World

MOSCOW — Russia reacted angrily on Saturday to additional sanctions imposed by the European Union over Moscow’s role in the Ukraine crisis, saying they would hamper cooperation on security issues and undermine the fight against terrorism and organised crime.

Russia’s foreign ministry also accused the United States, which has already imposed its own sanctions against Moscow, of contributing to the conflict in Ukraine through its support for the pro-Western government in Kiev.

The 28-nation EU reached an outline agreement on Friday to impose the first economic sanctions on Russia over its behaviour in Ukraine but scaled back their scope to exclude technology for the crucial gas sector.

The EU also imposed travel bans and asset freezes on the chiefs of Russia’s FSB security service and foreign intelligence service and a number of other top Russian officials, saying they had helped shape Russian government policy that threatened Ukraine’s sovereignty and national integrity.

“The additional sanction list is direct evidence that the EU countries have set a course for fully scaling down cooperation with Russia over the issues of international and regional security,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“[This] includes the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, organised crime and other new challenges and dangers.”

The EU had already imposed asset freezes and travel bans on dozens of senior Russian officials over Russia’s annexation in March of Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and its support for separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine.

The decision to move towards targeting sectors of Russia’s economy came after last week’s downing of a Malaysian airliner, Flight MH17, killing 298 people, in an area of eastern Ukraine held by the Russian-backed separatists.

The United States and other Western countries accuse the separatists of downing the plane with a surface-to-air missile supplied by Russia. The separatists deny shooting down the plane and Russia says it has provided no such weapons. Moscow has suggested Kiev’s forces are to blame for the crash.

On Saturday, Britain’s Foreign Office accused Russia of making “contradictory, mutually exclusive claims” in blaming Ukraine for the tragedy and said it was “highly likely” the separatists had brought it down with a Russian-supplied missile.

‘Slander campaign’

In a second statement on Saturday, Russia’s foreign ministry said Washington shared responsibility for the crisis.

“The United States continues to push Kiev into the forceful repression of (Ukraine’s) Russian-speaking population’s discontent. There is one conclusion — the Obama administration has some responsibility both for the internal conflict in Ukraine and its severe consequences,” the ministry said.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, Europe’s largest economy which also has strong trade ties with Russia, spoke out strongly in favour of the new EU sanctions against Moscow in an interview published on Saturday.

“After the death of 300 innocent people in the MH17 crash and the disrespectful roaming around the crash site of marauding soldiers, the behaviour of Russia leaves us no other choice,” he told Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

“We remain true to our course: cleverly calibrated and mutually agreed measures to raise the pressure and towards a willingness to have serious talks with Russia,” he said in the interview, conducted on Friday.

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel told the Spiegel weekly in comments due to be published on Sunday that the sanctions should above all hit Russia’s oligarchs, arguing that the country’s political system rested on them.

“We must freeze their [bank] accounts in European capitals and deny them the ability to travel,” Gabriel said.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said he would hold talks in the Netherlands next Wednesday with his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte on how to secure full access for international investigators to the site of the plane crash.

“This will require the cooperation of those in control of the crash site and the Ukrainian armed forces,” he said.

The separatists remain in control of the area where the plane came down. A total of 193 Dutch nationals and 43 Malaysians were among the victims aboard MH17, which had been flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

Russia has said it wants an independent investigation into the crash, under UN auspices. The Kremlin said on Saturday President Putin had spoken by telephone with Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott about the need to allow international recovery experts safe access to the crash site.

At least 27 Australians were killed in the crash.

BAMAKO — All passengers and crew on board an Air Algerie jetliner that crashed in Mali died in the tragedy, which completely wiped out several families, France announced.

As the first images emerged of the crash site, showing a charred landscape and debris scattered over a wide area, French President Francois Hollande said in a sombre televised address: “Sadly, there are no survivors.”

France bore the brunt of the disaster, with some 54 French citizens among the overall death toll of between 116 and 118, according to unexplained conflicting figures given by the carrier and French authorities.

Travellers from Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Algeria, Spain, Canada, Germany and Luxembourg also died in the crash, blamed on bad weather that forced the pilots to change course.

The French army released initial images of a scene of total devastation, with twisted and charred fragments of the McDonnell Douglas 83 jet littering a scorched earth in what is clearly a barren and remote environment.

Such was the apparent violence of the crash that debris was barely recognisable as parts of an aircraft.

“It is difficult to retrieve anything, even victims’ bodies, because we have only seen body parts on the ground,” said General Gilbert Diendiere, chief of staff at Burkina Faso’s presidency.

