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Obama is often caught on the back foot — more often than not being informed of the big political stories by the media and not by his staff. Still, given how quickly the rest of the world cottoned on to what had happened in Ukraine, it is difficult to believe that, when he stepped onto the stage in Delaware yesterday, he was incapable of changing his plans. He did not. Instead, the president spent a grand total of 38 seconds on the downing of the plane, describing what he knew to have been an atrocity as a “tragedy” that “might”...

Moreover, Russia continues to levy troops to Ukrainian borders. Azov sea Wikipedia Russian military mine Ukrainian Azov Sea near the gas plant. Subdivisions of the Russian armed forces began mining the Ukrainian Azov sea water around the trapped gas producing facilities. This information center spokesman Andrei Lysenko National Security Council at a press conference in Kiev, UNIAN reports. "In occupied Ukrainian territory near the village Strilkove Kherson region recorded increasing manpower and military equipment of the Russian Federation", - he said. In addition, Lysenko said that "units of the Russian armed forces began mining the Ukrainian Azov sea water around...

KYIV, July 19 /Ukrinform/. Six buses with Russian specialists servicing anti-aircraft systems of the separatists left Lugansk for Krasnodon, a Ukrinform reporter learned this from Dmytro Snehiriov, the leader of the Prava Sprava organization.

In Moscow, conspiracy theories abound, along with disdain for the separatists and some support for Putin 'So will the Americans attack us now?" At my dentist's surgery in Moscow I am used to being the one nervously asking questions. Yet on the day after flight MH17 was brought down, everyone here – including my dentist, the receptionist and the guy fixing the receptionist's computer – wants me to tell them what will happen next. "You're a journalist. You probably know something we don't know," says the receptionist. "And I don't trust the television," says the receptionist. In the aftermath of...

MH17 flight feared to have been shot down over Ukraine was taking a significantly different route to the usual course for flights from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, according to aviation expert. The crashed MH17 flight took a route 300 miles to the north of its usual path, an aviation expert has said. Robert Mark, a commercial pilot who edits Aviation International News Safety magazine, said that most Malaysia Airlines flights from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur normally travelled along a route significantly further south than the plane which crashed. Malaysia Airlines has insisted its plane travelled on an "approved route"...

TOREZ, Ukraine — Rebels in eastern Ukraine took control Sunday of the bodies recovered from downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and U.S. and European leaders demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin make sure rebels give international investigators full access to the crash site. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Ukraine’s separatists were to blame for the downing of the aircraft, adding there was “extraordinary circumstantial evidence” that showed Russia was almost certainly complicit in arming the rebels.....

One week in, this is what we appear to know. Please keep in mind that falsification of various records and items, including so-called "photographic evidence", is relatively common. If you do not have an original digital image it can also be very difficult to detect -- but is usually not impossible. I have caught a number of faked -- and false claims made from real -- images over the years on The Ticker, including the infamous one of a so-called "camera" over the shoulder of a man that was fired upon by a US Helicopter -- and which, upon closer...

With the rabbit hole of conspiracies getting deeper by the hour, video has emerged showing what appears to be the "black box" flight data recorder from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 being taken from the crash scene. As NBC reports, the men in the video are wearing Ukrainian Emergency Ministry uniforms, but a senior Ukrainian official told a news conference Sunday that rebels had taken the black boxes. This fits with reports from The Hill that pro-Russian separatists have located the black boxes for the downed Malaysia Airlines passenger jet and will hand them over to international authorities, according to...

United States Assessment of the Downing of Flight MH17 and its Aftermath We assess that Flight MH17 was likely downed by a SA-11 surface-to-air missile from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine. We base this judgment on several factors. Over the past month, we have detected an increasing amount of heavy weaponry to separatist fighters crossing the border from Russia into Ukraine. Last weekend, Russia sent a convoy of military equipment with up to 150 vehicles including tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, and multiple rocket launchers to the separatist. We also have information indicating that Russia is providing training to separatist...

And some experts think it wasn't even 'rebels' operating it, they lack the (extensive) training required; rather, the killers were regular Russian troops... Kiev-loyalist spies reportedly filmed the launcher used in the attack being hurried to Russia - with two missiles missing (twitter) Apparently the Russians are finding it a bit more difficult to kill, lie, and cover-up in the citizen-journalist/internet era... More pics/maps/links at Reaganite Republican...

