poll, down from 64 percent in February.
For some years now, Americans have supported the general idea of a path to citizenship. As far back as 2006, two-thirds of Americans in a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll supported such a path for illegal immigrants who learn English, pay a fine, and meet other requirements.
Many Americans want a tough-love approach. In a June Gallup poll, 63 percent said immigration is generally “a good thing” for the country, but more said the overall number of immigrants should be decreased (41 percent) than increased (22 percent).
And a Gallup poll last year found 83 percent support for a law “that would tighten US border security and provide the Border Patrol with increased technology, infrastructure and personnel.”
The new Pew poll bores in on the recent influx of minors. It finds 53 percent of Americans saying the legal process for dealing with Central American children who cross the border illegally should be accelerated, even if that means that some children who are eligible for asylum are deported.
Some 38 percent would rather stay with the current policy, even though the process could take a long time and the children will stay in the US in the interim.
Hispanic Americans in the poll were more evenly divided, with 47 percent saying “speed up the process” and 49 percent favoring the current policy.
 
 
 
 
Obama: Climate change a direct threat to US cities
Associated Press
By JOSH LEDERMAN July 16, 2014 3:02 PM
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President Barack Obama attends a meeting with state, local, and tribal leaders, Wednesday, July 16, 2014, in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, where he spoke about a series of new actions being taken to support communities facing climate change. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Harsher storms, worsening flooding and rising seas threaten the public's safety and health across the country, President Barack Obama warned Wednesday as he urged local communities to prepare for the effects of climate change.
Joined by top federal officials and local, state and tribal leaders at the White House, Obama said communities experiencing negative effects firsthand know that climate change is already upon us. He said boosting the nation's resilience and fighting climate change shouldn't be a partisan issue for lawmakers in Washington.
"Climate change poses a direct threat to the infrastructure of America," Obama said.
To help communities prepare, Obama announced new federal resources and grants. Some of the money will help rural communities dealing with drought and help Native American tribes train their officials to deal with climate change. The funding will also promote development of three-dimensional mapping of the U.S. for use in flood and erosion mitigation.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee were among those attending the fourth and final meeting of Obama's 26-person task force, whose mandate was to advise Obama on how the administration can help communities already dealing with climate change. Facing staunch opposition to climate legislation from Congress, Obama has been seeking ways to use existing authority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and better respond to climate-related events.
 
 
British Deputy PM: Israel's Gaza response 'collective punishment'
Reuters
10 hours ago
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LONDON (Reuters) - Israel's retaliatory air strikes on Gaza have been "deliberately disproportionate" and amount to "collective punishment", Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said on Thursday, in unusually robust criticism of a close British ally
Clegg made his comments on the tenth day of fighting between Israel and Hamas during a five-hour humanitarian truce which prompted a temporary halt to Israel's air strikes as well as rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave of Gaza into Israel.
"I really do think now the Israeli response appears to be deliberately disproportionate, it is amounting now to a disproportionate form of collective punishment," Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the junior partner in the country's coalition, told Britain's LBC radio station.
"I really would now call on the Israel Government to stop. They've proved their point," he said. He said he respected Israel's right to defend itself.
Gaza health officials say at least 224 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the fighting. In Israel, one civilian has been killed by rocket fire from Gaza, where the Israeli military says more than 1,300 rockets have been launched into the Jewish state.
The current conflict was largely triggered by the killing of three Israeli teens in the occupied West Bank last month and the death on July 2 of a Palestinian youth in a suspected revenge murder.
(Reporting by William James; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
 
 
 
Malaysian airliner crashes in E. Ukraine near Russian border, over 280 people on board
Published time: July 17, 2014 15:18
Edited time: July 17, 2014 18:36
A man works at putting out a fire at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014.(Reuters / Maxim Zmeyev )
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A Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing-777 with over 280 passengers on board has crashed in Ukraine, close to the border with Russia. Both Kiev and the opposition deny involvement in the incident.
The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Geraschenko said the plane carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew members fell.
Malaysia Airlines has confirmed that it has lost contact with the plane when it was flying over Ukrainian soil.
The passenger plane was expected to enter Russian airspace at 5:20pm local time, but never did, a Russian aviation industry source was cited by Reuters.
“The plane crashed 60km away from the border, the plane had an emergency beacon,” ITAR-TASS cited its source.
Residents have reported finding debris from a plane, which they say could belong to the Malaysian Boeing. They said that several dozen dead passengers have been found, RIA Novosti reports.
Groups that are fighting Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine have rejected any involvement in the incident, as there are reports that the plane was shot down.
The Donetsk People’s Republic claims its self-defense forces simply don’t have such military equipment.
Donetsk People's Republic PM Aleksandr Boroday has called the incident a “provocation by the Ukrainian military”.
“We confirm that the plane crashed not far from Donetsk,” Boroday said. “Representatives of Donetsk People's Republic have headed to the scene of the plane search.”
“Self-defense forces have no air-defense, which could target transport aircraft at that height,” he told Interfax.
“We have only MANPADs (portable anti-aircraft missile complex) which hit targets at 3-4 kilometers,” Sergey Kavtaradze, representative for Donetsk People’s Republic PM, also told journalists.
Russia’s military also says none of its military planes have been flying close to the Russia-Ukraine border on Thursday, RIA Novosti reported citing a military official.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has not ruled out that a Malaysian plane has been shot down.
“We don’t rule out that this plane was shot down and stress that Ukrainian forces did not fulfill any actions targeting in the air,” Poroshenko said. He added that an investigation commission will be launched.
At the same time, Anton Geraschenko said on his Facebook page that the plane was targeted from the air defense missile complex "Buk".
RIA Novosti is citing its source who said that Kiev indeed deployed “Buk” in the Donetsk region.
“According to the system of objective control, "Buk" division of the armed forces of Ukraine was relocated to Donetsk region on Wednesday. Now in Kharkov another division is being prepared,” the source said.
The sources stressed that aircraft flying at an altitude of over 10 kilometers can only be targeted by C-300 class weapons or ‘Buk”.
A source in Russia's federal air traffic agency Rosaviatsia has said that three days ago Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council closed the airspace over eastern Ukraine because of the so-called “anti-terrorist operation” that Kiev conducts in the region.
Earlier a representative of Donetsk People’s Republic said that civil aviation planes could not fly over Donetsk and Lugansk regions. He added that all necessary traffic control and navigation equipment was damaged.
“Dispatching support of all passenger flights is being conducted from Kiev. How this plane could be there - is not clear,” a representative of Donetsk People’s Republic said.
Patrick Lancaster, who was at the crash site of the Malaysian jet, said the self-defense forces on the ground have confirmed the plane was “definitely shot down.”

