developments have not started yet only take you through. the life there are and there are what. world leaders call for an unimpeded international investigation after a malaysian airlines passenger jet crashes in crane killing all two hundred ninety eight people on board. the relatives of the victims are overwhelmed with grief the netherlands alone lost more than one hundred fifty of its citizens when the boeing seven seven seven came down . and both kiev and anti government forces are accusing each other of bringing down the plane we take a look at the blame game that's underway. welcome

my name is the harvey you're watching r.t. international. and corpses scattered across an area covering fifteen kilometers that's the aftermath of a malaysia airlines passenger plane crash in eastern ukraine on thursday all two hundred ninety eight people on board were killed fewer than half the victims have been recovered so far witnesses spoke of scene bodies fall from the sky. i saw a piece of the plane fall about four hundred meters from my apartment when i went to check it out i saw scattered bodies from a distance it looked like debris was falling but as it turned out it was people falling out of the aircraft. it was terrible what i saw first i saw smoke and fire and when the firemen started to put out the flames i saw bodies torn apart there

were children too there were bodies to see here and there was a plane on route from amsterdam to kuala lumpur was flying over the part of eastern ukraine where kiev is waging its crackdown against anti-government forces in then disappeared from radar shortly before entering russian airspace ukraine's president accused antigovernment fighters of downing the plane with a rocket calling it a terrorist attack but militia groups say that they actually don't have access to the kind of weapons needed in order to do that the nationalities of most of the people on board of now been identified more than half one hundred seventy three of them to be exact would be another forty four victims were malaysian including the fifteen crew members also on the plane twenty seven australians twelve indonesians and nine britons four germans and four belgians as well as other nationalities twenty more victims are still to be identified. but.

these are pictures from kuala lumpur families that gathered in the country's main airport shortly after they found out what had happened many became angry and demanded to see the passenger manifest the desperate for news of their loved ones. so worst hit has been the netherlands which has lost more than one hundred seventy of its citizens relatives now want to know what happened as artie's police reports from amsterdam. the majority of the passengers on that flight were dutch nationals not flight took off from here where i am in and sit down people airport before it crashed in ukraine and the scenes we saw here yesterday absolute devastation of the devastated passengers relatives just trying to obtain information about what had happened to their loved ones in the reef

and the shock of coming to terms with their losses it was just unbelievable we know that malaysian airlines have sent out i can't seem hit to hamsterdam to help passengers cope with their losses but we also know that a number of the passengers were headed to melbourne for an international aid conference. and. a prominent h.r. show was on the plane with his wife heading for a global aids conference he was one of dozens of delegates thoughts of being travelling that long as friend the president of the anti aids foundation shared his feelings about the loss are still stunned it's very unreal i think the moment i will see something more tangible it were his but it's you know i talked to them yesterday morning before the border to separate were serious she was very much looking forward to going to the conference in melbourne and then she even sent me

a text message on the plane invasion and i'm so strange that they had just given them the menu card even before takeoff and that she was already looking forward to eating the nice asian food. well the spanish correspondent francisco going to was the scene of the crash a little earlier he sent us this report in these kilometers that he said is that you can see several pieces of the aircraft. have said that they don't have the capability to shoot an aircraft who is in a distance of ten thousand meters they. open an investigation it's a situation that is very important and house important political connotations because here in the last days there was a big comeback between the militia and to here. forces.

keeping us updated from the russia ukraine border as a correspondent a really good. well at this point it does seem that there is information coming in that the self-defense forces from this up proclaimed donetsk people's republic that are also working on the scene in fact were some of the first ones to be at the site of the crash there are reports coming in saying that they have recovered a second black box now exactly where those boxes are heading from there on is not yet clear there have been there has been information that the defense forces wanted to transfer them to moscow for investigation so however we do know that there have been increasing calls coming in from e.u. officials from the secretary general of nato calling for an international investigation into this horrific tragedy and we also know that all we see observers are said to be heading to the site of the crash so perhaps the recovery of the black boxes is something that will take us one step closer to finding out the reasons and the actual causes of this disaster. let's turn to some news that came

in not long ago which is that russia's defense ministry says it intercepted an exchange between ukrainian military concerning an air target at the time of the crash at with cali joins me now live with more details on this aired what do we think this new information could mean. well i mean what the russian defense ministry is saying is that they have intercepted this exchange of information between the defense system a surface to air missile and and its target at the time the boeing went down the russians say that the ukrainian military has three of these systems in the donetsk area and. they were in range of the plane when it went down now also the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov has just given

