Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 Crashes in Ukraine

[Palinurus]

Source: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/12/prime-minister-assured-of-victory-in-ukraine-vote-nos/

Prime minister assured of victory in Ukraine vote: NOS

December 21, 2016

Prime minister Mark Rutte is assured of winning enough support in the senate for his compromise deal on the EU’s treaty with Ukraine, broadcaster NOS (Dutch only) said on Wednesday.

NOS said a number of Christian Democrat senators are set to defy party leader Sybrand Buma and vote for the deal because of its importance to Europe as a whole.

Last week Rutte won the support of the 27 other European leaders for a supplementary declaration to the Ukraine treaty which makes it clear what the agreement actually entails.

This, he hopes, will enable the Dutch parliament to ratify the treaty, despite the April referendum in which 61% voted against ratification. Even though the referendum was advisory, MP's have said justice must be done to the outcome.

D66

The prime minister can count on a majority in the lower house of parliament because GroenLinks and D66 have said they will support the deal. In the senate, however, he is short of at least three seats and is counting on the backing of the CDA.

‘Senior Christian Democrats consider the treaty to be so important that they will support [Rutte],’ NOS correspondent Ron Fresen said. ‘He will be able to go back to Europe and say that he has made it work.’

The two minor Christian parties SGP (Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij) and CU (ChristenUnie) have said they will not support the deal, arguing that the confidence of the public in politicians must be restored.

During Tuesday evening’s debate on the issue, Rutte again stressed the importance of not playing into Russia’s hands.

 

[Palinurus]

Source: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/01/journalist-outraged-as-police-seize-equipment-on-return-from-mh17-crash-site/

Journalist outraged as police seize equipment on return from MH17 crash site

January 9, 2017

A journalist who brought back pieces of wreckage from a visit to the MH17 crash site in Ukraine has accused Dutch police who confiscated his camera and computer equipment of being needlessly heavy-handed.

Michel Spekkers was interviewed by officers when he landed at Schiphol airport on Saturday. Police claimed he refused to hand over pieces of wreckage, including fragments of bone that could be human remains, that were in his luggage. They said Spekkers tried to smuggle the items into the country by getting a companion to carry his bag through customs.

Spekkers told Omroep Brabant (Dutch only) he had agreed to hand over all the pieces of wreckage voluntarily, with the exception of some audio files that could have been used to identify his sources. He insists he ‘never for a minute’ thought of trying to keep the items.

‘They’d asked me to hand them over to the consulate in Moscow, but I preferred to do it in the Netherlands so I knew they would end up in the right hands,’ he explained.

‘I was taken away and the conversation fairly quickly took a wrong turn, so that along with the items from MH17 that I handed over voluntarily they also confiscated all my photographic material, laptops and phones.’

Spekkers visited the site during a two-week visit to Russia and Ukraine and said pieces of debris, including human bones, were still strewn across the fields where the plane came down. He gathered up several items in a bin bag and stuffed it into his rucksack for the journey home.

The public prosecution service has said it does not plan to take any further action against Spekkers.

The journalist had earlier apologized for a tweet sent while he was traveling back from Ukraine in which he asked people what he should do with the objects he found at the site.

Relatives of the crash victims accused Spekkers of being disrespectful. ‘If possible human remains have been found they should be handed over to local mayors, not carried off in a bin bag,’ said Evert van Zijtveld, chairman of Stichting Vliegramp MH17.

The Dutch journalists’ union NVJ said Spekkers’ treatment was ‘disproportionate’. General secretary Thomas Bruning said the union would be raising the issue with the police’s internal investigation branch.

Similar here: http://nltimes.nl/2017/01/09/reporter-caught-mh17-debris-schiphol

 

[Palinurus]

Noticed later on, i.e. past modification time out, that Spekkers (and Stefan Beck) were mentioned recently in the other thread (Civil War in Ukraine: Western Empire vs Russia) here, here and here.

