Air Algerie: Briton Among Plane Crash Victims

A British man who died on an Air Algerie flight which crashed in northern Mali has been named as David Morgan.

He was among 118 people, including 54 French nationals, killed when flight AH5017 came down in the remote Gossi region, close to the border with Burkina Faso on Thursday.

The UN peacekeeping mission in Mali has said its experts have found the plane's second black box as investigators try to establish what happened to the jet which encountered bad weather.

A 10-year-old girl perished along with her entire family in the tragedy

The first photos have emerged of the crash site. Debris from the plane, which was flying from  Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to Algiers, Algeria, could be seen scattered over an area of desert south of Gao.

Burnt-out wreckage and parts of the fuselage could be made out against the charred sand.

A statement from the Foreign Office said: "It is with deep regret that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirms the death of a British man onboard Air Algerie flight AH5017.

Flight AH5017 had been heading to Algiers when it crashed in southern Mali

"We are providing consular support to his family at this tragic time, and we ask that the media respect the privacy of those grieving."

Meanwhile, a 10-year-old French girl is reported to have spoken of her fears before the flight.

The girl, called Chloe, perished in the tragedy along with her parents, Bruno Cailleret and Caroline Boisnard, as well as her elder brother and grandmother.

French President Francois Hollande said no one survived the crash

The loss of the entire family in the disaster has left the small town of Menet in central France "devastated", according to Denise Labbe of the town hall.

The five had been returning from a trip to Burkina Faso, where Ms Boisnard's uncle lived.

They had been due to land in the southern city of Marseille after flying via Algiers, which is where the doomed aircraft was heading.

The plane was owned by Spanish private airline Swiftair and operated by Air Algerie.

It vanished from radar over West Africa and no one survived the crash, French President Francois Hollande said.

Ms Labbe said: "Everyone is devastated in the town. We all know the family, who live in front of the town hall.

"No one can quite believe it. It's like having a bad dream."

Chloe had been excited about the trip to Burkina Faso, she said, adding: "She had confided in her teacher before leaving about her fear of taking the plane, which she was doing for the first time".

Ms Boisnard's brother had gone to meet them at the airport and became aware of the tragedy when the family failed to appear at the arrivals gate.

A family of 10, including four children, from the Rhone-Alpes region of France were also killed in the crash.

The number of people killed was increased from 116 to 118 after the final passenger manifest was released.

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Bodies 'Still Remain' At MH17 Crash Site

Human remains are still at the site of the Malaysia Airlines crash in eastern Ukraine more than a week after the aircraft came down, says Australia's Prime Minister.

Tony Abbott is sending 190 police officers along with a small number of its defence forces to try to help secure the area which is currently controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

The Australians will join 40 plain-clothes military police from the Netherlands who are set to begin escorting forensic experts to the vast crash site.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak will travel to the Netherlands on Wednesday to discuss the downed jet with his Dutch counterpart where they will discuss how to get investigators full access to the area.

A section of the plane's fuselage

Some 227 bodies out of a total of 298 people killed in the flight MH17 disaster have been handed over to Dutch authorities, but many more remains lie under the sweltering heat at the scene.

"Plainly there are unrecovered body remains in the area. And it's the presence of unrecovered remains that makes it more important than ever that an international team be dispatched to the site," said Mr Abbott, stressing it was a humanitarian mission.

"Every day the site remains unsecured, there is more interference and the remains are subject to the ravages of the European summer, animals, disturbance."

Two cargo planes have flown 38 more coffins carrying victims out of Ukraine to Holland where they will be taken to a forensic centre for identification and investigation.

Debris is spread over a large area

The White House has said Russian President Vladimir Putin was "culpable" in the downing of MH17.

In his strongest comments yet since the plane was shot down, White House spokesman Josh Earnest linked the crash to Russia, which the US has criticised for providing arms to Ukrainian separatists.

Mr Earnest also confirmed reports that Russian troops are firing heavy artillery on Ukrainian military across the border, describing it as an escalation of the conflict.

A plane carrying Dutch military police leaves for Ukraine

The US has previously accused Russia of providing arms to Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists.

Russia, however, has called the latest US accusations of Moscow's involvement in the Ukrainian conflict a baseless "smear campaign".

Meanwhile, European Union ambassadors have reached a preliminary deal on stepped-up sanctions against Russia, targeting its defence and technology sectors and its access to European capital.

Hearses take victims' bodies to a forensic centre in Holland

EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said EU member states must decide whether the measures need to be approved by a summit meeting of the trade bloc's 28 member countries to go into effect.

The ambassadors also ordered asset freezes and travel bans against more Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainians accused of undermining Ukraine.

The US has accused Russia of arming Ukrainian separatists

Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB, and Mikhail Fradkov, head of the foreign intelligence service, were among 15 Russians and Ukrainians, and 18 companies and other organisations named in the latest sanctions list published in the EU's Official Journal.

The Russian foreign ministry said the additional sanctions would hamper co-operation over international and regional security issues.