a statement that russia will be demanding full objective and transparent investigation into this tragedy and he also said with regard to the ukraine shelling of of russia a few days ago that should this continue then russia could technically. destroy the points where these ukrainian shells are coming on coming from so you know he's threatening retaliation on that front. strong response in deed from the russian authorities are chorus one of the karl reporting live from moscow thank you. and one after another major air carriers are diverting their planes around ukrainian airspace among the front scale and europe's transport agency your control is advised all e.u. carriers to avoid ukraine's space let's hear from artie's correspondent in berlin

peter all of. we've heard from german chancellor angela merkel she was given a press conference in which she said there needs to be a full investigation into exactly what caused this disaster she said that germany was willing to to send a team to ukraine to to help with that investigation to get to the bottom of exactly what happened but she also went on to say that this was an extremely serious act that it taken place she referred to the plane having being shot down and she said that those that are responsible must be brought to justice that's what the german chancellor saying that she did also express her extreme grief and condolences for the families of the those that have been killed for germans were among those that have been on board this plane and she expressed particular condo interest to the people of the netherlands who of course were worst affected by this

disaster but she's not the only. european leader that's been speaking about this david cameron the british prime minister of course nine were on that flight as well he is going to be chairing a meeting of cobra later on that's the. dates the group of that assesses serious instances that are going on he also said that he'd spoken to the dutch prime minister. expressed his condolences and saying that europe and britain all grieve together with with the people of the netherlands. and we're seeing this come out but from every leader every politician around europe all expressing their condolences and grief for what's going on with regarding the downing of this airplane in eastern ukraine now if you look at any radar map at the moment of the ukrainian area it's complete almost completely bare of any any planes flying around

there many airlines are avoid. ukrainian airspace all together all are avoiding eastern ukraine this is after a control the the organization that monitors air traffic safety said that was now a no fly zone the area around eastern ukraine no flights would be passing over there as europe deals with what is a real tragedy not just for europe but for people around the world when we see the nations that all those people came from that have been killed our data from flight tracking service flight radar twenty four suggests that the plane actually deviated from its usual route compared to the course other planes have taken over ukraine in recent days it goes much further to the east nearer to the volatile eastern regions so the malaysian plane actually risk going over the most volatile area it's not yet know why so let's take a look at this now from a more technical perspective we can talk to former royal australian air force

officer brett biddington who is now a professor at edith cowan university in perth brett thanks so much for joining us first i just want to ask you it's become apparent now as we hear about different airlines telling their planes to divert around this area that they were previously flying over its planes continued to fly over this hostile area of eastern ukraine despite the conflict taking place do you think that in some sense this was a disaster waiting to happen. tough cold or tough question to ask i guess that's why you've done it. we always know that it's been a difficult place there was an ass space restriction in place up to thirty two thousand feet the risk assessment of international civil aviation authorities was that if they were. surface to air missiles bemused they would be shown the five short range missiles that would not go beyond thirty thousand feet and even then

they would have been a sight imagine what of course we've seen a much larger much more capable missiles introduced obviously that's something that the civil aviation authorities who are doing had not anticipated had they done so or nine about but i'm absolutely sure that bite of immediately put a restriction on the entire area that didn't happen unfortunately and so situation situation we're in today about the more and more important thing is that. in the international civil aviation community the risk of where you do and don't fly you're going to similarly comes down to the risk of the carrier and some carriers as we know. the took a very safe line even many months ago and decided not to florida cross soup right or to fly through the north or south other other carriers many of them in fact not just malaysian airlines decided that this was

a risk that they could accept and of course we're all being terribly upset by what's happening. so that what i think it a lot of people have found slightly confusing is that previously this flight had actually avoided this particular aspace and yet it seems on this occasion the pilots in fact change that rate i mean what do you think could have caused that to happen. look aren't i simply don't know. anyone in this regard i think maps that we see on the primary computer screens can be misleading so theoretically one in a minute which is sort of running every plane might be. and then you get the real one of them i think that can you can confuse it somewhat but. i simply have no idea whether it was because of other traffic in the area we're going to get more we . tell you all we need or we because always our looks the stories because of