 

[Palinurus]

Meanwhile, SOTT carries an RT article on this matter now:

https://www.sott.net/article/339084-Dutch-journalists-question-official-MH17-after-collecting-evidence-at-the-MH17-crash-site-in-eastern-Ukraine

<snip>

Both journalists were apprehended by authorities upon their return, despite showing a willingness to cooperate. All the collected materials were seized, "but not only of MH17 also we had our laptops, telephones and SD cards in cameras all confiscated by the Dutch police," Beck told RT.

Dutch prosecutors said in a statement that the "general impression was that possibly not all objects with relevance to the investigation would be handed over by free will."

While the loss of the fragments is regrettable, the confiscation of all their equipment has raised some serious concerns.

"For me personally the part of the plane is the least of my concern. What is way more worrying to me is that they confiscated our laptops, our telephones, our cameras and SD cards," Beck told RT.

Some of the footage is of a sensitive nature as people agreed to talk to the reporters only on condition of anonymity, and providing the material to the Joint Investigation team would effectively mean handing it over to the Ukrainian secret services.

"We held interviews with local people, and some of those people only wanted to talk with us on basis of anonymity, so that their identity would be concealed, and as you might know, the representative of Ukraine to the Joint investigation team is the SBU, the Ukrainian secret service. And we're very very worried that some of the people who we interviewed might get repercussions when they are known to the SBU and the Ukrainian authorities," Beck said.

The data storage devices seized from the journalists are still in a "sealed" state due to the intervention of the Dutch journalist union, according to Beck. This means the MH17 crash investigators cannot use them as of yet, but this situation could change if a court orders them be handed over to the authorities, Beck said.

 

[Oxajil]

Some of the footage is of a sensitive nature as people agreed to talk to the reporters only on condition of anonymity, and providing the material to the Joint Investigation team would effectively mean handing it over to the Ukrainian secret services.

"We held interviews with local people, and some of those people only wanted to talk with us on basis of anonymity, so that their identity would be concealed, and as you might know, the representative of Ukraine to the Joint investigation team is the SBU, the Ukrainian secret service. And we're very very worried that some of the people who we interviewed might get repercussions when they are known to the SBU and the Ukrainian authorities," Beck said.

That is very worrying. I can understand the response by Graham Philips as posted here by c.a. It probably would've been better to not take anything from the MH17 site. Philips does mention:

"I would also add that fellow Dutch journalist Jeroen Akkermans took multiple items from the crash site in 2014, and was applauded for doing so in his own country. I have written frequently in opposition to this, and my sentiments are the same in the situation of Michel Spekkers, despite our good working relatonship, friendship."

Which is interesting because Akkermans supposedly 'found' a piece that proved that a BUK missile was used. The media and officials were okay with him taking MH17 material...

As for the other material from Beck and Spekkers, I hope they'll get it back and that they'll be able to publish their findings. One of the mistakes I think that Michel Spekkers made is that on Twitter he created a poll with the question: Where is the best place to leave a garbage bag full of MH17 stuff? The three options being the Second Chamber, Public Prosecution Department and his mother.

I can understand why that might've struck a sensitive cord with some people who might find it disrespectful. The main message I get from that is that he's trying to say how easy it is to get MH17 material and how much of it hasn't been collected by the research team. Of course, maybe he could've gone a bit more strategic about it, because some people and media outlets are using that tweet against him.

At least some people are starting to doubt the MH17 research team now. Hope they'll get their video etc. material back.

 

[bjorb]

Some of the footage is of a sensitive nature as people agreed to talk to the reporters only on condition of anonymity, and providing the material to the Joint Investigation team would effectively mean handing it over to the Ukrainian secret services.

"We held interviews with local people, and some of those people only wanted to talk with us on basis of anonymity, so that their identity would be concealed, and as you might know, the representative of Ukraine to the Joint investigation team is the SBU, the Ukrainian secret service. And we're very very worried that some of the people who we interviewed might get repercussions when they are known to the SBU and the Ukrainian authorities," Beck said.