He was a member of a delegation sent to the crash site by President Blaise Compaore that arrived in the Gossi area, about 100 kilometres from Goa, northern Mali’s main city, on Friday afternoon.

“Debris was scattered over an area of 500 metres which is due to the fact that the plane hit the ground and then probably rebounded,” he added.

Meanwhile, the scale of the tragedy for some communities was becoming clear, as it emerged that 10 members of one French family died in the crash.

“It’s brutal. It has wiped an entire family from the earth,” said Patrice Dunard, mayor of Gex, where four of the Reynaud family lived.

And the small town of Menet in central France was left devastated when residents discovered that a local family of four — a couple, their 10-year-old daughter Chloe and their 14-year-old son Elno — had died.

Denise Labbe of the local town hall said Chloe had confided to her teacher that she was scared of taking a plane, which she was doing for the first time.

Hollande’s office said he would meet families of the victims on Saturday.

Pilots ‘very experienced’

The McDonnell Douglas 83 jet, operated by Spanish charter firm Swiftair on behalf of Air Algerie, went down shortly after take-off from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso on its way to Algiers.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said weather conditions appeared to be the most likely cause of the accident — the worst air tragedy for French nationals since the crash of the Air France A330 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in June 2009.

But Hollande insisted that no potential cause for the accident was being ruled out.

Swiftair has a good safety record, and the head of France’s civil aviation authority said Thursday that the MD-83 had passed through France this week and been given the all-clear.

The Spanish pilots’ union Sepla said the plane’s two Spanish pilots were “very experienced”.

Airline disaster week 

The Air Algerie crash was the third worldwide in the space of just eight days, capping a disastrous week for the aviation industry.

On July 17, a Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down in restive eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

And a Taiwanese aircraft crashed in torrential rain in Taiwan on Wednesday, killing 48.

France was extremely active in the search and retrieval efforts for the Air Algerie plane, dispatching military forces and crash experts to the site after one of its drones found the wreckage.

There was already a strong French military presence in the area because of an offensive France launched in Mali last year to stop Islamist extremists and Tuareg rebels from marching onto the capital Bamako.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters that around 180 French and Malian forces had arrived on the crash site, as had 40 Dutch soldiers from the MINUSMA UN stabilisation force in Mali.

“Their mission is to make the zone secure and to allow information to be gathered, which will be essential for the investigation,” he said.

To assist the investigation, 20 French military police were already preparing to leave their base at Villacoublay for Gao in Mali.

The black box flight recorder of the plane has already been recovered, Hollande said earlier.

Because of the disaster, a summit of the leaders of four Indian Ocean nations with Hollande in the island nation of the Comoros was cancelled, with no new date set.

Air Algerie flies the four-hour passenger route from Ouagadougou to Algiers four times a week. The Spanish crew had already flown it five times with the same plane, Algeria’s transport minister said.

This year has already seen Algeria mourn the loss of another plane accident when a C-130 military aircraft carrying 78 people crashed in February in the country’s mountainous northeast, killing more than 70 on board.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced a three-day period of national mourning for the latest crash, starting from Friday.

DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials said their forces advanced to the outskirts of a key town north of Donetsk on Saturday as they try to retake the stronghold held for months by pro-Russia rebels.

The move comes as Ukrainian forces appear to have gained some momentum recently by retaking control of territory from the rebels. But Russia also appears to becoming more involved in the fighting, with the US and Ukraine accusing Moscow of moving heavily artillery across the border to the rebels.

Ukrainian national security spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Ukrainian forces were outside Horlikva, just north of the regional centre of Donetsk.

Once they can take Horlivka, “the direct route is open for the forces of the anti-terrorist operation to the capital of the Donbass region — the city of Donetsk”, Lysenko said. “The approaches to Donetsk are being blocked so that the terrorists do not get the chance to receive ammunition, reinforcements or equipment.”

Donetsk, a city of about one million people, is a major centre of the separatist uprising that has battled Ukrainian government forces for five months.

An Associated Press reporter found the highway north of Donetsk blocked by rebels and heard the sound of artillery to the north. Explosions were heard in the direction of the town’s airport, on the northwest edge of the city, an area frequently contested by Ukrainian forces and rebels. Black smoke rose from the direction of Yakovlikva, a northern suburb of Donetsk.