the cost of fuel and the fin margins that all of your lines around the world operate on have to be very very conscious of doing what everybody can to minimize that if you were in certain exits. are absolutely speculating and yet needs to heal . and how soon do you think it's going to be until i actually know what happens because the so my speculation over whether in fact this was indeed a missile a lot of media outlets are assuming and taking that as read we don't even know that at this point but i mean we are waiting for the black boxes what would you say is a time scale so we have some idea what on earth happened. well first we need to find out where the black boxes are. ha ha ha ha no nothing wrong with an armory where you can media and what have you seen my background can you learn what you can hear a little bit more than absolutely. not very much more injury scientists are would say but we're not sure for media we're going to talk says i am so next farm the first. and second thing to say is. do you

know most or just last month trying to fill up a bunch of black boxes first then the question of whether it's this solemn or i think that on the balance of probability we can now sorry that it wasn't me sorrow what is interesting to me over the course of the guy is the. degree to which the world's leaders have become more certain of inciting that it isn't me so and if it were to be so what was that but. looking at the footage taken on. the actual crash area and the plume of smoke and then it be almost start some point in one of the pieces in the media that we've seen no social media. i think it's pretty clear that we've seen a missile strike on an airplane which is then plunged to earth ok brad thanks so much for giving us your thoughts that does seem to corroborate what we've heard from a lot of experts and their analysis former royal australian air force officer brett

biddington thanks so much ok thank you. u.s. intelligence officials claim that the plane was indeed downed by surface to air missile but have not specifically blamed the side vice president joe biden said a team of specialists will be sent to assist in training authorities with the investigation on a charge account is in washington following the american reaction. u.s. officials believe it was a surface to air missile that shot down the malaysian plane over ukraine the u.s. is not pointing the blame thing there just yet president obama spoke with the ukrainian leader but our shameka we can be sure that the blame game in the coming days and weeks is going to be vicious there are questions as to who had the capability to do this the ukrainian military certainly has the capability a launch like that would require a team of specialists as we hear from many experts and there is another question why was this malaysian airliner flying over the conflict zone we know that u.s.

airlines had been avoiding the area for some time to size me because it was deemed unsafe what kind of instructions that this plane would see from the ukrainian air traffic control and what exactly was happening inside the cockpit just moments before the tragedy hopefully we'll get more answers when investigators get hold of the black box of course one of the main questions at this point is who is going to investigate this the u.n. secretary general calling for an international investigation one of the concerns moving forward is that the investigation could eventually be politicized the blame game is full on in the media even before any facts have been established. some of the accusations against antigovernment fighters are based on a tweet which was reportedly posted and then deleted from the social media account of the then yes the people's republic the tweet was allegedly a boast from anti-government forces that they had taken possession of an advanced surface to air missile system capable of bringing down the plane however in an

interview to the ukrainian media kiev's prosecutor general actually denied the weapons would fall into the hands of militants another allegation coming from ukrainian officials is based around what they say is an intercepted phone call between anti-government fighters in it they purportedly admit to shooting down the plane. well if this passenger jet was shot down there are few weapons in the region actually able to do that one possible example is the book surface to air missile system several former soviet countries in fact use that weapon including ukraine it has the ability to intercept up to twenty four targets at the same time within a distance of up to forty five kilometers and reaching an altitude of twenty five kilometers it's projectiles travel at up to one thousand two hundred meters per second as yet there is no confirmation this missile system was the cause of the crash. believes that this was almost certainly

a missile strike. there are. that would indicates whether this is a missile strike or otherwise that that will be present on the remnants of the fuselage if the proper analysis is done of the loans juggle so broken the record for the usual procedure triples so. these tribes are more exposed to the strong winds. and you will see the loss of the most damage and so. the wind. blows. so there's no. spring springs to mind mind that could indicates that this was a save to be relayed to. you it had to be.

probably a missile strike let's take a look at the chronology of events as this disaster unfolded it started well at twelve fifteen pm local time the plane left amsterdam on route to kuala lumpur but then at four twenty one pm ukrainian time all radio and radar contact with the flight was lost within the hour and care forces have arrived at the crash site after eight thirty sweep of the wreckage they found no survivors but by seven pm both kiev and anti-government forces had denied shooting down the plane instead pinning the blame on each other three hours later the opposition said that it had recovered the plane's flight recorders and that it would hand them over for investigation and that sadly left malaysian airlines to notify hundreds of grief stricken relatives charlie mcgrath founder of wide awake news believes that western