That is very worrying.

Handing it over to the Ukrainian secret service makes the Dutch government complicit in murder. Those people wanted to stay anonymous for a reason. The Dutch government is collaborating with a Nazi regime. But what else is new.


It shocks me how well the authorities are informed what our true independent journalists are up to. Since they where waiting for them on the airport to intimidate and disrupt their work.

 

[Palinurus]

Thank you both for your reactions.

I was rather astonished by the whole course of events but it once again shows in a nutshell the sensitivities around, as well as the fishiness of this sordid and protracted MH17 affair.

 

[angelburst29]

The Dutch police will examine the objects collected by the journalists at the site of the crash of Boeing MH17 aircraft in Ukraine, Wim de Bruin, the spokesman for the Dutch state prosecutor's office, said Tuesday.

Dutch Police to Study New Items on MH17 Crash Site - Prosecutor's Office
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201701101049431413-netherlands-nh17-crash-investigation/

On Saturday, Dutch police had confiscated materials concerning the MH17 crash from two independent Dutch journalists, Stefan Beck and Michel Spekkers, upon their arrival to the Netherlands from Donbas. Beck and Spekkers had gone to Ukraine to examine the site of the crash and to speak to the local residents.

The objects that Spekkers took from the site of the crash will be examined by the police," the spokesman told RIA Novosti.

Amsterdam police redirected all journalists' questions to the prosecutor's office.

The OSCE should give a public assessment to the situation involving Dutch police confiscating some materials related to the investigation of the flight MH17 crash collected by Dutch journalists, the head of the Russian Civic Chamber's Committee on Public Diplomacy and the Russian Youth Union said Monday.

Russia Urges OSCE to React to Confiscating of Journalists' MH17 Materials
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201701091049406471-osce-mh17-probe/

— Earlier in the day, reports emerged that Dutch police had confiscated materials concerning the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash from two independent Dutch journalists, Stefan Beck and Michel Spekkers, upon their arrival to the Netherlands from Donbass.

"In my opinion, this is another attempt to put pressure on journalists and control the materials collected in southeastern Ukraine… I do not want to call it a censorship, but it certainly looks like it. I am confident that the journalistic society of the Netherlands, as well as the international bodies, in particular, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatovic, should give a public estimate to this incident," Elena Sutormina told RIA Novosti.

 

[Oxajil]

Thanks for the update angelburst29, and I agree with your comments bjorn and Palinurus, all around it's quite fishy. Here's Stefan Beck's (one of the two Dutch journalists) account: On the Confiscation of our Material

He writes:

It was never made a secret that material of the MH17 was taken with us. Indeed, it was even posted on twitter. Authorities therefore contacted Michel Spekkers and asked him to hand it over in either the Dutch embassy in Moscow or at Schiphol Airport. During the contact the police made clear they needed the material for investigation. More so, they claimed that the handover would be voluntarily. Being such, there should also be a possibility to refuse. We have told authorities that we agreed on a rendezvous. [...]

The people interrogating Beck identified themselves as police. Eventhough, they showed a police card which supposedly showed their family names and initials, the interrogator was very much worried that his face might have been caught on camera. Also, the name used by the interrogator to introduce himself, Bert, did not correspond with the initials on the police pass. The interrogator also claimed to be married while not wearing a wedding-ring.

Both Spekkers and Beck were asked to unpack their bags and show all content they were carrying with them. During the conversation it was incorrectly said to Beck that Spekkers has agreed to voluntarily hand over the material. Beck knew, that, despite Spekkers was not against this, he also had not yet agreed on this.

During the interrogation, it was claimed that this material was needed for the MH17 investigation. Not before arriving was there ever any question about handing this material over. Nor was it ever asked to hand the video or photo material voluntarily. It was taken from Beck without any question whatsoever.