About 60 kilometres to the east, the site where Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down was still eerily empty except for the parents of one of the 298 people killed in the July 17 accident. Nine days after the accident, a full-fledged investigation still hasn’t started due to the security risks posed by the nearby fighting.

But Jerzy Dyczynski and Angela Rudhart-Dyczynski, parents of 25-year-old Fatima, travelled from their home in Perth, Australia, to honour their daughter. They crossed territory held by pro-Russian rebels to reach the wreckage-strewn fields outside the village of Hrabove, where they sat pressed against each other on a damaged wing.

Fatima “was for peace. She will be forever for peace,” her father said.

US and Ukrainian officials say the plane was shot down by a missile from rebel territory, most likely by mistake.

Two military cargo planes, one Dutch and the other Australian, also flew 38 more coffins carrying victims to the Netherlands for identification and investigation.

The planes took off Saturday from Kharkiv, a government-controlled city where the bodies have been brought from the wreckage site in territory held by pro-Russian separatists fighting the Ukrainian government. They landed later in the afternoon in Eindhoven, where the coffins were transferred to a fleet of hearses in a solemn ceremony.

Officials said the flights took the last of the 227 coffins containing victims that had been brought to Kharkiv by refrigerated train. Officials say the exact number of people held in the coffins is still to be determined by forensic experts in the Netherlands, where Ukraine agreed to send the bodies. International observers have said there are still remains at the wreckage site. Access has been limited due to rebel interference and security concerns.

The disaster sparked hopes in the West that Russia would scale back its involvement in the uprising in Ukraine’s east, but nine days later the opposite seems to be the case.

Russia launched artillery attacks from its soil into Ukraine on Friday, while the United States said it has seen powerful rocket systems moving closer to the Ukraine border.

Those accusations sparked a strong denial from Moscow, which accuses the US of a smear campaign.

The Russian foreign ministry accused the United States on Saturday of conducting “an unrelenting campaign of slander against Russia, ever more relying on open lies”.

The ministry took particular issue with comments Friday by White House spokesman Josh Earnest, who said Washington regards Moscow as involved in the shooting down of the airliner because it allegedly has supplied missile systems to the rebels and trained them on how to use them.

The ministry complained that these allegations have not been backed up with public evidence and it sneered at Earnest for saying they are supported by claims on social media.

“In other words, the Washington regime is basing its contentions on anti-Russian speculation gathered from the Internet that does not correspond to reality,” it said.

Russia also lashed out at the latest round of Ukraine-related sanctions imposed by the European Union, saying they endanger the fight against international terrorism.

The EU sanctions, announced on Friday, impose travel bans and asset freezes on 15 people, including the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service and the head of the agency’s department overseeing international operations and intelligence. Four members of Russia’s national security council are also on the list.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that an Ukrainian freelancer who had been detained by separatists was freed on Saturday. The journalist, Anton Skiba, was seized Tuesday in the rebel-controlled city of Donetsk when he and other members of a TV crew returned to a hotel after working at the site of the downed Malaysian airliner.

A day earlier, the anti-Kremlin newspaper Novaya Gazeta ran a full front-page photo of a cortege of hearses with the headline in Dutch and Russian saying: “Forgive us, Holland”.

KHARKIV, Ukraine — Two more military aircraft carrying remains of victims from the Malaysian plane disaster arrived in the Netherlands on Thursday, while Australian and Dutch diplomats joined to promote a plan for a UN team to secure the crash site which has been controlled by pro-Russian rebels.

All 298 people aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 — most of them Dutch citizens — were killed when the plane was shot down on July 17. US officials say the Boeing 777 was probably shot down by a missile from territory held by pro-Russian rebels, likely by accident.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who says he fears some remains will never be recovered unless security is tightened, has proposed a multinational force mounted by countries such as Australia, the Netherlands and Malaysia that lost citizens in the disaster.

To that end, Abbott said Thursday he had dispatched 50 police officers to London to be ready to join any organisation which may result.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was travelling with her Dutch counterpart Frans Timmermans to Kiev to seek an agreement with the Ukraine government to allow international police to secure the wreckage, Abbott said.

Details including which countries would contribute and whether officers would be armed and protected by international troops were yet to be agreed, Abbott said.

On Monday, the UN Security, Council unanimously approved a resolution proposed by Australia demanding that rebels cooperate with an independent investigation and allow all remaining bodies to be recovered.

The first bodies remains arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday and were met by Dutch King Willem Alexander, Queen Maxima and hundreds of relatives. The two planes Thursday brought a total of 74 more coffins back to the Netherlands, said government spokesman Lodewijk Hekking.

