The crash site of Malaysian Air flight 17 feels all but abandoned. No guards, no investigators, most debris removed. pic.twitter.com/T92jHQnvgo
— Ivan Watson (@IvanCNN) July 23, 2014
Getting personal. Mayor calls to deport Putin's daughter from dutch town, then apologizes. http://t.co/lcu9pPFZlQ
— Simon Kruse (@crusoes) July 23, 2014
Rebels kidnap a @CNN fixer in Donetsk, @imi_media confirms. Anton Skiba is a freelance journalist & photographer pic.twitter.com/W9HHi9aFuW
— Maxim Eristavi (@MaximEristavi) July 23, 2014
According to this German journalist, some footage from one of the crash sites of the Ukraine jets shot down today has now surfaced on the Internet:
VIDEO von Absturzstelle einer der beiden abgeschossenen SU-25… https://t.co/r18KweOgDV #Ukraine
— Dirk Emmerich (@DEmmerich) July 23, 2014
@BBCDanielS Coming Home… pic.twitter.com/p1wRpIjoip
— Monic@ (@monicavanginkel) July 23, 2014
Our news desk has issued this item on a group of U.S. senators who have called for the Donetsk People's Republic to be labelled as a terrorist organization:
Less than one week after a Malaysian passenger plane was shot down over Ukraine, a group of influential U.S. senators has authored a letter to Barack Obama, urging the president to impose more severe sanctions on Russia and consider designating the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic as a "foreign terrorist organization."
Leading Democratic Party senators Dianne Feinstein, Robert Menendez, and Carl Levin wrote the letter to Obama yesterday.
The three senators pointed to what they said was "increasing evidence of their [DPR] human rights violations, including abductions and torture" which demonstrated that the pro-Russian separatist leaders in Donetsk "have threatened the lives of innocent Ukrainians, not to mention those unfortunate innocents merely traveling in civilian airspace over Ukraine."
The letter also called for the United States to impose "immediate broad sanctions against Russia's defense sector" and energy and financial industries.
Here is another update from our news desk on the arrival of MH17 bodies in Eindhoven:
Two military planes carrying 40 coffins bearing victims of the downed Malaysian airliner have landed in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven.
The planes were met on July 23 by some 1,000 relatives of the victims, Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and representatives of the other nations that lost citizens on the flight.
Flags of the 11 nations that lost citizens to the crash flew half-mast at the airport, and a minute's silence was observed in the Netherlands.
The bodies are to be transferred to a military base southeast of Amsterdam, where forensics experts will identify them.
Earlier at a ceremony at Kharkiv airport, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said the downing of the plane was an "inhumane terrorist act" carried out with help from Russia.
(AP, Reuters, AFP)
Italian journo speaks to rebel who was told to look for Ukrainian plane his commander thought they'd shot; found MH17 http://t.co/3hTOghpciE
— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) July 23, 2014
