Malaysia reports reaching an agreement with Ukrainian separatist fighters to allow international police personnel to enter the MH17 crash site.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's office said police would be allowed in "to provide protection for international crash investigators." Najib was quoted by Reuters as saying that he hopes security will be sufficient "so the international investigators can conduct their work."
Recall that Dutch forensic experts were on the way to the site this morning and more than 200 Australian police and troops were being sent to Netherlands, which is leading the investigation, to join a Dutch-led operation to secure the site.
MH17's 298 victims mourned with a "Stairway To Heaven."
@CatFitz for "The Interpreter" responds to Russian suggestions that allegations of separatist or Russian involvement in the MH17 downing derive merely from "social media." Here's an excerpt:
The Russian Foreign Ministry complained today that allegations about the responsibility of the Russian-backed separatists in southeastern Ukraine for the downing of MH17 is merely taken “from social media,” AP reports.
“In other words, the Washington regime is basing its contentions on anti-Russian speculation gathered from the Internet that does not correspond to reality,” said the Ministry.
We find the “social media” very compelling, as well as the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s complaints during the week before the crash, but if that doesn’t suit the Russian Foreign Ministry, they should look at their own Russian state media, as well as privately-owned pro-Kremlin media where the evidence for the separatist’s Buk shooting down the Malaysian plane is pretty damning as well....
Here's more:
"We are a great, powerless country," admitted the Russian foreign minister in 1876. "We can always dress up finely but we need to know that we are dressing up."