So a lot of 'weirdness' going on. First they were told they could hand the material over voluntarily, but as soon as they arrived at Schiphol airport all of their material was confiscated.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said:

"We have spoken for more than two years since the tragedy date that very important fragments of the plane’s wreckage were not taken out so that the investigative group could work on them.

Now this has also been found out by journalists of the country, which has assumed the basic work under this investigation. There are fears that this information will fail to reach the general public of the Netherlands and Europe because these materials may be censored. Such fears exist and I hope this won’t take place.

What can be clearly seen in this episode is the nervousness of official Hague towards any evidence of the investigative group’s inconsistent work and the number of such evidences is growing.

There are obvious fears that their activity may indeed be recognized as not quite efficient and now the Dutch side is ready to put on restraining folds on its journalists who are just trying to learn the truth and perform their professional duty.

Well said. Spekkers tweeted today that the judge has ruled that the confiscation was legal. Apparently those who have the material want some of the footage erased, and they also would like to copy parts of it. :/

 

[Palinurus]

Nice addition, Oxajil. Thanks for sharing.

From the about-page I learned that Beck is a physicist working as a teacher and also that he taught himself Russian from textbooks. Interesting fellow it seems.

He refers to the blog of Spekkers where I found this:

Past few days there has been a lot of talking about my choice to take remains of the MH17 to The Netherlands. This is my side of the story.

Sunday December 25th I left (along with Stefan Beck) through Warsaw, Moscow and Rostov to Donetsk. The purpose of the trip (among others) was to do research on everyday life and the development of DNR in eastern Ukraine since the war began in 2014. Many stories are going around about what’s going on and a lot of those stories contradict each other. We are two months engaged in preparations and we have considered all the possible scenarios, including the safety-issues.

Why through Russia
We ultimately chose to travel to the DNR through Russia. Another, in the eyes of some people more logical, route would have been to do this via Ukraine. Since 2014 there is a war going on in eastern Ukraine. There is no country that recognizes DNR at this time. My purpose of the trip was not only to find out what is happening on the front line, but also to see how the daily life of the residents and how the internal political developments are within DNR. It is almost impossible to travel through Ukraine at this time to that area. Also considering we wanted to get press licenses, it was for us a logical choice not to enter the DNR range from (in their eyes) hostile territory and expect cooperation. After consultations with e.g. the Russian Consulate and other contacts, have chosen to take the route from Russia to enter the DNR.

Visit to the MH17 crash site
Considering we had only a limited number of days, a visit to the place where the MH17 crashed two and a half years ago, was not on the short list of things I would do. The conversations I had with various people from the area let me decided to adjust the schedule and visit the crash site still for a day. Stefan Beck did not go with me that day. When I arrived in the area I found, to my surprise, recognizable fragments of the MH17 at various places. After a somewhat longer consideration I decided to take a selection of pieces with me. The majority of the pieces involved aluminum and plastic parts. I wanted to take these things with the purpose of research, to transfer them to the authorities and to make a strong point that there are still things to be found after 2.5 years. Among the parts I found fragments that reminded me strongly of bone remains. Earlier there where skeletal remains discovered, some were found not to be human but animal. I’m not a forensic investigator, but did not ruled out the skeletal remains could be human. I decided to take one part of the skeletal remains for further investigation in The Netherlands. The consideration for me: if it are human remains there, they do not belong there but need to get returned to The Netherlands.

Bringing stuff
The crash site of the MH17 is located about three hours to travel from Donetsk. An area with a few houses and a kind of simple first-necessities-of-life-shop. I decided to package a selection of items in separate bags. One of the bone parts I encased in a sealed tube. Later, upon returning in the hotel, all parts packed separately in zip-lock bags. The part of the bone was packed during the entire trip in a locked hard packaging. I made film recordings and photos throughout the day. Of the stuff, the original spot and the things we encountered but not included. I have tried to document as much as possible all components.