“Soldiers told us that there are bodies scattered all around the area… They’re waiting on the prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic to come and inspect the area,” he told RT.
The Boeing-777, whose maiden commercial flight was almost exactly two decades ago, had previously suffered ten serious incidents, according to the Aviation Safety Database.
The most notorious of these involved another route performed by the same company, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, during which the US-made aircraft disappeared off the radars between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, in March this year. Despite an international search effort costing tens of millions of dollars, the plane, the reasons for whose disappearance have still not been definitively established, has not yet been recovered.
Another widely-covered incident occurred last year, when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 pilot crashed into the seawall just short of the landing strip at San Fransisco International Airport, prompting the fuselage to drag across the runway as it disintegrated in a fire. Three people died as a result of the incident – the first fatalities in the history of the model, which is regarded as very safe in the industry.
Currently, about 1200 modifications of Boeing-777 are operated worldwide.
“A Boeing-777 is an extremely reliable piece of machinery. Modern planes don’t just crash with no reason,” pilot and aviation expert Yury Karash told RT. “Let us recall how a Ukrainian missile downed a Russian TU-154 aircraft ten years ago. I can’t completely exclude the possibility the Boeing-777 was also hit by a missile.”
“I don’t know who could’ve shot it down. But I can allege that it most likely was the Ukrainian armed forces: simply because its military – anti-aircraft defense, in particular – are, unfortunately, unqualified. As judging by the overall state of the Ukrainian armed forces, insufficient attention has been paid to their training,” he added.
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Flights rerouted: Planes avoiding Ukraine airspace after Malaysia Airlines crash
Published time: July 17, 2014 17:20
Edited time: July 17, 2014 21:03
Screenshot from flightradar24.com
Screenshot from flightradar24.com
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International passenger flights are avoiding Eastern Ukrainian airspace, following the crash of a Malaysian Airlines plane in Donetsk.
Airlines are also redirecting their flightpaths to avoid the area where flight MH17 crashed, according to Flightradar24.
NOTAM has also informed US airlines not to fly in the Ukraine area.
A number of airlines around the world have announced they are going to reroute flights to avoid Ukrainian airspace. The list of companies includes Russian Aeroflot, UTair and Transaero, German Lufthansa and Turkish airlines.
"After the incident we have decided to avoid Ukrainian airspace," a Turkish Airlines spokesman said.
American airlines have also agreed to avoid airspace near the Russian-Ukrainian border, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Thursday. The FAA added that the decision was made by the US airlines voluntarily and that it "is monitoring the situation to determine whether further guidance is necessary."
Air France and Virgin have decided to temporarily re-route flights to bypass Ukraine.Italy's Alitalia has also announced it is diverting flights away from eastern Ukraine joining the growing list of companies re-routing flights.
The UK department of transport has ordered “flights already airborne” to bypass south-eastern regions of the country.
Pilots around the world are being advised to plan routes that avoid the area, the statement said.
Dubai-based Emirates Airline has turned around its Kiev-bound Flight EK171 which has returned to it airport of departure in United Arab Emirates.
"The safety of our customers and crew is paramount, and we will continue to monitor the situation carefully," the company said in a statement.
Flight MH17 crashed in Ukraine on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpar, and was carrying 295 people.
The flight was due to enter Russian airspace when contact was lost.
Both Ukrainian government and anti-Kiev fighters have denied shooting the plane down.
The EU air traffic control regulator - Eurocontrol – has closed the airspace over eastern Ukraine and has already started working on routes that would bypass the country.
“Since the crash, the Ukrainian authorities have informed EUROCONTROL of the closure of routes from the ground to unlimited in Eastern Ukraine (Dnipropetrovsk Flight Information Region). All flight plans that are filed using these routes are now being rejected by EUROCONTROL. The routes will remain closed until further notice,” it said in a statement.
A source in Russia's federal air traffic agency Rosaviatsia has said that three days ago Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council closed the airspace over eastern Ukraine because of the so-called “anti-terrorist operation” that Kiev conducts in the region.
Earlier a representative of Donetsk People’s Republic said that civil aviation planes could not fly over Donetsk and Lugansk regions. He added that all necessary traffic control and navigation equipment was damaged.
“Dispatching support of all passenger flights is being conducted from Kiev. How this plane could be there - is not clear,” a representative of Donetsk People’s Republic said.
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‘Tougher sanctions against Russia would expose split between US and EU’