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US Evacuates Libya Embassy Amid Militia Strife

The United States has evacuated its embassy in Libya and warned all Americans in the country to "depart immediately", as fighting between militias in the capital Tripoli intensifies.

The mission staff were driven safely overland to neighbouring Tunisia, escorted by the US military. 

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement: "Securing our facilities and ensuring the safety of our personnel are top department priorities, and we did not make this decision lightly. 

"Security has to come first. Regrettably, we had to take this step because the location of our embassy is in very close proximity to intense fighting and ongoing violence between armed Libyan factions."

Smoke in Tripoli after heavy fighting between rival militias on Friday

American personnel at the Libyan embassy, which was already operating with limited staffing, left the capital at around dawn on Saturday, said Ms Harf. 

Speaking during a visit to Paris, Secretary of State John Kerry said they had decided to temporarily suspend diplomatic operations in Tripoli because "freewheeling militia violence" posed a "real risk" to its personnel.

US officials are taking no chances after the deadly 2012 attack on its mission in the eastern city of Benghazi, when Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died.

Tripoli has been engulfed for weeks in bloodshed between militias

The State Department has also issued a travel warning against travel to Libya, urging all Americans already in the country to get out.

The statement cautioned that "the security situation in Libya remains unpredictable and unstable".

It also warned that the country is awash with military-grade arms, including "antiaircraft weapons that may be used against civilian aviation".

An aircraft damaged by shelling at Tripoli International Airport last week

Tripoli has been engulfed for weeks in bloodshed between militias that has killed and wounded dozens, with fighting especially intense around the city's airport.

The last time the US suspended operations at its Tripoli embassy was in February 2011, during the revolution that toppled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The mission reopened a few months later.

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MH17: Victim's Parents Visit Crash Scene

The parents of one of the victims of the Malaysia Airlines plane disaster in eastern Ukraine have travelled from Australia to the crash site to honour their daughter.

Fatima Dyczynski, 25, was among 298 people on board flight MH17 when it came down on July 17 while travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

She had been making her way to Australia to see her parents.

Jerzy Dyczynski and Angela Rudhart-Dyczynski crossed territory held by pro-Russian rebels to reach the area where the wreckage came down in fields outside the village of Hrabove.

The couple appeared emotional at the crash scene

The couple, appearing emotional, walked among the debris and scorched earth and laid a large bouquet of flowers.

Mr Dyczynski, who wore a white T-shirt with a portrait of Fatima, said: "We are for peace. She (Fatima) was for peace, she is for peace and she will be forever for peace."

His wife said: "We have promised our daughter we will come here. We should have come here the minute it happened."

She added: "She was full of life," adding her daughter, an aerospace engineering student, used to want to be a pilot.

They last spoke to their daughter shortly before she boarded the doomed flight, where there were no survivors.

A section of the plane's fuselage

The couple, from Perth, had arrived on a minibus at the rebel-held zone, ignoring their government's safety warnings.

Some 28 Australians were killed in the tragedy, which has been blamed on separatists shooting down the airliner, mistaking it for a Ukrainian plane. The rebels denied they were responsible.

Investigators are still trying to get full access to the site as Dutch and Australian police head to the area to try to secure it.

Human remains are still at the scene more than a week after the aircraft came down, says Australia's Prime Minister.

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Truce In Force As Gaza Death Toll Tops 1,000

Israel has agreed to extend a "humanitarian" truce in Gaza until midnight as the Palestinian death toll reached 1,000.

The four-hour extension - reported by an unnamed Israeli government source - comes as world leaders continue their attempt to thrash out a wider ceasefire in Paris. 

Parts of Gaza came under heavy bombardment minutes before the break in hostilities at 8am (6am UK time), with Israeli shells killing 18 members of a Palestinian family, according to the Gaza health ministry.

The Al Najar family had apparently been trapped in their house in Khuzaa village for two days when the shells hit.

A Palestinian woman stands outside destroyed homes in Shejaia, Gaza

Doctors in Gaza said 85 bodies have been pulled from rubble since the ceasefire started, taking the number of Palestinians killed in 19 days of violence to more than 1,000.

Three Israeli soldiers were also killed in combat prior to the ceasefire, meaning 40 military personnel have died since their operation began on July 8. A total of three civilians have been killed by rocket fire into Israel.

Israel is reportedly continuing its search of Hamas tunnels during the truce - though both sides have so far observed a break in fire.

Gaza's northern district of Beit Hanun photographed during the ceasefire

On the four-hour extension, the unnamed Israeli official said: "As far as Israel is concerned, there is no reason to prevent Gaza's people from stocking up on supplies, so long as the military can continue its work against the tunnels. Our war is not against the population."

US Secretary of State John Kerry remains "confident progress can be made" on a seven-day truce that would "bring people together to create a more durable plan".

However, on Friday evening Israel's defence minister told troops: "You need to be ready for the possibility that very soon we will instruct the military to significantly broaden the ground operation in Gaza."

Mr Kerry is in Paris for talks with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and other counterparts from Europe, Turkey and Qatar.