The Tweet
I was moved by the fact that so many things still were in the area. I could not imagine that, if such a thing were to happen in the Netherlands, this then would will be the case. I was reminded of the statement of Prime minister Rutte ‘no stone unturned’ and then I sent one, in retrospect, very inhumane tweet.

Bij wie zou ik een vuilniszak vol met MH17 spullen het best kunnen brengen?…

— Michel Spekkers (@spekkers) 4 januari 2017

with the thought: who is now still working to get to the bottom out of this? Or is there no one caring about it anymore? And are we letter things as they are to be assumed? After posting the tweet, I did not immediately get crazy reactions. During a broadcast of EenVandaag (a dutch Radio show) it became clear that this Tweet felt bad by the MH17 victims relatives. I offered immediate apologies.

Prosecution
January 6th, I received an email from Gerrit Thiry (Coordinating Team Leader MH17). In that email he suggested me to have contact with him to get the secured stuff available to the research team as soon as possible so desired forensic examination could be carried out. ‘ He also warned me that it’s not aloud to take items from a crime scene according to Dutch law. On the same day I got another email from Thiry. This was after an interview with EenVandaag in which I indicated to want to transfer the items. He affirms in the mail my wish and gives me two options to transfer the MH17 objects. Or to the Liaison in Moscow or at the airport Amsterdam. Last Saturday we confirmed with each other via SMS and telephone that it was a voluntary transfer, not a criminal recovery and that I would give the items at arrival at Schiphol Airport. Our flight was delayed, of which I have informed him. Upon arrival at Schiphol I got a message from him that they would be there for me at the gate.

At the customs
Given Stefan was not there on the day of the visit to the crash site and he did not support that I took the bone part, we agreed to say goodbye before exiting the gate. Upon arrival at the gate, I was received by Gerrit Thiry and several other men including a digital forensics expert and some members of the Military Police. Together we walked to the baggage carousel to retrieve the luggage. At the baggage-area arises brief confusion when my traveling companion took the wrong luggage from the belt. Within a minute I was able to reach him (by phone) and I took the bag from him. Then I walked with Thiry and several others to a room somewhere inside Schiphol which was reserved for us. Stefan was taken to another room, I only spoke to him a day later.

At the room the investigation team asked me if a digital forensics expert could make an ISO (copy) of all my data (from the whole trip). I then offered that I was willing to transfer the images of the crash site, provided that anonymous sources would be possible. I refused to deploy all my data from the whole trip in Russia and DNR available because more than 90% of the data had nothing to do with the MH17 and possessed politically sensitive information. In addition, I did not agree to copy any data from my audio recorder and telephone as 0% data contained in MH17. My proposal to limit the data from the crash site MH17 was not agreed and immediately after which they proceeded to confiscation of all my stuff. They have an audio recorder, an external hard drive and a variety of SD memory cards seized from me a laptop, three phones, a 4k Panasonic camera, a Nikon d80, a small video camcorder. My request for a lawyer was refused. Eventually I was allowed to make one phone call to notify someone.

What now
I regret how things turned out. I’m disappointed in the actions of the Public Prosecutor. I can not find myself in the press release issued by them. From the first day, I have offered to transfer the MH17 objects and have not abandoned that thought at any time. Ethics are debatable, but that’s a whole other discussion. A other discussion is the way some (mostly Dutch) media platforms and journalists published without rebuttal on this subject. This has originated a lot of noise in recent days.

I am grateful for the support of the NVJ. At present a magistrate is considering the legalese of the seizure. I have to rely on my resource and sources protection. I assume that the judge will grant resource protection, and I’m still willing to hand over the relevant images on a voluntary basis. The decision of the judge is expected on 10 or January 11th.

