The upper house of the Dutch legislature reports that one of its own, Senator Willem Witteveen, along with his wife and daughter were aboard Flight MH17 when it went down, according to Dutch Public Broadcasting's website.
"Senator Willem Witteveen was killed in the plane crash in Ukraine, reports the Senate. Witteveen (62) joined last year as a member of the Senate. From 1999 to 2007 he also was a member of the Senate. From 1990 he was professor of law at the University of Tilburg. "
The latest on the nationalaties of the MH17 victims via Reuters. There are likely to be It is still unclear whether there are Americans among the 19 people unaccounted for in this figure, compared with the announced death toll of 298:
Malaysia Airlines said on Friday it had determined the nationalities of all but four of the passengers aboard its flight MH17 which crashed in eastern Ukraine.
The airline's Europe head Huib Gorter said the flight had had 189 Dutch passengers, 29 Malaysian, 27 Australian, 12 Indonesian, nine British, four German, four Belgian, three Filippino, one Canadian and one New Zealander.
Here's the latest update from the wires:
Pro-Russian separatists have promised to allow international investigators free access to the site of the crash of a Malaysian passenger plane.
All 298 people on board were killed when the plane crashed on July 17 in the eastern Donetsk region where Ukrainian government troops are fighting the separatists.
The Ukrainian military and the separatists are blaming each other for shooting down the plane with a missile.
The separatists first said the two black boxes recording flight data had been found, but later denied those reports.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said it expected members of its Ukraine monitoring mission to arrive at the crash site later on July 18.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for an immediate ceasefire and direct talks between Kyiv and the separatists in the wake of the disaster.
The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on the Malaysian plane crash later on July 18.
(Reuters, AFP, dpa, and Interfax)
We normally post the English-language version of the "East Situation" map commissioned by the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's Information-Analytical Center, but since it has been late in coming today, we offer the Ukrainian version:
Russian FM Lavrov: "We have no plans to seize the flight recorders" from #MH17 http://t.co/y1lE1PCZjt
— Mark MacKinnon (@markmackinnon) July 18, 2014
I resigned from RT today. I have huge respect for many in the team, but I'm for the truth. pic.twitter.com/mZ1g0R7N0D
— Sara Firth (@Sara__Firth) July 18, 2014
Here's news of one of the less expected ramifications of the downing of Flight MH17:
The world AIDS community has been in mourning today after it was revealed that dozens of top AIDS experts were among the 298 passengers on the downed Malaysia Airlines plane in Ukraine.
The experts were traveling to a global AIDS conference in Australia.
Among them was Joep Lange, who researched AIDS and the HIV virus for more than 30 years and was a tireless advocate for access to affordable AIDS drugs.
The United Nations AIDS program, UNAIDS, said it feared "some of the finest academics, health-care workers, and activists in the AIDS response community may have perished" on the plane.
Glenn Thomas, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, was also on board Flight MH17 – along with as many as 100 other would-be participants in the July 20 AIDS conference.
Conference organizers said they would go ahead with the event, which features former U.S. President Bill Clinton among its keynote speakers.
(Reuters, AP, AFP)
Rebel commander in Donetsk tells BuzzFeed he's suspicious of the MH17 downing: "this is a provocation from Kiev to blame us for terrorism."
— Mike Giglio (@mike_giglio) July 18, 2014
That's two rebels who have told me the MH17 downing was a "provocation" from Kiev today. This is already spiraling into a propaganda abyss
— Mike Giglio (@mike_giglio) July 18, 2014
Source: U.S. intel indicates missile that hit MH17 most likely was fired by separatists in Ukraine. http://t.co/uJLy7piCtf
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) July 18, 2014
"The Guardian" has a little more on the resignation of RT's Sara Firth over the station's MH17 coverage:
“Yesterday [Thursday], when the story broke, you get the kick in your stomach when you’re going to get the facts and it’s this huge story.
“And I walked into the newsroom and they were running an eye-witness account of God-knows who the person was blaming the Ukrainian government, and it is such a volatile situation,” she told Press Gazette.
“I said [in a 2012 interview], if I was asked to burn the facts and not tell the truth, I’d be a goner, and so I’m gone. It’s the level of disrespect for the facts that really bugs me.
“I made my decision yesterday when we started covering the story and this morning I woke up and I just knew that I can’t go back in any more.
“The thing is, once I made the decision, you have to be honest with yourself and it’s so difficult … Once you start telling the truth it’s brutal.”
Firth said on Twitter: “I resigned from RT today. I have huge respect for many in the team, but I’m for the truth.”
Read more here