Russia Vs Mc Donald’s (Video)

 As the West moves to impose sanctions on Russia for supporting Ukrainian rebels, Moscow supersizes its geopolitical beef – punching back right in the golden arches. Its consumer rights watchdog filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s claiming they found E-coli and antibiotics in their food and that McDonald’s under-stated the calorie-count in their hamburgers and milkshakes. But Russia has a long track record of adopting strict health and safety standards right when the geopolitical tensions are high. AJ+ fully animates the Russian food fight.

Deadly hail in Eastern Ukraine

The use of Grad rockets in populated areas is a violation of the laws of war.

Both the Ukrainian army and the insurgent forces have used Grad rockets [AFP]

By: Ole Solvang

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/

“When we first heard one explosion we ran to the basement. And then suddenly, boom, boom, boom – countless explosions. I will never forget that sound.”

With a broken hand and shrapnel still lodged in her chest, Sveta, 55, had just survived a multiple rocket attack on her village when I met her in a hospital in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine this week. The attack destroyed her house and forced most of the villagers to leave. Our investigation shows that Ukrainian armed forces are responsible for at least some of the attacks here that have killed civilians.

Algeria confirms crash of passenger airliner

Air Algerie plane was carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso to Algiers when it disappeared over northern Mali.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/

Algerian aviation officials have confirmed that a plane operated by Air Algerie carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso to Algeria’s capital has crashed over northern Mali.

Flight AH5017 disappeared from radar over northern Mali after heavy rains were reported, according to the owner and and government officials in France and Burkina Faso.

The flight, owned by the Spanish private company Swiftair, was carrying 110 passengers and six crew.

There were no additional details over casualties.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Air Algerie Flight 5017 had “probably crashed,” adding that “no trace” of the plane had been found.

Two French fighter jets are among aircraft scouring the rugged north of Mali for the plane, which was traveling from Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, to Algiers, the Algerian capital.

Air navigation services lost track of the MD-83 about 50 minutes after takeoff from Ougadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, at 1.55am GMT on Thursday, the official Algerian news agency APS said.

The list of passengers includes 51 French, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgium, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian, Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo said.

The six crew members are Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots’ union.

Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo also said the plane sent its last message about 1.30am GMT, asking Niger air control to change its route because of heavy rains in the area.

Frederic Cuvillier, the French transport minister, said the plane vanished over northern Mali.

The plane had been missing for hours before the news was made public. It was not immediately clear why airline or government officials didn’t make it public earlier.

Air Algerie Flight 5017 was being operated by Spanish airline Swiftair, the company said in a statement. The Spanish pilots’ union said the plane belonged to Swiftair and it was operated by a Spanish crew.

Missile destroys Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine, 298 killed

Source: The Guardian

By: Shaun Walker in Kiev, Harriet Salem in Grabovo and Alec Luhn in Moscow

• Pro-Russia rebels suspected of downing airliner
• Ukrainian president condemns ‘terrorist act’
• World leaders react with shock and revulsion

The president of Ukraine has accused pro-Russia rebels in the east of the country of shooting down a Malaysia Airlines jet with a ground-to-air missile, killing all 298 people on board as the airliner exploded and rained down in fiery pieces over a rural Ukrainian village.

The huge loss of life threatens to have wide-ranging and unpredictable consequences, coming just after the US imposed further sanctions on Russia for continuing to provide weapons to the rebels. Defence and security experts said the Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile system, known to be in the hands of pro-Russia fighters in Ukraine, was most likely used.

“This was not an ‘incident’, this was not a ‘catastrophe’, this was a terrorist act,” said Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko.

The US vice-president, Joe Biden, said the plane had been “blown out of the sky”, while the Ukrainian authorities released an audio recording said to be rebel commanders apparently realising their forces were responsible.

The jet, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, came down near the village of Grabovo, part of the area controlled by pro-Russia separatists, on Thursday.

It had been flying 1,000ft above restricted airspace, according to the European air traffic control body. Eurocontrol said Ukrainian authorities had banned aircraft from flying at 32,000ft or below and the doomed aircraft had been cruising at 33,000ft – however this apparently still left it within range of the sophisticated surface-to-air weaponry that pro-Russia forces have been using recently in the Ukraine conflict. All civilian flights have now been barred from the area of eastern Ukraine.

A partial breakdown of passenger nationalities was released early on Friday, showing that 154 Dutch nationals, 43 Malaysians and 27 Australians were on board, along with nine passengers believed to be from the UK, four each from Germany and Belgium, three from the Philippines, one Canadian and 41 unverified. A group of international HIV/Aids experts flying to Melbourne were among those killed. Included in those numbers were the flight crew of 15, all Malaysian.

Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, said: “If it transpires that the flight was shot down, we insist that the perpetrators must swiftly be brought to justice.” His country was sending a disaster response and assistance team to Ukraine.

The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said the world should be “filled with revulsion” at the plane’s destruction and said “Russian proxies, using Russian-supplied equipment” may have been responsible. Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said that if MH17 had been shot down it amounted to an “unspeakable crime” and a full international investigation must be allowed to take place. She said pro-Russia rebels, said to have retrieved the plane’s black box flight recording equipment, must hand it over to authorities.

The British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said: “We do believe that there were British nationals on board the flight. We are working through passenger data, cross-checking it and referencing it to establish exactly the numbers and identities of those British nationals.”

The field next to the tiny hamlet was a scene of charred earth and twisted metal as shocked local people milled around the scene. Body parts belonging to the 298 people on board were strewn around. The body of what appeared to be a young woman was flung about 500m from the centre of the crash.

US government officials confirmed to media outlets that a surface-to-air missile brought down the plane. US intelligence was reportedly still working to determine the exact location from which the missile was fired, and whether it was on the Russian or the Ukrainian side of the border.

Rebels in the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics have shot down several Ukrainian planes and helicopters in recent weeks. But they insisted they had no part in the downing of MH17, claiming instead that Ukrainian fire was responsible.