Across the relatives of those who perished in the MH17 I want to apologize again for the misplaced tweet and the fact that old memories are retrieved. The misinformation published by various media, has not helped in the recent days. If you have questions for me, I’m always available for you.

Considering that a judge has ruled the confiscation to be legally sound I'm anxiously awaiting the verdict on source protection...

EDIT: minor spelling

EDIT-2: meanwhile SOTT has picked up on the story (via TASS) -- https://www.sott.net/article/339432-Russian-diplomat-Zakharova-concerned-MH17-crash-probe-results-might-be-censored

 

[angelburst29]

A Dutch court has ruled that part of the photo material from Dutch journalists working in Ukraine’s southeast (Donbass) can be used in the interests of the investigation, freelance journalist Stefan Beck told RIA Novosti.

Donbass Photos From Journalists Beck, Spekkers, Could be Used in Investigation
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201701131049544933-donbass-photos-beck-spekkers-investigation/

On Tuesday, Beck wrote in his blog that he thought that the demand of Amsterdam police to hand over the material collected by Beck and another Dutch journalist Michel Spekkers at the site of the MH17 plane crash in Ukraine’s southeast was a suggestion, not an order.

On Friday, Beck told RIA Novosti that most of the photo material, including parts of it which capture the detention of Spekkers at the airport in Amsterdam will be destroyed. Spekkers had his luggage confiscated last Saturday upon flying back to Amsterdam after filming the MH17 crash site. He reportedly carried bags full of metal parts and an object that could have been human remains.

According to Beck, the two journalists did not try to hide the material they had brought to the Netherlands from the authorities and that they were mostly worried about the safety of the Donbass residents they had interviewed.

 

[Palinurus]

Source: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/01/anti-ukraine-treaty-group-takes-dutch-government-to-court/

Anti-Ukraine treaty group takes Dutch government to court

January 13, 2017

One of the groups behind last year’s referendum on the EU treaty with Ukraine is going to court on Friday in an effort to prevent the Dutch government ratifying the agreement.

Thierry Baudet’s Forum for Democracy wants judges to stop the government pressing ahead with ratification, now that other EU members states agreed to a separate declaration which clarifies parts of the treaty.

Last month Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte won the support of the 27 other European leaders for the supplementary document which states the treaty of association with Ukraine aims to provide for a ‘close and consistent relationship with Ukraine’ without it being seen as a precursor to EU membership.

Baudet, who is now running for parliament, told the NRC (Dutch only) the aim of the court case is to ‘cut off the mountain path’ which Rutte is now using.

In the referendum, which was advisory only, 61% of the 32% of voters who took part rejected the treaty. The referendum law states that the cabinet must decide whether to accept or reject the result of the vote ‘as quickly as possible’.

This, says Baudet means the government must either withdraw from the ratification process or press ahead with it. ‘There is no room for amendments, there is no compromise possible,’ he told the paper.

Both houses of parliament still have to vote on the compromise and Rutte is not yet guaranteed of a majority in the senate.

 

[angelburst29]

Anti-Ukraine treaty group takes Dutch government to court - Came across another article on the same topic, as you Posted, Palinurus. It seems, the Dutch citizens voted NO on this ratification and the Government is keeping a low profile, maybe hoping to pass it "as a supplement" under the peoples noses? I think, Thierry Baudet is trying to bring it out in the open - so Prime Minister Mark Rutte will settle on the No vote?

Another article (below) stating the bone fragment seized from the Dutch Journalist was tested as human.

Head of the Dutch Eurosceptic think tank Forum for Democracy Thierry Baudet stated that there is no compromise possible with the European Union on the ratification of the EU-Ukraine association deal.

Dutch Think Tank to Take Gov’t to Court to Oppose EU ‘Compromise’ on Ukraine
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201701131049564652-baudet-netherlands-eu-ukraine-compromise/

The Dutch Eurosceptic think tank Forum for Democracy is taking the country’s government to court demanding to either withdraw from the ratification of the EU-Ukraine association deal or move ahead with the agreement in its original version without a “compromise” with the European Union, assuring that the deal is not a precursor to Kiev's membership in the bloc, the think tank’s head Thierry Baudet said Friday.