The Dutch investigators gave permission for what it called “local parties” to move wreckage at the site in order to recover remaining victims. Conditions at the site, spread across farm fields in open countryside, have made recovery and investigation a slow and sometimes chaotic process, with rebel gunmen controlling the area and at time hindering access.

Patricia Zorko, head of the National Police Unit that includes the Dutch national forensic team, said some 200 experts, including 80 from overseas, were working at a military barracks on the outskirts of the central city of Hilversum to identify the dead. Around the world some 1,000 people are involved in the process, which also includes gathering information from next of kin.

Staff will “examine the bodies, describe the bodies, take dental information, DNA and put all the information together in the computer and compare this information with the information they gathered from the families in the last days,” police spokesman Ed Kraszewski said in a telephone interview. “Then we have to see if there is a match.”

There are three scientific methods of identifying bodies — dental records, finger prints and DNA.

After the experts believe they have positively identified a body, they defend their findings to an international panel. If both agree, the positive identification will be sent to a Dutch prosecution office, which has the power to release the body to the next of kin.

Zorko warned that the process of identification could be drawn out.

“Unfortunately this type of investigation often takes time,” she said. “Count on weeks and maybe even months.”

The Dutch Safety Board said investigators in England successfully downloaded data from Flight 17’s Flight Data Recorder. It said “no evidence or indications of manipulation of the recorder was found”. It did not release any details of the data.

Meanwhile, police and traffic authorities appealed to the public not to stop on the highway as a convoy of hearses passes by Thursday on its way from Eindhoven Air Base to Hilversum.

On Wednesday, the convoy of hearses passed through roads lined with thousands of members of the public, who applauded, threw flowers or stood in silence as the cars drove by.

The Dutch foreign ministry said Thursday that the number of Dutch victims had risen by one to 194, taking into account a woman with joint German and Dutch nationalities who earlier had been listed as German.

Senior US intelligence officials said Tuesday that Russia was responsible for “creating the conditions” that led to the crash, but offered no evidence of direct Russian government involvement.

The officials said the plane was likely shot down by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The US officials cited intercepts, satellite photos and social media postings by separatists, some of which have been authenticated by US experts.

Russia on Thursday brushed off the accusations. Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov said in a video statement that if the US officials indeed had the proof the plane shot down by a missile launched from the rebel-held territory, “how come they have not been made public?”

Pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian government troops have been fighting for more than three months, leaving at least 400 dead and displacing tens of thousands.

OSLO — Norway has taken exceptional security measures after being informed of a possible imminent “terrorist attack” by militants who have fought in Syria, the country’s intelligence chief said Thursday.

The move comes as concerns are mounting in Europe about the growing national security threat posed by jihadists returning from war-torn Syria.

The domestic intelligence service (PST) “recently received information that a group of extremists from Syria may be planning a terrorist attack in Norway”, said PST chief Benedicte Bjoernland, adding it could be a question of days.

The threat is “non-specific” but “credible”, said Bjoernland. Neither the eventual target, nor the timing of the attack, nor the identity of the militants, nor their location are known, she added.

In a separate statement, Norwegian police said that the information received pointed to a possible attack “in Europe”, with “Norway being specifically mentioned”.

The authorities said they were increasing the presence of armed police in stations and airports, recalling civil servants from their holidays and increasing border controls.

“There is a specific threat against Norway and several measures have been implemented to face this threat,” Justice Minister Anders Anundsen said, urging the population to be vigilant without stigmatising any group.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg is postponing her summer holiday due to the latest developments.

In its annual evaluation presented earlier this year, the PST said the threat level against Norway had increased because of the conflict in Syria.

The intelligence services said between 40 and 50 individuals with links to Norway had fought or were fighting in Syria.

The Nordic country has one of the highest rates per capital of nationals who have travelled to fight in the Syrian conflict.

The potential threat to security was underscored in May with the attack of the Jewish Museum in Brussels, where four people died.

The presumed perpetrator is French-Algerian Mehdi Nemmouche, who spent more than a year in Syria, where he is thought to have joined some of the most radical and violent jihadist groups.

According to Cato Hemmingby, researcher at Norwegian Police University College, the extremely rare initiative of the country’s government to make a threat public could be an attempt to dissuade the alleged terrorists from staging an attack, by making them understand its execution would be more complicated.

It is also likely aimed at raising awareness among the population, Hemmingby said.

