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From Washington, this is VOA news. U.S. says no direct evidence Russia involved in Malaysian jetliner downing. U.S. prohibits American flights to Tel Aviv Airport following Hamas rocket attack. I'm Ray Kouguell reporting from Washington.
U.S. intelligence officials say they have no evidence of direct Russian involvement in the shooting down of that Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine last week. They say ill-trained pro-Russian rebels likely downed the jetliner by mistake. Officials say the passenger jet was likely brought down by separatists firing a Russian surface-to-air missile. All 298 people on board were killed. Earlier Tuesday, a train carrying bodies and flight data recorders collected from the crash site arrived in the government-controlled Ukraine city of Kharkiv. The head of an international team of forensic experts raised questions about the precise number of bodies recovered from the crash site. Pro-Russian rebels accused of hitting the plane say the 282 bodies and the parts of 16 others were aboard the train. But the Dutch forensics team leader said the refrigerated rail cars contained only 200 bodies. U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon is calling on the Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza to end their conflict. He met in Jerusalem Tuesday with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for an urgent end to the death and suffering. "My message to Israelis and Palestinians is the same: stop fighting, start talking and take on the root causes of the conflict so we are not back to the same situation in another six months or a year." Mr. Ban met earlier in Cairo with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Mr. Kerry says Egypt is offering a framework for the international community to help end the fighting in Gaza and return to a 2012 cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. "Hamas has a fundamental choice to make. And it is a choice that will have a profound impact for the people of Gaza." Secretary Kerry says a humanitarian crisis is growing worse by the day. The Obama administration announced $47 million in humanitarian assistance for Palestinians, including shelter, food and medical supplies for Gaza. The U.S. aviation agency is prohibiting U.S. airlines from flying to Israel's international airport in Tel Aviv for 24 hours after a rocket fired by Hamas militants in Gaza landed nearby. U.S. spokesperson Marie Harf says the Federal Aviation Administration will give up dated instructions to U.S. carriers no later than 24 hours. "I would very much consider myself to be one of the people that thinks our protection of U.S. citizens abroad is our -- one of our, if not our highest priority at the State Department. Obviously, we issue these travel warnings. There's a process for updating them and changing them, which is what we did here, and this is the timing that came out of that process." Several European airlines have canceled their flights as well. A suicide car bomber killed 23 people and wounded more than 40 others at a police checkpoint in a Shiite neighborhood in northern Baghdad. There has been no claim of responsibility. Jakarta governor Joko Widodo was declared the official winner of Indonesia's presidential election. He won 53 percent of the vote. Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan met with parents of some of the more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram militants in April. Presidential spokesman Ruben Abati said Tuesday's meeting in Mr. Jonathan's office was a frank discussion and that the president repeated his promise to find the girls. "Mr. President's primary concern is one, to ensure the release of the girls. And also secondly to defend the integrity of the Nigerian state, and that is why, you know, the operation against terror is a continuous one, it is a determined one. And no part of Nigeria will be allowed to be over taken by terrorism." The meeting followed another suspected Boko Haram attack that is believed to have killed scores of people in the northeastern town of Damboa. Peace talks between the government of the Central African Republic and rebels are suspended after the main rebel group failed to show up for the second day of the session. The talks, in the neighboring Republic of Congo, were put on hold Tuesday due to the absence of former Seleka rebels. President Obama saluted Tuesday what he calls American ingenuity and human achievement at a 45th anniversary of the first moon landing. Mr. Obama hosted Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and the widow of Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the lunar surface. He paid tribute to their bravery and called them role models to inspire generations of Americans. I'm Ray Kouguell in Washington. That's the latest world news from VOA. |