The Netherlands remains the only EU member state that has not ratified the treaty. Prime Minister Mark Rutte moved to accelerate the ratification after securing support of the 27 European leaders for a supplementary to the deal that stated that the deal “does not confer on Ukraine the status of a candidate country for accession to the Union” and ruled out military or financial support to Kiev to mitigate Dutch voters' concerns. “There is no room for amendments, there is no compromise possible,” Baudet said as quoted by the DutchNews.nl news portal citing the NRC newspaper, adding that the think tank wanted to “cut off the mountain path” the government was using.

The deal between Ukraine and the European Union, signed in 2014 and supposed to deepen political, economic and trade links, was initially approved by the Dutch Parliament. However, in April Dutch voters held a referendum on the issue and rejected the agreement by 61 percent of votes. Despite low voters' turnout and non-binding nature of the referendum, most Dutch parties agreed to abide by the outcome.

Last month, Rutte told RIA Novosti that the Dutch parliament would consider the ratification of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in January.

Back date December 16, 2016 -

The Dutch government cannot ignore the will of the people who clearly expressed their opposition to the ratification of the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine at the national referendum, Bart Elsman, a spokesman for the Dutch Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party, told Sputnik on Friday.

Gov't Must Respect Dutch 'No' Vote at Referendum on EU-Ukraine Association
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201612161048658319-respect-association-netherlands/

On Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced that a parliamentary vote on the ratification of the deal would be held in January despite the results of the nation-wide referendum in April, when 61 percent of voters said they were against this deal.

"The CDA has said from the very beginning: we are against referendum in general, but this referendum has been organized by law, and once you ask the people what they want, you have to do something with that. The result has been that people voted NO, and in CDA we still believe that to be the case," Elsman said.

The Netherlands remains the only EU member state that has not ratified the EU-Ukraine treaty. Rutte moved to accelerate the ratification process after he secured support of the 27 other European leaders for a supplementary to the EU treaty with Ukraine that stated that the deal “does not confer on Ukraine the status of a candidate country for accession to the Union” and ruled out military or financial support to Kiev to mitigate Dutch voters' concerns.

The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was signed in 2014 aimed at deepening political association and economic integration with Kiev being obliged to implement a series of reforms to gain free-trade access to the EU market. But most of all it has a geopolitical value: as Rutte put it this week, the deal with Ukraine was key for Europe to present a united front against Russia’s destabilizing foreign policy, while its rejection would have been a “gift to Russia”.

A bone fragment of one of the crashed MH17 plane passengers was found among the material confiscated from Dutch journalists who had travelled to Ukraine’s southeast (Donbass), the results of forensic examination have revealed.

Bone Fragment of MH17 Passenger Among Items Seized From Dutch Journalist
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201701141049582445-mh17-passenger-bone-seized-journalist/

The forensic investigation into items taken out of Ukraine by Dutch journalist Michel Spekkers which were possibly related to the MH17 crash has shown that one of the items is a fragment of human bone. The other items were also investigated and found not to be relevant to the criminal investigation," the Dutch public prosecutor’s office said in a Friday statement.

According to the release, DNA testing conducted by the Netherlands Forensic Institute revealed that the bone fragment was from a passenger of the MH17 plane, who was identified in 2014.

"The journalist refused to cooperate at all in making photo and video material of the crash site available. That material is important with a view to finding the precise location where the items were taken from. In view of the journalist’s uncooperative attitude the police had no other option than to seize all the data carriers, with permission from the Public Prosecution Service," the Friday statement says.

