So sad

Victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

Among the 298 people aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were a renowned AIDS researcher, a Dutch senator and an Australian novelist. Malaysian authorities have reported 193 Dutch victims, including an American-dutch citizen; 43 Malaysians, including the crew; and 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, 10 Britons, including a British-South African citizen, four Belgians, four Germans, three Filipinos, one Canadian and one New Zealander.

Following are profiles of a few of the victims who have been identified. If you knew someone on the flight, we invite you to share your recollections. We will update this as more information on the victims becomes available.

I don't know if this recording is authentic

but it certainly is very, very chilling, as the Young Turks put it:



As mentioned in the video, there were AIDS researchers going to Melbourne, Australia to an international AIDS conference via the plane:

Downed flight ‘robbed the world of future discoveries’: When Flight MH17 was shot down, it cut short the lives of top HIV/AIDS researchers, begging the question: “What if the cure for AIDS was on that plane?”

Then there was this...

Malaysia Airlines: 80 Children Killed In MH17 Tragedy, Including 3 Infants

Terrible

Malaysian airliner downed in Ukraine war zone, 295 dead

A Malaysian airliner was brought down in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 295 people aboard and sharply raising the stakes in a conflict between Kiev and pro-Moscow rebels that has set Russia and the West at daggers drawn.

As the United States said the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was "blown out of the sky", probably by a ground-launched missile, Ukraine and Russia traded accusations of blame, cranking up global pressure for a way out of a bloody local conflict that risks fueling a new Cold War.

My thoughts are with the families of those killed today. It is terrible that even those flying 33,000 feet above the unrest on the ground were not safe. It complicates the world's response to the conflict immensely as well. Depending on what information can be gleaned, and who was responsible, this flight could very well be a flashpoint.

This is so very disturbing...

Leaflet tells Jews to register in East Ukraine

World leaders and Jewish groups condemned a leaflet handed out in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk in which Jews were told to "register" with the pro-Russian militants who have taken over a government office in an attempt to make Ukraine part of Russia, according to Ukrainian and Israeli media.

Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed leaflets that ordered the city's Jews to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee "or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated," reported Ynet News, Israel's largest news website, and Ukraine's Donbass news agency.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the language of the leaflets "is beyond unacceptable" and condemned whomever is responsible.

"In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable — it's grotesque," he said. "And any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities — from whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of — there is no place for that."

It's scary that here at the time of Passover (Pesach), anti-Semites are rearing their ugly heads by trying to bully Jews in the Ukraine in a move reminiscent of 1930s Germany. Although the leader of the pro-Russian faction in Donetsk did say they were distributed under his organisation's name, he denied responsibility for them. But even if they were meant to scare the Jewish community and were not backed up with force, it is still disturbing. And if it is ever made policy, we could have a very serious situation on our hands. Anyone with an ounce of understanding of history should be concerned. As the anti-Semitic shootings in Kansas recently show, hatred for Jews is still quite alive and well here in the United States in 2014. For Eastern Europe, the history of anti-Semitism and pogroms is far longer. I hope nothing comes of the Ukrainian story, but I fear there will be more like this if the region destabilises. And may there be justice in the case in Kansas.

Thanks to my friend Jody for posting the Ukrainian story on Facebook.