In a report from last December, the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) said the number of foreign fighters in Syria had almost doubled their last estimate from April 2013 to up to 11,000 individuals from 74 countries.

“Among Western Europeans, the number has more than tripled from [up to] 600 in April to 1,900 now,” ICSR said.

Only two weeks ago, US Attorney General Eric Holder met his Norwegian counterpart Anundsen in Oslo and called for cooperation with Europe to stem the “grave threat” of extremists travelling to Syria.

DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukraine’s prime minister resigned Thursday after his governing coalition collapsed, plunging the former Soviet state into political limbo as it struggles to quell a deadly rebellion in the east.

The shock announcement added to a already chaotic situation in the rebel-controlled east, where international experts are carrying out a complex investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 that left 298 dead.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said he was stepping down over “dissolution of the parliamentary coalition and the blocking of government initiatives” after several parties walked out on the ruling group.

The collapse of the ruling coalition paves the way for early elections to be called by President Petro Poroshenko within 30 days.

Although a truce has been declared by both rebels and government forces in the immediate vicinity of the vast crash site, heavy shelling was ongoing nearby including around Donetsk, just 60 kilometres from the scene.

Ukraine’s army reported four soldiers killed over the last 24 hours in its offensive to retake the eastern industrial heartland from pro-Russian insurgents.

Countries which lost 298 citizens in the disaster are looking to deploy armed police to secure the impact zone, with the Dutch drawing up a UN resolution on the proposal and Australia already putting 50 officers on stand-by in London.

“On the site it is still clear that nothing is happening without the approval of the armed rebels who brought the plane down in the first place,” said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose country lost 28 citizens in the crash.

“There has still not been anything like a thorough professional search of the area where the plane went down and there can’t be while the site is controlled by armed men with vested interest in the outcome of the investigation.”

‘Rockets from Russia’ 

The Ukrainian military said rockets were on Thursday being fired “from the Russian side”, hitting locations close to Lugansk Airport and in several areas in the Donetsk region.

Mortar shells also rained down on Avdiyika in the Donetsk region, the army said, without giving details of casualties.

An AFP crew heading to one of these combat hotspots Wednesday was turned back by rebels, who fired shots at their car.

Kiev said two fighter jets that were downed on Wednesday were hit by missiles launched from Russian territory and that while the pilots ejected safely, there was no information about their whereabouts.

Meanwhile, the Red Cross warned both sides to abide by the Geneva Conventions, declaring that it considered Ukraine to be in a state of civil war.

EU to put more 

under sanctions 

The EU, which accuses Russia of fanning the rebellion in Ukraine’s east by arming the separatists, will add 15 Ukrainian and Russian individuals, and 18 entities to its sanctions list, said a source from the bloc.

The move came just a week after the EU unveiled a round of toughened embargoes against Moscow, which is widely expected to sink into recession this year.

In the debate over more sanctions, Britain ruffled feathers in neighbouring France over its push for an EU arms embargo, as Paris is keen to go ahead with its sale of two warships to Russia.

On Thursday, Poroshenko said he was “very disappointed” at France’s insistence on the deal, saying: “It’s not a question of money, industry or jobs. It’s a question of values.”

US intelligence officials have said they believe the rebels mistakenly shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with a surface-to-air missile provided by Russia.

Moscow has denied the charges and Putin has pledged to “do everything” to influence the separatists, and ensure a full probe into the crash.

The first bodies from last Thursday’s crash arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday to a solemn ceremony. Dozens more were flown there on Thursday to undergo an identification process that Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has warned could take months.

Dutch police have also been visiting bereaved relatives of the victims to retrieve DNA samples from items such as hairbrushes, and obtain details of tattoos and fingerprints, as well as consulting medical and dental records to help with the identification.

JAKARTA — The ex-general who lost Indonesia’s presidential election to Joko Widodo will challenge the result in court, his campaign team said Wednesday, a move that could spell weeks of uncertainty for the world’s third-biggest democracy.

But Prabowo Subianto’s last-ditch bid to overturn the result did little to dampen the enthusiasm of Widodo’s supporters, with thousands staging a noisy rally next to a Jakarta monument commemorating Indonesia’s proclamation of independence in 1945.

Widodo, the reform-minded governor of Jakarta seen as a break from the autocratic era of dictator Suharto, was named the winner Tuesday after results showed he resoundingly defeated Prabowo, his only challenger.

Before the result was announced following a lengthy vote-tallying process, Prabowo — a senior general during the Suharto era who has been dogged by allegations of human rights abuses — angrily announced he was withdrawing from the election.

