'No Survivors' On Air Algerie Flight AH5017

No one survived an Air Algerie flight which crashed in southern Mali, French President Francois Hollande has said.

The burnt-out wreckage of the plane carrying 116 people, including 51 French nationals, which vanished from radar in West Africa has been discovered south of Gao.

Mr Hollande said the jet's black box flight recorder had also been recovered by the French military and was being taken to the town.

"French soldiers who are on the ground have started the first investigations. Sadly there are no survivors," he said.

Families of the 116 people onboard wait for news

"The plane's debris is concentrated in a small area, but it is too early to draw conclusions."

He said bad weather was the likely cause of the crash, but added: "I'm not excluding any theory."

Burkina Faso's commander in chief, Gilbert Diendere, said a search team had gone from Burkina Faso to Mali to follow up on information they had received about the possible crash location.

He said: "This team has confirmed that it has seen the remains of the plane, totally burnt-out and scattered on the ground."

AH5017 left Ouagadougou airport at 1.17am local time. Pic: Sputniktilt

Minister of communications Alain Edouard Traore described the accident as the greatest tragedy in the country's air history.

Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who has declared two days of national mourning, is due to visit the crash site later.

The Air Algerie jet was travelling from Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou to Algerian capital Algiers when it disappeared around 50 minutes into the flight, following a request from the pilot to change course due to poor weather.

The twin-engined MD-83 carries 168 people

Also on the jet were 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxembourg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian.

The six crew members were Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots' union.

Flight AH5017 was owned by Spanish private airline Swiftair and operated by Air Algerie.

The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 had been missing for hours before news of its disappearance was made public.

Ouagadougou is in almost a straight line south of Algiers, separated by Mali where unrest continues in the north of the country.

Airlines had been warned not to fly over Mali in recent days, Sky News understands.

However, a senior French official said it was unlikely that fighters in Mali could shoot down a plane.

They are known to have shoulder-fired weapons, which could not hit an aircraft travelling at a cruising altitude of some 33,000ft.

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Tulisa Found Guilty Of Assaulting Blogger

Tulisa Contostavlos has been found guilty of assaulting a celebrity blogger at V Festival in Essex last year.

The N-Dubz star, 26, hit Savvas Morgan during a row in Chelmsford last August.

She was found guilty by a judge at Stratford Magistrates' Court in east London and ordered to pay a total of £3,020.

This consisted of a £2,700 contribution towards the cost of the prosecution, a £200 fine, £100 compensation to Mr Morgan and a £20 victim surcharge.

District Judge Angus Hamilton said: "I am quite sure to the requisite standard of proof, based on my analysis of the evidence that I have heard, that Ms Contostavlos did strike Mr Morgan in the face during an argument and that that blow caused minor bruising and swelling."

He said Contostavlos acted in a "confrontational" manner when she turned towards her victim.

Savvas Morgan rowed with Contostavlos at V Festival

"Her decision to seek to deal with Mr Morgan herself strikes me as aggressive and confrontational," the judge said.

He went on to say that he had a "number of points of concern" about her evidence during the trial.

He found that she "changed her account" of what she did with her hands during the confrontation. At one point she claimed she raised them in a defensive gesture but later said they remained by her sides, he said.

Her assistant, Gareth Varey, was cleared of using threatening behaviour during the incident.

Contostavlos, who wore a blue suit, white shirt and nude stilettos, shook her head and smiled in disbelief as the guilty verdict was read out.

She appeared to mutter "this is bulls**t" as she walked out of the courtroom.

Earlier this week, a drugs trial against Contostavlos collapsed at Southwark Crown Court after the judge said there were "strong grounds" to believe that undercover reporter Mazher Mahmood - known as the Fake Sheikh - had lied in the witness box.

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Mother Admits Beating Mikaeel Kular To Death

Mikaeel Kular's mother has pleaded guilty to killing her three-year-old son, who she subjected to repeated assaults.

Rosdeep Adekoya had been accused of murder but admitted a reduced charge of culpable homicide at the High Court in Edinburgh.

She confessed to wrapping Mikaeel's body in a duvet cover, putting it in a suitcase and driving to Dunvegan Avenue in Kirkcaldy, where she hid the case under a bush in woodland behind a house.

The death of three-year-old Mikaeel Kular touched the community

Mikaeel's disappearance from his Edinburgh home in January sparked a huge search involving police officers, firefighters, mountain rescue teams and the coastguard, as well as members of the public.

