Here' s the latest update from our news desk:
Armed separatists in eastern Ukraine have allowed international inspectors to visit a field strewn with debris from a Malaysian airliner that was shot down on July 17, killing all 298 people aboard.
A rebel commander told the team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on July 19 that separatists did not touch evidence and had not found the plane's "black box" flight data recordings.
Separatists on July 18 blocked the inspectors from the same scorched field, where one of the plane’s engines landed.
Ukraine’s government on July 19 accused separatists of trying to destroy evidence of an international crime "with the help of Russia."
Kyiv also said separatists moved 38 bodies to a morgue in Donetsk.
Ukraine's counter intelligence chief, meanwhile, said he has "compelling evidence" that the plane was downed by a BUK-1 antiaircraft missile system operated by a crew of Russian citizens.
Interpol and Europol investigators were traveling to Ukraine on July 19 to help identify crash victims.
Ukraine's Security Council said members of Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry had been able to explore about 75 percent of the 25-square-kilometer crash site and located the bodies of 186 passengers.
(Reuters, AP, AFP)
"Putin’s credibility lies amid the wreckage of flight MH17" by Swedish Foreign minister. @carlbildt http://t.co/K3xhMnXyvp via @FT
— toomas hendrik ilves (@IlvesToomas) July 19, 2014
No sign of black boxes. No sign of missile debris. No sign of aviation or military experts. No idea where the bodies are going. #MH17
— max seddon (@maxseddon) July 19, 2014
Dutch popular daily Telegraaf fronts huge spread photo of pro-Russian separatists leaders. Headline: "KILLERS" pic.twitter.com/LZx2JDc2IC
— Thomas Erdbrink (@ThomasErdbrink) July 19, 2014
This is going to help RT @davidmunk: British press pretty sure who is to blame for #mh17 Ukraine atrocity methinks pic.twitter.com/1WqbDIhhNl
— Jack Stubbs (@jc_stubbs) July 19, 2014
Maybe the light is better this morning, maybe we dare look more this time, but we're seeing body parts everywhere today. Horrific. #MH17
— Kirit Radia (@KiritRadia) July 19, 2014
OSCE team stopped 100 meters from site. DNR guys flicked safeties off on AKs and brought out heavier machine guns. OSCE teams back in cars.
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) July 19, 2014
"I'm not an aviation expert, but..." https://t.co/rvKpkxDCi7 This is really desperate stuff from RT.
— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) July 19, 2014
Our news desk has been compiling some more reactions to the deaths of AIDS/HIV experts and activists on Flight MH17:
Scientists searching for a cure to AIDS have vowed to push ahead with their quest despite the deaths of veteran colleagues on the Malaysia Airlines flight that was shot down over separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine.
Nobel laureate Francoise Barre-Sinoussi said ahead of an international AIDS summit in Australia that the death of scientist Joep Lange was a major setback.
But she said Lange and other members of the AIDS community who were killed on the flight would have encouraged delegates to go on with the six-day summit – which formally begins on July 20.
Reports yesterday said as many as 100 people traveling to the AIDS summit died when the jetliner was shot down in eastern Ukraine on July 17.
But Barre-Sinoussi said on July 19 that the confirmed number of summit delegates who were killed was just six – far fewer than feared.
(AP, AFP)