Published time: July 17, 2014 13:57
Reuters / Tobias Schwarz
Reuters / Tobias Schwarz
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The US imposition of sanctions against Russia puts Washington at odds with major European powers that are set to lose much more than the Americans, Alexander Mercouris told RT.
RT: The sanctions don't appear to be as tough as they have first sounded. What do you make of this?
Alexander Mercouris: I think what has happened here is that the Americans have been pushing really hard for sanctions against the Europeans, and I think this is partly intended to push the Europeans towards adopting more severe sanctions than the Europeans seem willing to do. And as for the sanctions themselves, yes I think one cannot discard them completely, but they are not the most extreme sanctions that could have been imposed, not by a very long way.
RT: Well you say this was done in conjuncture, certainly after talking to EU leaders. The EU seem reluctant to imposed new sanctions, aren't they?
AM: The EU in fact put off consistently the decision to impose sanctions, even though in the beginning of June it indicated that it would do. Frankly I think, most of the European governments, the most important European governments, Germany, France, Italy, Spain are not enthusiastic about this idea of sanctions at all. The trouble was they committed themselves to it back in March, when the situation looked very different and now they are stuck with the commitment that they do not really want.
RT: Europe does a lot of business in Russia. America does not do as much. What is it going to mean for Europe, will there be a knock-on effect here? The general sentiment isn't great, is it?
AM: I think there will be some knock-on effect here. It is going to have an effect, but I think also, and I think has become very clear over the last month, there is a determination in Europe among business leaders, amongst political leaders here to keep lines to Moscow open, both political and business wise, and try to contain this problem as far as possible. So I think that is going to continue actually, and I think there will be some sort of irritation within Europe actually at the way they probably feel the Americans are trying to push them into this.
RT: Russia's deputy foreign minister says Moscow will take their own measures against these sanctions. What will those measures be?
AM: I think we will have to just wait and see about that. I mean there are all sort of deals are being done between Russia and the US. One example is that Russia provides titanium for American aircraft. We will see what the Russians have in mind. They will respond because these are things which they cannot respond to. I mean they have to respond to them. But I think, again, the Russians would want to keep windows open if possible to Europe and would not want this thing to escalate too far.
RT: A new American-Iranian Council study says that Washington lost up to $175 billion by imposing sanctions on Tehran. Could there be similar loses for the US here, do you think?
AM: This is a profound mistake by the US. It is going far beyond the obvious economic loses. What the US is doing is using its position at the center of the world financial system to basically punish Russia and countries it does not like. Now with a country like Iran, Iran is a relatively small economy. Russia is a big economy. If you try to use your position at the center of the financial system, which is the position of trust as a mechanism to put political pressure on people, that would take that trust away and eventually your whole position at the center of the financial system will erode and I think that is happening.
RT: Why do you think, there were not tougher sanctions here?
AM: Well, I suspect the short answer to that is that the Europeans said flatly “no” and I think if the US have gone for much tougher sanctions than the ones it has, it would have clearly exposed the split between the US and Europe on this issue. And that is one thing they cannot possibly allow because in a situation where Europe is seems to be siding with Moscow against Washington, would make Washington look isolated, not Moscow.
 
 
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Epic fail: Israel's ambassador to US lambasted on Twitter during #AskDermer Q&A
Published time: July 17, 2014 16:54
Ron Dermer, Ambassador of Israel to the United States (AFP Photo / Chris Kleponis)
Ron Dermer, Ambassador of Israel to the United States (AFP Photo / Chris Kleponis)
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Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer received fierce backlash on Thursday as he defended his country’s Operation Protective Edge offensive on Gaza during a Twitter Q&A.
According to the latest Pew Research polling on the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, Americans still heavily lean toward sympathizing with Israel. Yet Dermer urged those who oppose Israel's military actions to ask him any questions so he could clarify his government's position. So they did, but the result was probably not the one that Dermer expected.
Israel’s offensive on Gaza that has killed 220 Palestinians as of Wednesday, 80 percent of which have been civilians, according to the United Nations. Meanwhile, only one Israeli has died as a result of rockets shot into Israel.
#AskDermer trended worldwide on Thursday, as a significant number of questions related to the four Palestinian children killed Wednesday on a Gaza beach by shelling from Israeli Defense Forces.
 
 
 
 

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