Prabowo, who had earlier claimed victory in the July 9 election, accused his opponent of cheating in the vote count.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the ex-general’s team said he plans to contest the result at the consitutional court, with the challenge directed at the election commission for allegedly mishandling the count.

Analysts believe the poll was largely free and fair and do not expect a court challenge to succeed given the size of Widodo’s victory — he won by more than six percentage points, or about 8.4 million votes.

But the move nevertheless signals weeks of uncertainty ahead, as the court will likely only issue a ruling on August 21.

The challenge would be filed within three days, said Prabowo spokesman Tantowi Yahya, adding his side considered 21 million votes to be in dispute.

Prabowo’s brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo, a wealthy businessman who has provided financial backing for the campaign, added: “We are looking for justice... we are expecting some fairness.”

He also urged foreign leaders not to congratulate Widodo, saying that “the legal process has not ended yet”.

Congratulations flooded in nevertheless, from US Secretary of State John Kerry and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, as well as the leaders of neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.

Widodo seemed unperturbed by his rival’s challenge and returned to his duties as Jakarta governor at city hall on Wednesday. He will not be inaugurated as president until October.

He said preparations for his new job were “in progress” and a special office to help with the transition had already been set up.

At the Jakarta rally, rock bands played to a crowd of about 3,000 of his supporters, who were waving banners using Widodo’s nickname and reading “Jokowi: honest, man of the people”.

As the sunset over the historic site, Widodo arrived to loud cheers from the crowd and thanked all the campaign volunteers “who have been working day and night” to secure victory.

“Please now get back to your lives, to your day jobs,” he joked.

Newspapers welcomed his victory, with the major Indonesian-language paper Kompas showing a photo of a grinning Widodo alongside his running mate Jusuf Kalla, under the headline: “It’s time to move together”.

The words were from Widodo’s victory speech delivered late Tuesday, in which he urged Indonesia to unite following the country’s tightest and most divisive election since the downfall of Suharto in 1998.

A constitutional court official said that if Prabowo’s team filed the appeal by Friday, then hearings would begin on August 6 and a ruling would be delivered on August 21.

There have been concerns about the court’s impartiality after its former chief justice was jailed for life last month for accepting bribes in return for favourable rulings in local election disputes.

However analysts believe the institution will be desperate to appear clean following the scandal.

Widodo’s victory capped a meteoric rise for the former furniture exporter who was born in a riverbank slum, and won legions of fans with his common touch during his time as Jakarta governor.

It was welcomed by investors on Wednesday, with Jakarta’s benchmark stock index rising as much as 1 per cent in morning trade. It closed up 0.2 per cent, slightly subdued after Prabowo’s team announced the court challenge.

Prabowo, who won support with his fiery nationalistic rhetoric, has admitted ordering the abduction of democracy activists in the Suharto era and was formerly married to one of the dictator’s daughters.

DONETSK, Ukraine — A powerful Ukrainian rebel leader has confirmed that pro-Russian separatists had anti-aircraft missiles of the type Washington says were used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.

In an interview with Reuters, Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok Battalion, acknowledged for the first time since the airliner was brought down in eastern Ukraine on Thursday that the rebels did possess the BUK missile system.

He also indicated that the BUK may have originated in Russia and could have been sent back to remove proof of its presence.

Before the Malaysian plane was shot down, rebels had boasted of obtaining the BUK missiles, which can shoot down airliners at cruising height. But since the disaster the separatists’ main group, the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, has repeatedly denied ever having possessed such weapons.

Since the airliner crashed with the loss of all 298 on board, the most contentious issue has been who fired the missile that brought the jet down in an area where government forces are fighting pro-Russian rebels.

Khodakovsky blamed the Kiev authorities for provoking what may have been the missile strike that destroyed the doomed airliner, saying Kiev had deliberately launched air strikes in the area, knowing the missiles were in place.

“I knew that a BUK came from Luhansk. At the time I was told that a BUK from Luhansk was coming under the flag of the LNR,” he said, referring to the Luhansk People’s Republic, the main rebel group operating in Luhansk, one of two rebel provinces along with Donetsk, the province where the crash took place.

“That BUK I know about. I heard about it. I think they sent it back. Because I found out about it at exactly the moment that I found out that this tragedy had taken place. They probably sent it back in order to remove proof of its presence,” Khodakovsky told Reuters on Tuesday.