On Tuesday, freelance journalist Stefan Beck who was travelling with Spekkers wrote in his blog that he thought that the demand of Amsterdam police to hand over the material collected at the site of the MH17 plane crash in Ukraine’s southeast was a suggestion, not an order. On Friday, Beck told RIA Novosti that most of the photo material, including parts of it which capture the detention of Spekkers at the airport in Amsterdam will be destroyed. Spekkers had his luggage confiscated last Saturday upon flying back to Amsterdam after filming the MH17 crash site. According to Beck, the two journalists did not try to hide the material they had brought to the Netherlands from the authorities and that they were mostly worried about the safety of the Donbass residents they had interviewed.

Beck has stressed that the fact that there are still human remains at the MH17 crash site proves that the investigation into the accident was not conducted properly and more work needs to be done.

 

[Palinurus]

Thanks again, angelburst29, for these new additions. The organization of next of kin has now responded:

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/01/mh17-relatives-want-new-investigation-after-bone-fragment-is-identified/

MH17 relatives want new investigation after bone fragment is identified

January 16, 2017

Relatives of the victims of flight MH17 are to hold new talks with the public prosecution department about a further hunt for remains at the crash site in the east of Ukraine, the Volkskrant (Dutch only) said at the weekend.

The move follows reports of the discovery of a piece of human bone by a Dutch journalist who visited the crash site earlier this month.

The piece of bone comes from an MH17 victim whose identity has already been established. Relatives feel a new mission to Ukraine might make it possible to recover more human remains, perhaps including bones of the two passengers who have not yet been definitively identified.

Michel Spekkers and Stefan Beck returned from Ukraine last Saturday. On their arrival at Schiphol airport, officials confiscated a rubbish bag containing ‘MH17 items’ that they had brought back with them from Ukraine, which included not only the fragment of bone but also a telephone, cameras and a laptop.

Last Thursday a magistrate ruled that the confiscation, which the Dutch union of journalists NVJ had described as ‘disproportionate’, was legitimate.

Hack

Meanwhile, the Dutch Safety Board was targeted by hackers [in 2015] shortly before publication of its preliminary report on the disaster, the board’s president Tjibbe Joustra confirmed to the NRC (Dutch only) on Saturday.

The hack, using a technique known as ‘spear phishing’ was ‘identical’ to that used to target the Democratic Party in the US during the presidential elections, the paper said.

Similar story here: http://nltimes.nl/2017/01/16/mh17-survivors-call-new-investigation-crash-site

 

[Oxajil]

January 16, 2017
[...]
Meanwhile, the Dutch Safety Board was targeted by hackers [in 2015] shortly before publication of its preliminary report on the disaster, the board’s president Tjibbe Joustra confirmed to the NRC (Dutch only) on Saturday.

The hack, using a technique known as ‘spear phishing’ was ‘identical’ to that used to target the Democratic Party in the US during the presidential elections, the paper said.

In the NRC article mentioned above, it's said that in January 2016 a Japanese-American company, TrendMicro, revealed that the hackers behind the hack attempt mentioned above were "closely involved with the Russian government".

I found an article on SOTT where TrendMicro is mentioned: Who's behind the campaign to blame Putin for everything?

If you look at the "analysis" done by those who attribute the DNC hack to Russian state actors, a pattern of confirmation bias emerges, as Carr shows:

"On June 15, 2016, CrowdStrike's co-founder and CTO Dmitri Alperovich announced in a blog post that two Russian hacker groups were responsible for the DNC breach: Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear; and that both hacker groups worked for competing Russian intelligence services.

"Other cybersecurity companies including FireEye, Kaspersky Lab, ESET, TrendMicro, Microsoft, iSight Partners, and AlienLab have made similar claims of attribution to the Russian government. The question that this article seeks to answer is, are those claims grounded in evidence or guesswork?

Later on in the NRC article it is said that according to a "confidential departmental document" published on Jan 4th by the Dutch official counter-terrorism unit, Russia will try to influence Dutch elections on March 15 this year.

All I can say is: Fake News.