MH17 crash: sanctions against Russia are illegal, ambassador claims

Moscow insists documents that show Russians armed the separatists who shot down Malaysia Airlines plane are forged

Morning Mail: Israel strikes Gaza school; Air Algérie flight crashes

"A Palestinian man cries after bringing a child, wounded in an Israeli strike on a compound housing a UN school in Beit Hanoun, to a hospital in Beit Lahiya."

MH17: Abbott's admirable response should change his prime ministership | Bruce Haigh

'The dignity Abbott and Bishop have shown during the MH17 incident should be brought back to parliament.' Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Tony Abbott has handled the MH17 crisis with pluck and maturity

MH17 site: Obama and Abbott agree on push for access as more wreckage found

US president promises to work closely with Australia set up 'full, unimpeded and transparent' international investigation

MH17: the Netherlands to take responsibility for crash investigation - video

In a joint press conference the foreign ministers of the Netherlands and Australia announced that the Netherlands would take responsibility for the investigation into the crash of MH17. Australia's foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said the move would allow the investigation to begin 'in earnest'

Source: Reuters Length: 42 sec theguardian.com Friday 25 July 2014

More journalists detained in Ukraine while reporting on MH17 tragedy

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Further to my posting yesterday about the pressures placed on journalists in Ukraine, there have been more abductions. Both sides in the conflict were responsible for detaining reporters.

CNN reports that a Ukrainian journalist working as a fixer for the broadcaster, Anton Skiba, is being held by pro-Russian separatists.

Armed men from the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic seized Skiba outside a hotel in Donetsk on Tuesday (21 July). He had been working for one day with a CNN crew reporting on the MH17 crash site.

The broadcaster withheld the news for two days in the hope of securing Skiba's release without publicity. The separatists initially accused Skiba of posting cash rewards for the killing of separatist fighters on his Facebook page.

This accusation was subsequently dropped. Instead, Skiba was accused of using multiple forms of identification with different surnames and being a Ukrainian agent.

The US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that Russia was to blame for such actions by using "fear as part of its strategy to sow chaos in Ukraine."

On the same day, a British freelance reporter working for Russia Today, Graham Phillips, was seized along with a cameraman for the Abkhazian news agency (ANNA), Vadim Aksyonov.

Two other unidentified people were reported to have been detained with them - an employee of the press service of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and a possible acquaintance of Phillips.

Their captors are thought to have been members of the Ukrainian army. Aksyonov, who was released after two days, was reportedly tortured.

Sources: CNN/International Business Times/CBC/OSCE/Russia Today

MH17: Australia ready to send police to secure crash site

Tony Abbott says 90 police officers are ready to be deployed to eastern Ukraine site where Malaysia Airlines plane was downed