His body was eventually found 25 miles away in woodland in Kirkcaldy, Fife.

Adekoya's internet searches included "Get rid of bruises"

Adekoya had called 999 to report her son missing to police, telling officers he got out of bed and climbed on a stool to unlock the front door of his home.

But in court she admitted to beating her son to death, repeatedly punching him and causing his body to hit against a hard object or inflicting blunt injuries on his head and body between January 12 and 15.

She also pleaded guilty to attempting to defeat the ends of justice by pretending to police he had gone missing.

Advocate depute Alex Prentice told the court: "The basis for the plea tendered being accepted is that the Crown accepts that the accused had no intention to kill Mikaeel and that the assault perpetrated upon him, although severe, fell short of the wicked recklessness required for murder."

Sky's James Matthews, at the High Court in Edinburgh, said the disappearance of Mikaeel had triggered a major hunt with emergency services joined by hundreds of members of the public.

The toddler's body was found in woodland behind a property in Kirkcaldy

Explaining the charge of culpable homicide, Matthews said: "Basically she beat up her son causing his death but she didn't mean to kill him, and that's been accepted by the prosecution authorities."

He said after killing Mikaeel, Adekoya had done the school-run taking her four other children to school before continuing on to dump his body behind a property where her sister was staying.

The car used by Adekoya to dump Mikaeel's body after the school-run

"Her concocted story unravelled under questioning by police, and it was when they spotted inconsistencies in her story that she broke down and told them where Mikaeel's body was," Matthews added.

Adekoya's internet history showed searches including "I find it hard to love my son", "I love all of my children except one", "Why am I so aggressive with my son" and "Get rid of bruises".

Hundreds of members of the public joined the search for the youngster

The court heard Mikaeel died on the night of Tuesday, January 14, from injuries inflicted the previous Sunday.

His mother "lost her temper" when he was repeatedly sick following a trip to a Nando's restaurant at the city's Fountain Park.

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Hammond: West 'Losing Sympathy For Israel'

Key Dates In The Gaza-Israel Conflict

Updated: 11:43am UK, Thursday 24 July 2014

Israel's ground offensive in the Gaza Strip continues with forces attempting to destroy Hamas' weapons arsenal and rocketing-firing capabilities.

Here are the key events from the fighting that preceded and have followed Israel's operation:

July 8 - Israel launches "Operation Protective Edge" in a bid to quell near-daily militant rocket attacks in the aftermath of the abduction and killing of a Palestinian teenager in what appeared to be a revenge attack for the seizure and slaying of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank in June.

July 9 - Hamas rockets rain deep into Israel as the military pummels Palestinian targets. The military says 74 rockets landed in Israel, including in the northern city of Hadera, the deepest rocket strike ever from Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Hamas will pay a "heavy price".

July 10 - Israel intensifies its bombardment. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urges an immediate ceasefire but neither side shows much interest in halting the fighting.

July 11 - Mr Netanyahu vows to press forward with a broad military offensive. The Israeli military says it has hit more than 1,100 targets, mostly rocket-launching sites, while Palestinian militants fired more than 600 rockets at Israel. The Lebanese military says militants there fired three rockets toward Israel and the Israelis retaliated with about 25 artillery shells.

July 12 - Gaza City becomes a virtual ghost town as streets empty, shops close and hundreds of thousands of people keep close to home. The death toll rises to more than 156 Palestinians after more than 1,200 Israeli air strikes.

July 13 - Israel widens its campaign, targeting civilian institutions with suspected Hamas ties, and briefly deploys ground troops inside Gaza to raid a rocket launching site. Four Israeli soldiers are hurt during the brief incursion. Egypt, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, continues to work behind the scenes.

July 14 - Israel says it's downed an unmanned drone along its southern coastline. Egypt presents a cease-fire plan that is praised by President Barack Obama at a White House dinner celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

July 15 - Israeli Cabinet accepts Egypt's truce plan, halting fire for six hours but Hamas rejects the proposal, instead unleashing more rockets at Israel and prompting Israel to resume heavy bombardment. Rocket fire kills an Israeli man delivering food to soldiers, the first Israeli fatality in the fighting. Four Gaza boys, all cousins, are killed on a beach by shells fired from a navy ship.