“The question is this: Ukraine received timely evidence that the volunteers have this technology, through the fault of Russia. It not only did nothing to protect security, but provoked the use of this type of weapon against a plane that was flying with peaceful civilians,” he said.

“They knew that this BUK existed; that the BUK was heading for Snezhnoye,” he said, referring to a village 10km west of the crash site. “They knew that it would be deployed there, and provoked the use of this BUK by starting an air strike on a target they didn’t need, that their planes hadn’t touched for a week.”

“And that day, they were intensively flying and exactly at the moment of the shooting, at the moment the civilian plane flew overhead, they launched air strikes. Even if there was a BUK and even if the BUK was used, Ukraine did everything to ensure that a civilian aircraft was shot down.”

Civilian flight

Washington believes that pro-Russian separatists most likely shot down the airliner “by mistake”, not realising it was a civilian passenger flight, US intelligence officials said.

The officials said the “most plausible explanation” for the destruction of the plane was that the separatists fired a Russian-made SA-11 — also known as a BUK — missile at it after mistaking it for another kind of aircraft.

US President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is convinced the airliner was brought down by an SA-11 ground-to-air missile fired from territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

Other separatist leaders have said they did not bring the Malaysian plane down. Russia has denied involvement.

Khodakovsky is a former head of the “Alpha” anti-terrorism unit of the security service in Donetsk and one of the few major rebel commanders in Donetsk who actually hails from Ukraine rather than Russia.

There has been friction in the past between him and rebel leaders from outside the region, such as Igor Strelkov, the Muscovite who has declared himself commander of all rebel forces in Donetsk province.

Khodakovsky said his unit had never possessed BUKs, but they may have been used by rebels from other units.

“The fact is, this is a theatre of military activity occupied by our, let’s say, partners in the rebel movement, with which our cooperation is somewhat conditional,” he said.

“What resources our partners have, we cannot be entirely certain. Was there [a BUK]? Wasn’t there? If there was proof that there was, then there can be no question.”

Khodakovsky said it was widely known that rebels had obtained BUKs from Ukrainian forces in the past, including three captured at a checkpoint in April and another captured near the airport in Donetsk. He said none of the BUKs captured from Ukrainian forces were operational.

While he said he could not be certain where the BUK system operating on rebel territory at the time of the air crash had come from, he said it may have come from Russia.

“I’m not going to say Russia gave these things or didn’t give them. Russia could have offered this BUK under some entirely local initiative. I want a BUK, and if someone offered me one, I wouldn’t turn it down. But I wouldn’t use it against something that did not threaten me. I would use it only under circumstances when there was an air attack on my positions, to protect people’s lives.”

He added: “I am an interested party. I am a ‘terrorist’, a ‘separatist’, a volunteer... In any event, I am required to promote the side I represent, even if I might think otherwise, say otherwise or have an alternative view. This causes real discomfort to my soul.”

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands — The first bodies from Flight MH17 arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday almost a week after it was shot down over Ukraine, as the conflict flared yet again near the Malaysian airliner’s crash site.

Uniformed Dutch military personnel solemnly hoisted 40 wooden coffins from two planes and placed them in individual hearses at Eindhoven airport in the south of the country in a powerfully sombre ceremony, as a trumpeter played the Last Post and a large crowd of the bereaved watched, shielded from the press.

The televised two-hour ceremony watched across the Netherlands and abroad came in stark contrast to the chaotic and disturbing scenes filmed in the aftermath of the plane crash.

Church bells rang throughout the country as the planes touched down in a much-delayed return for the first as-yet unidentified remains of the 298 people killed in the disaster, most of them Dutch.

In a dramatic new development in the conflict hampering the recovery and investigation effort, Kiev said missiles fired from Russia — accused by the West of provoking the MH17 disaster — took down two of its warplanes in the rebel-controlled area of the crash.

The Netherlands has been united in grief and growing anger because of delays in getting bodies home and over the way pro-Russian separatists have treated the site, the victims’ remains and personal possessions.

The planes left from Kharkiv in Ukraine, where the remains were carried on board by army cadets before a small party of officials.

1,000 bereaved 

Around 1,000 bereaved relatives of the 193 Dutch dead, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, Prime Minister Mark Rutte and representatives of the other nations that lost citizens on the flight met the planes.

The bodies were then driven under police escort to a military base at Hilversum, southeast of Amsterdam, where forensics experts will identify them.

Flags of the 17 nations that lost citizens flew at half-mast at the airport. Malaysia Airways counted 11 nationalities on the passenger manifest, but some had double nationality.