media has already chosen a scapegoat. in light of the fact that the nearly three hundred people just died i hate to jump into bashing but since you asked the question i will this is a western backed regime inside a key appear to go is absolutely put there by the united states by the e.u. by the international monetary fund they you know like i said the ukraine is not in the forefront of the people's mind in the west it's going to be now it when i was motoring coverage on this earlier today they give you two options for what is happening inside ukraine it's either russia or pro russian separatists fault you know they're forgetting the fact that ukraine right now the ukrainian government is showing civilians is showing in urban areas and hundreds and hundreds of civilians have already been killed at the killed at the hands of the ukrainian government so you know the fact that the media is not reporting the truth on the ground is not surprising at all because this is the western media who is toeing the western

propaganda line. callus had not other top story today on r.t. which is that israel is expanding its ground operation in gaza one of its soldiers has been killed the first israeli military death in this part of the campaign which began late on thursday and if and if has also led to palestinian casualties. that there that. the old very. well of those. who go. to. work and these images show the qualities of three children who were reportedly put by artillery there among more than twenty palestinians who have died since this ground offensive began early friday there were heavy bombardments across gaza with local

sweep. tanks crossing the border really full planes also reportedly hit a building housing several media organizations rockets are still being fired by militants into israel israel says its ground troops are trying to destroy tunnels being used must infiltrate the country very fear has more on the situation. well the streets of gaza remain empty throughout this morning after the sun rose people here fear that this ground incursions will continue in the coming days people here do fear that the night the israeli ground invasion could step up. its operations into a new level which could be much more costly for the population of gaza including the civilian population but we decided to go to the schieffer hospital where we spoke to a hamas spokesperson and questioned him on this recent past delayed. reaction to

the israeli ground invasion of the gaza strip we're different people depending on your doctor all of these. committed by the british i get. into this to give our own. because finally i want to. be able to do the groups here have the capacity to actually deal with an israeli ground invasion we already it would be. like throughout the world. we would buy off you would be ok thank you very much for the time thank you thanks so that was. rated the position that israel's ground invasion really is going to invoke civilian casualties in large numbers to use that does have the capacity to defend the palestinian population here from an israeli ground invasion to. israeli operation followed days of gaza shelling with a mass launching rockets in return overall nearly two hundred sixty palestinians

have been killed most of them civilians including dozens of children it was a short humanitarian truce on thursday but the exchange of fire resumed the soon as . the israeli prime minister's been talking about the operation in gaza vowing to deliver a serious blow against hamas has the details what we're hearing from military sources is that at this stage they are limiting their operation to some two to three kilometers inside gaza we are being told that some one hundred targets have been hit that twenty of them are launching pads nine of them are tunnels but that the operation will be expanded we are also being told that this could take around two weeks this is the time the israeli army is to mates it needs to completely destroy the tunnels in gaza each tunnel for instance takes some three years to build now the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu said that he was left with no option after diplomacy failed back to launch

a ground offensive he has said that it is impossible to destroy these tunnels that israel blames them for being used to smuggle weapons into gaza from the air at the same time he did say the israelis were trying hard not to hit civilians but they blamed him asked for using civilians as human shields now we're also hearing from the minister of defense as well as the chief of staff and they say to quote them that the operation will last for as long as it needs to they also say that this will be a limited operation and that garza will be attacked from all sides at this stage no one is talking about conquering garza although we have heard that sentiment expressed by the israeli foreign minister avigdor lieberman. but you stay with us here on the international be back at the top of the hour with the very latest from ukraine and stay with us because after the break it'll be sophie and co with sophie shevardnadze.

two u.s. agents who are working deep inside the german government have been caught which has heightened tensions between the two countries even more the german reaction to this was to expel the cia chief in berlin from his post this is the kind of story that makes people who hate u.s. foreign policy the share button on facebook and get all excited it makes me feel that merkel or at least some elements of the german government are actually fighting against foreign meddling but i would say that you should take this story with a huge grain of salt yeah they just had one cia asset out of the country and this could be a sign of change but there are still twenty plus u.s. military bases currently operating in germany and in fact the power holder base is one of the largest ones outside of america territory with thirteen thousand troops permanently stationed there so basically if merkel really wants to reduce foreign

meddling in germany she is going to have to somehow get a massive foreign military presence out of a country and since this has been there for almost seventy years already i don't think that they're just going to pack up and leave on their own one day but that's just my opinion. reversals of fortune and stalemate the harder the western backed receiving camp assaults the resistance in the east the more the resistance is able to push back washington support of a military solution is flagging as well as pushing close up to where. we profit very large very attractive and now very globally recognize. source of oil for the world into the future the world's cheapest and best petroleum deposits have been mined out we have to use more energy to get this energy industries grow like a cancer in each of these squares.