July 16 - Hamas fires dozens of rockets into Israel, vowing not to agree to a ceasefire until its demands are met. The Gaza Interior Ministry's website says Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of airstrikes, targeting 30 houses, including those of four senior Hamas leaders. Later, both Israel and Hamas agree to a five-hour UN brokered "humanitarian" pause to start the following day.

July 17 - Both sides trade fire in run-up to the brief truce, which Gazans use to restock on food and other supplies. Israel says it foiled an attack by 13 Gaza militants who infiltrated through a tunnel. Fierce fighting resumes after the truce expires, including an airstrike that kills three Palestinian children. After nightfall, the Israeli military launches a ground invasion into Gaza Strip.

July 18 - Eight members of the same Palestinian family - two men, two women and four children - are killed by Israeli tank fire as the ground offensive to date claims the lives of 51 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier.

July 19 - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he wants to meet both sides to try to secure a truce as Israel pledges to step up its ground offensive. Hamas says its fighters are "behind enemy lines" as security alerts are triggered in southern Israel.

July 20 - Fresh airstrikes, artillery shelling and gun battles overnight kill 12 Palestinians and two more Israeli soldiers, as Israel intensifies its ground offensive in Gaza. Israeli minister Naftali Bennett defends the ground offensive in Gaza and accuses Hamas of "self-genocide" by using women and children as human shields.

July 21 - Another airstrike kills 26 members of the same family, while seven more Israeli soldiers die in gun battles with Hamas fighters. Thirty of those wounded in the attack are reportedly medical staff.

July 22 - The Palestinian leadership proposes a ceasefire plan to mediators in Egypt which would be followed by five days of negotiations to stop the fighting which has claimed the lives of more than 600 Palestinians, many of them women and children, and 29 Israelis, including 27 soldiers.

July 23 - An international inquiry into Israel's actions in Gaza is launched, after the UN's Human Rights Commissioner says there is a "strong possibility" the country is guilty of war crimes. Several major airlines from the US, Europe and Canada suspend flights to and from Israel after a rocket fired from Gaza lands near Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion international airport.

July 24 - British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warns Benjamin Netanyahu the West is losing sympathy for Israel amid the rising number of civilian deaths during its offensive in Gaza, as international efforts to end the conflict intensify. However, hopes of an effective ceasefire quickly diminish after Israel vows to continue hunting Palestinian cross-border tunnels under any humanitarian truce, while Hamas also rejects a truce without the lifting of Israel's eight-year blockade of Gaza.

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Gaza Conflict From Space In 'Saddest Photo'

An astronaut has posted a picture from the International Space Station while flying over Gaza and Israel, showing the worsening crisis which has left more than 700 people dead.

German flight engineer Alexander Gerst captured the scene from 220 miles above the Earth as rockets and explosions lit up the night sky with wispy yellow light.

His photo quickly went viral on the internet as he tweeted the message: "My saddest photo yet. From #ISS we can actually see explosions and rockets flying over #Gaza & #Israel."

Tens of thousands around the world shared the image as international pressure grows to stop the bloodshed in Gaza.

The UN Human Rights Council says there is a "strong possibility" Israel is guilty of war crimes in Gaza, where some 715 Palestinians, including 165 children, have died in the fighting.

German flight engineer Alexander Gerst on the ISS. Pic: Alexander Gerst

It also condemned the indiscriminate firing of rockets and mortars by the Islamist movement Hamas into Israel, where 34 lives have been lost.

The continued fighting has led to the cancellation of many flights into Tel Aviv and has sparked protests and claims of growing anti-Semitism around the world.

Thousands of protesters - many shouting slogans such as "Israel killer" - held demonstrations in the French cities of Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille and Reims on Wednesday.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve warned activists that anyone caught shouting "Death to the Jews!" or burning an Israeli flag would be arrested.

After the marches, 16 people were held in the Jewish quarter of Paris' Marais district after attempting to break into a restaurant while yelling "anti-Semitic insults," a police source said.

Other protests have also taken place outside the Israeli embassy in London.

Britain's Jewish community has seen a doubling of anti-Semitic incidents over the last few weeks, according to the Jewish Community Trust.

It has issued an advisory notice to all UK Jewish venues, warning that security procedures should be "rigorously followed".

In Austria, Israeli football team Maccabi Haifa's game against French side Lille had to be stopped after pro-Palestinian protesters stormed the pitch and attacked the Maccabi players.

Germany has condemned anti-Semitic chants and threats heard at some protests in the country.

A spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel reassured the Jewish community they are safe and said the government "will continue to campaign for the security of Jewish citizens".

Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, the Israeli ambassador to Germany, said: "They pursue the Jews in the streets of Berlin ... as if we were in 1938."

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Passenger Jet Carrying 116 Vanishes From Radar

A passenger plane has disappeared from radar while flying from the West African country of Burkina Faso.

The jet carrying 110 passengers and six crew was travelling from Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou to the Algerian capital Algiers when it vanished around 50 minutes into the flight.

"In keeping with procedures, Air Algerie has launched its emergency plan," Algeria's APS state news agency quoted the airline as saying.

Flight AH5017 is owned by Spanish private airline Swiftair and operated by Air Algerie.

Swiftair said the aircraft took off from Burkina Faso at 1.17am local time and was supposed to land in Algiers at 5.10am local time but never reached its destination.

The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 had been missing for hours before news of its disappearance was made public.

Its flight path was not immediately clear.

Ouagadougou is in a nearly straight line south of Algiers, separated by Mali where unrest continues in the north of the country.

Airlines had been warned not to fly over Mali in recent days, Sky News understands.

However, a senior French official said it is unlikely that fighters in Mali could shoot down a plane.

They are known to have shoulder-fired weapons which could not hit an aircraft travelling at a cruising altitude of some 33,000ft.

Sky's Alistair Bunkall said there are reports in the Algerian media that the plane crashed after running out of fuel.

But given the plane was 50 minutes - or about 300 miles - into its journey that is unlikely to be a cause, he said.

Swiftair has a fleet of more than 30 planes flying in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

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Check-In Staff Haunted By Memories Of MH17

A ground steward who checked passengers onto the doomed Malaysia Airlines plane has posted a moving tribute to them on Facebook.

Renuka Manisha Virangna Birbal wrote the message after the Boeing 777 was shot down over Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.

In the note, which has been shared thousands of times, she describes grandmothers taking photos of their grandchildren, a newly married couple flying off on their honeymoon and a man who was about to start a new life in Malaysia.

She also mentioned a young girl with her mother, as well as colleagues from a ticket counter, boarding the flight at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

Hundreds of bouquets have been left at the airport to remember the victims

"A beautiful little girl held by her mother, her father behind them pushing the stroller," she wrote.

"She is beautiful - half Dutch, half Malaysian, with beautiful big eyes. She smiled kindly at me.

"Suddenly I see a familiar face. It is our colleague from the MH ticket counter.

"He proudly shows me his son, wife and daughter. With a big smile he waved, 'See you soon.'"

A book of condolence has been opened inside the terminal building

Ms Birbal was one of the last people to see the passengers before they boarded flight MH17.

She described children waving and smiling at her and remembered one asking her mother: "When do we see our luggage again?"

She ended the message with: "The last time I saw them, talked to them and wished them a pleasant flight ... (I saw) one last smile, one last salute, a happy face.

"Rest in peace, dear passengers and crew. On behalf of the ground handling agents of flight MH17."

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Second Plane With MH17 Bodies Leaves Ukraine

The first victims recovered from downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 have started their journey back to the Netherlands from the crash site in eastern Ukraine.

A sombre departure ceremony took place at Kharkiv Airport as wooden coffins containing some of the bodies were loaded onto a Dutch C130 Hercules military aircraft.

It left the airbase for Eindhoven where it will be met by relatives, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and members of the Dutch royal family.

A faster Australian Boeing C17 took off two hours later carrying more victims and is due to land in Eindhoven at the same time.

Coffins are loaded onto a plane at Kharkiv Airport

Sky's Michelle Clifford, at the airport, said: "The real difficulty is planes are going to be coming in with bodies on board - but none of those families know whether their loved ones are going to be on those planes."

Ukraine's deputy prime minister Volodymyr Groysman told those gathered the downing of the plane was an "inhumane terrorist act" carried out with help from Russia, adding Kiev will do everything in its power to bring those guilty to justice.

The jet's black box flight data recorders have been delivered to British experts from the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch at Farnborough in Hampshire to download over the next 24 hours and the information handed to international investigators for analysis.

A national day of mourning has been declared in the Netherlands for the 298 people killed, the majority of whom were Dutch, and will include a silent march in Amsterdam.

floral tributes for the victims of MH17 at Schiphol Airport, near Amsterdam

A minute's silence will be held before a motorcade takes the bodies to the Korporaal van Oudheusden military barracks in Hilversum, where the long process of identifying the remains, aided by a team of British police officers, begins. It could take weeks or even months.