Motorways along the 100-kilometre route from Eindhoven to Hilversum were closed for the long convoy to pass, with crowds gathering on bridges overhead to throw flowers at the hearses.

A minute’s silence was observed nationwide, during which no flights landed or took off at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, from where the doomed Boeing 777 left on Thursday.

US intelligence officials have said they believe rebels mistakenly shot down the plane flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with a surface-to-air missile.

Violence erupted again Wednesday in the zone of the crash, as the International Committee of the Red Cross said it considered Ukraine to be in a state of civil war, and warned both sides to abide by the Geneva Conventions.

Ukraine said it appeared that missiles that shot down two of its fighter jets in the volatile east were fired from Russia.

“According to preliminary information, the rockets were launched from Russian territory,” Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council said.

A spokesman for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic told AFP its fighters shot down the two aircraft.

Both pilots managed to parachute out of the Su-25 jets, which the security council said were flying at an altitude of 5,200 metres.

It said the planes came down some 45 kilometres southeast of the MH17 crash site towards the Russian border.

DNA samples taken 

Experts and world leaders have expressed concern that not all victims’ remains have been recovered from the sprawling impact site, littered with poignant fragments from hundreds of destroyed lives.

More bodies are due to arrive in the Netherlands on Thursday, among the 200 which Dutch officials in Ukraine say they have received from the rebels.

Rutte has warned it could take months for the bodies to be identified, although some are expected to be returned to families soon.

Dutch police have been visiting the bereaved for counselling but also to retrieve DNA samples such as from hairbrushes, details of tattoos and fingerprints, as well as medical and dental records, to help with the identification.

‘Massive obstacles

The rebels controlling the crash site released the first bodies and handed over two black boxes to Malaysian officials only after intense international pressure.

The black boxes have been delivered to Britain for expert analysis, and Dutch analysts said on Wednesday they had successfully downloaded the data from the cockpit voice recorder and there was no evidence it had been tampered with.

The flight data recorder is to be analysed on Thursday, the investigators said.

A truce has been declared by rival sides around the impact site, but international investigators still face massive obstacles.

Kiev said the Netherlands and other countries that lost citizens are proposing to send police to secure the area, amid concerns vital evidence has been tampered with.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged to “do everything” to influence the separatists and ensure a full probe.

Putin is staring down fresh European sanctions just a week after the latest set was unveiled over its role in the Ukraine crisis, which has chilled East-West tensions to the lowest point in years.

And Ukrainian government troops are pushing on with their offensive to wrest control of east Ukraine’s industrial heartland from the pro-Moscow separatists.

DRIEBERGEN, THE NETHERLANDS — The remains of the victims of last week’s downing of a Malaysian airliner will begin to arrive in the Netherlands on Wednesday, but the intricate and harrowing process of giving names to the bodies could take weeks or months, Dutch officials said.

Two military transport aircraft will touch down at 1400 GMT at the airport in Eindhoven in the southern Netherlands on Wednesday, which has been declared the country’s first day of mourning in more than half a century. The convoy will be the first of many.

At Eindhoven, the first bodies will be unloaded to a solemn trumpet salute as dignitaries including the Dutch King and Queen and representatives of other countries that lost citizens look on, the Dutch governement said.

The Netherlands is taking the lead in identifying the 298 victims of Thursday’s crash, 193 of whom were Dutch. Some preparatory work has been done in Kharkiv, where Dutch forensics experts have established an operations centre.

But the real work will only start once the bodies have been transported from Eindhoven to a military base in the town of Hilversum, near Amsterdam. There, forensic examiners will compare the remains with material gathered from family members.

“Since last Saturday, for three days already, we have 80 family detectives on the way to the relatives, who collect all the information about the missing people,” said Ed Krasziewski, a spokesman for the national forensic investigation team.

That information includes personal identifying marks, from tattoos to scars. Detectives have sought out dental records, fingerprints and DNA material where it is available, and assembled it all into a so-called ante-mortem file that is available to compare with the remains stored in Hilversum.

“There are many victims,” Krasziewski said. “We don’t know the state of the victims; we have to look at what they bring us tomorrow, and then we will see.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the process of identifying the remains could take weeks or months.

Most of the bodies are already in Ukrainian-controlled territory at Kharkiv, where identification teams from agencies including Interpol are carrying out preliminary examinations. But the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said some body parts remain at the crash site in rebel-controlled territory.