MONTREAL: The United Nations aviation agency is expected to debate on Friday whether to hear a case against Russia over the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, two sources familiar with the discussions said.
Australia and the Netherlands initiated the action last year at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) about MH17, which was hit over rebel-held eastern Ukraine by what international investigators and prosecutors say was a Russian-made surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 on board.
Australia has said Russia was responsible under international law and that taking the matter to ICAO would be a step forward in the fight for victims who included 38 Australians.
Russia has denied any involvement in the incident. Russia’s ICAO delegation was not immediately available for comment. While the outcome at ICAO is uncertain, experts said the move may be seen as a further way to force Russia into negotiations over the incident.
It was not clear whether an actual vote would occur on Friday, said one of the two sources who spoke on condition of anonymity as the talks are private.
The technical talks by ICAO’s 36-member governing council would come as Moscow is facing mounting rebukes over aviation-related actions following its invasion of Ukraine.
In October, Russia failed to win enough votes at ICAO’s triennial assembly to keep its council seat. The council also called out Russia for the dual registration of commercial aircraft, which the body argued is at odds with parts of a key agreement that sets out core principles for global aviation.
Montreal-based ICAO lacks regulatory power but holds moral suasion and sets global aviation standards overwhelmingly adopted by its 193-member states, even as it operates across political barriers.
ICAO said in a statement that council members prefer “the discussion be conducted as a closed diplomatic session.”
UN aviation council to debate whether to hear MH17 case against Russia
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UN aviation council to debate whether to hear MH17 case against Russia
- International investigators and prosecutors say Russian-made surface-to-air missile downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