The Boeing 777-200 took off from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport for Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia last Thursday when it was brought down near Grabovo, Donetsk, where Ukrainian forces have been battling separatists.

Five refrigerated wagons containing 200 bodies were released by rebels. It is thought more than 80 bodies have been left at the scene.

However, Australia's prime minister Tony Abbott said it was unclear how many bodies may have arrived in Kharkiv - and been left behind.

"It's quite possible that many bodies are still out there in the open, in the European summer, subject to interference and subject to the ravages of heat and animals," he said.

A Malaysian air crash investigator inspects the crash site of MH17

Sky's Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsay, in Donetsk, said it was going to be "difficult" to find the unrecovered human remains, as while a ceasefire was in place at the crash site, the surroundings remain "a war zone"..

A senior US intelligence official said they believed pro-Russian separatists shot down the flight by mistake.

He confirmed evidence suggests the Russian government was not directly involved in causing the crash, but it "created the conditions" for the plane to be brought down by the rebels.

The official added Moscow was still supplying separatists with tanks and rocket launchers.

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MH17: 'Plan To Drop Other Plane Parts At Site'

Pro-Russian separatists talked about moving bodies from the Malaysia Airlines crash site in Ukraine, according to Sky sources.

UK intelligence officials have gathered evidence that indicates rebels discussed removing victims' remains from the fields of Grabavo, in eastern Ukraine.

Sky sources add that the separatists also considered sending the black boxes to Moscow and scattering parts of other other planes on the crash site to confuse investigators.

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Russia Faces 'Hard-Hitting' Sanctions Over MH17

Europe's Russia Sanctions Avoid Self-Harm

Updated: 9:49am UK, Tuesday 22 July 2014

By Ed Conway, Economics Editor

Sanctions against Russia have now been in place since its annexation of Crimea in March - but following the flight MH17 disaster, all the signs are that they will soon be reinforced.

So what, precisely, do the current sanctions consist of, have they been at all successful, and what might they be followed up with?

In short, the current set of restrictions are, in the jargon, referred to as "stage-two" sanctions.

Rather than affecting the entire economy, or entire sectors, they are forensically focused restrictions on a few individuals and smallish companies.

Both the US and Europe have imposed visa restrictions and asset freezes on a number of influential Russians. The US list is longer and includes a number of President Vladimir Putin's most senior advisers.

Neither jurisdiction has yet added the president to the sanctions list, as was done with Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, for instance.

The US has also imposed financial blocks on two small banks, one of which Putin claimed never to have heard of.

The day before the crash last week, it also extended the restrictions to a couple of oil companies, including Rosneft, the country's biggest oil producer.

However, it's worth noting that these are purely financial restrictions, preventing the companies from raising cash in the US, rather than stopping them from pumping oil out of the ground and around the world.

While the EU has signalled it will stop European Investment Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development programmes in Russia, it has stopped short of more severe sanctions.

Why? In large part because of its reliance on Russia for trade. A full 15% of Russia's gas exports end up in Germany. Some 17% of its trade goes to the Netherlands, though this is probably an over-estimate because much of that is merely passing through the port of Antwerp.

While Mediterranean parts of the continent have less direct economic exposure to Russia, save for Italy, which sucks in 9% of Russia's gas, they are also desperate not to upend any chances of an economic recovery following the euro crisis.

It's very difficult indeed to find any evidence that the sanctions themselves have made much difference.

The Russian economy is in a recession, but it was already heading in that direction before the Ukraine crisis.

And while investment and share prices have both fallen in Moscow, that seems due to fear of "proper" sanctions rather than the semi-sanctions now in place.

So what more can be done? The short answer is to extend the sanctions to some sectors, or some mega-companies, and individuals.

Open Europe's Raoul Ruparel thinks a three-pronged approach, involving roughly equal sacrifice from the continent's biggest players, would be most reasonable: Some financial sanctions (which would hurt Britain); some arms sanctions (which would hurt France) and some manufacturing and technology sanctions (which would hurt Germany).

But such system-wide sanctions - "stage three" measures, as they are called - are far from decided.

They would be deeply controversial, and raise the risk, feared by all in Europe, that Putin could retaliate by cutting off the gas supply to Europe.

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