Hundreds of poignant stories triggering a nationwide outpouring of grief in MalaysiaMalaysian Airlines flight attendant Sanjid Singh was not scheduled to be working on board doomed Flight MH17, but had swapped with a colleague - just months after his wife, also an attendant, had swapped her shift to avoid Flight MH370. The contrasting twists of fate make up just one of hundreds of poignant stories triggering a nationwide outpouring of grief in Malaysia where many are finding it difficult to grasp the twin disasters befalling their country and national airline. US officials believe Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur...

Three Buk missile systems have made their way from eastern Ukraine across the border into Russia, Ukrainian officials said Saturday, including one lacking the missile they believe brought down a Malaysia Airlines jet the day before..

Now that the U.S.-Russia relationship has broken down, Moscow could throw a wrench into the teetering nuclear negotiations with Iran. The escalating tensions between Washington and Moscow, brought to fever by the MH17 airliner disaster, are finally to the point where they threaten to spoil the number one item on President Obama’s foreign policy agenda: the nuclear talks with Iran. The man doing the threatening is Russian President Vladimir Putin. Earlier this week, Putin promised to retaliate against the United States for new sanctions targeting his friends and business associates, as well as large Russian defense, energy, and financial firms....

David Cameron has raised the prospect of further sanctions against Russia as the West's relations with Vladimir Putin grew increasingly strained following the apparent shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine by pro-Moscow separatists. In a sign of a hardening attitude, David Cameron said Europe and the West must "fundamentally change our approach" unless the Russian president alters course. The comments came after a day which saw the Government adopt a tougher approach to Moscow, with Russia's ambassador summoned to the Foreign Office and Philip Hammond claiming Mr Putin was not doing enough to use his influence over the rebels...

The scene described on Russian state TV was gruesome: a small boy nailed to a board in eastern Ukraine for a crime his mother committed. But independent sources say it never happened. The details were horrifying. Ukrainian officials had nailed a 3-year-old, clad in just his underwear, to a wooden board “just like Jesus,” right before his mother’s eyes, according to Russian state television. Then, said Galina Pyshniak, Channel One’s sole witness and a pro-Russian refugee, the military in Slovyansk had grabbed the mother, tied her to a tank, and dragged her three times around the city’s central Lenin Square....

It always takes a tragedy for the world to wake up to grave threats. The catastrophic attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11 2001 was one such incident. America initiated a period of oversees military adventurism to combat the threat of militant Islamism that reshaped the world. The callous and despicable destruction of Malaysian Airways flight MH17 over Ukrainian airspace could be another pivotal moment in history. For too long Russia has stoked conflict around the world for its own short-term political gains. Now its actions have directly led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent people, 80...

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has attacked Russia over the tragedy in Ukraine, stopping just short of accusing Moscow of involvement in the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. In comments which go further than those of other world leaders, an angry Mr Abbott said Russia should not be able to stand in the way of a full, independent investigation. “I want to stress that Australia takes a very dim view of countries which are facilitating the killing of Australian citizens,’’ he said. “I want to say to the Australian people that as far as I am concerned, when you...

Obama Stops Short of Blaming Russia For Downed Jet in Ukraine By DAVID S. CLOUD, KATHLEEN HENNESSEY President Obama on Friday condemned the missile attack that downed a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet over separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine as an "outrage of unspeakable proportions" but stopped short of blaming Russia directly for the tragedy.

As The West Declines, Russia Fills The Vacuum The Coalition has no foreign policy and no solutions to offer in the growing chaos of a world without moral leadership By Janet Daley19 Jul 2014 Presumably there are at least a few politicians in the great Western capitals who have some idea of how to get a grip on the current global chaos. Perhaps at some point they will let us know what it is. At the moment, all that we are getting is banalities and obfuscation, which seem to be a cover for total panic. Apart from the obvious words...

Ratings of U.S., European Union leadership sink to record lows, in single digits WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Vladimir Putin's popularity in Russia is now at its highest level in years, likely propelled by a groundswell of national pride with the annexation of Crimea in March on the heels of the Sochi Olympic Games in February. The 83% of Russians saying they approve of Putin's leadership in late April/early June ties his previous high rating in 2008 when he left office the first time. The 29-percentage-point increase in Putin's job approval between 2013 and 2014 suggests he has solidified his previously...