John Kerry and his counterparts are in Paris for talks

Mr Hammond said the focus was to negotiate an extension to the 12-hour ceasefire before trying to find a long-term solution to the crisis.

Earlier, Mr Kerry told a news conference in Cairo a "fundamental framework" for peace was in place and that it would "ultimately succeed".

"The world is watching tragic moment after tragic moment unfold and is wondering when everybody is going to come to their senses," said Mr Kerry.

An unnamed source from the Israeli government said they were seeking modifications as the truce proposal "leans too much towards Hamas demands".

A map showing the areas of conflict and violence

In London, anti-war protesters marched from the Israeli embassy to the Houses of Parliament today.

Similar protests are taking place in France and Germany.

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DNA Test Clears Convicted Rapist 24 Years On

A man who served 12 years in prison for a rape he did not commit is set to have his name cleared after DNA testing identified another man as the culprit.

Michael Phillips pleaded guilty to the 1990 rape of a 16-year-old girl because his lawyer advised him to avoid going to a trial.

On Friday, a Texas district court judge ruled that Mr Phillips' conviction should be vacated.

The case now heads to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, though it was not immediately clear when it would make a ruling.

"I never imagined I would live to see my name cleared," said Mr Phillips, who suffers from sickle cell anaemia and uses a wheelchair.

"Six of my siblings died from the same disease, so I thank God for sustaining me in prison," he said in a news release from the district attorney's office.

"I always told everyone I was innocent and now people will finally believe me."

Mr Phillips said his lawyer at the time told him not to go to trial because a jury would likely not side with a black man accused in the rape of a white girl.

Furthermore, the victim had picked him out of a photo line-up.

Mr Phillips' reversal of fortune is due to an ongoing project by Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who is testing old rape kits.

"This is a great day for Mr Phillips but a terrible day for our justice system," Mr Watkins said on Friday. 

The district attorney said there was no DNA from Mr Phillips to compare to the profile from the semen in the rape kit.

But when the semen was put into the FBI's database, another person was identified as the culprit.

Mr Phillips, 57, was released in 2002 but his failure to register as a sex offender later landed him back in jail for six months.

He now lives in a nursing home.

The statute of limitations has expired on the crime and the perpetrator who was identified remains free, a district attorney's office spokeswoman said.

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Plane Survivor Crawls Out Of Fiery Wreckage

A woman escaped from the fiery wreckage of the TransAsia Airways plane by clambering through a hole in the fuselage - and then phoned her father to come and pick her up.

Hung Yu-ting was one of only 10 survivors when the aircraft crashed into houses near a runway on Taiwan's Penghu islands on Wednesday.

"She called me on the phone to say the plane had crashed and exploded but that she had already crawled out and I should come right away to get her," said Hung Yu-ting's father, who lives a few hundred metres from the crash site.

"When I was halfway there the fire was still really big, but it was smaller when I arrived on the scene," Mr Hung told reporters.

The plane ploughed into houses while trying to land in bad weather

"There were two other injured outside and the first ambulance had already taken away three, including my daughter."

Hung Chang-ming helped rescuers put out the fire and dragged more people from the wrecked plane before later being reunited with his 34-year-old daughter.

She suffered burns to her arms, leg and back during her escape and is recovering in hospital.

Forty-eight people were killed when the twin propeller ATR-72, which had taken off from Taipei, crashed while trying to land in stormy conditions and low visibility.

Forty-eight people died in the incident on Taiwan's Penghu islands

The effects of a typhoon had cancelled around 200 flights earlier in the day, but aviation officials insisted conditions in the area were acceptable to fly.

Investigators are set to focus on a four-minute timeframe when visibility around Magong airport is said to have reduced by half.

Several children were among the dead, which included a family of six and a family of four.

Buddhist monks conduct a ritual at the crash site

TransAsia chairman Vincent Lin appeared at the funeral hall on Friday and said the crash was an "unpredictable tragedy".

He apologised, kneeled and bowed to the mother of one victim, who screamed back: "Give me back my son, he is only 27 years old.

"He is still young, but now he is lying there at the morgue. I want my son back."

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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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Five Palestinians Killed Amid Prayer Lockdown

Five Palestinians have reportedly been killed in the West Bank - four shot by Israeli troops and the other by a female settler.

Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinians in the village of Beit Ummar, near Hebron, medics said.

In a separate shooting, Israeli settlers fired on a group of Palestinians near the northern city of Nablus, killing 18-year-old Khaled Oudeh and wounding four others after they threw stones at their car, security officials said.

The shot was fired by a woman, Israeli army radio reported.

A map showing the areas of conflict and violence

Israeli soldiers arrived at the scene and their gunfire killed a fifth man, 22-year-old Tayyib Oudeh, the officials added. 

An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed there had been "confrontations" between troops and Palestinians near Nablus "in which settlers were involved", but gave no further details on the Beit Ummar shooting.

Israel has also said that a missing soldier whom Hamas claimed to have abducted was actually killed in battle.

The latest deaths came as Israeli riot police charged down skirmishes near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, as fears of more trouble in the area sparked a lockdown on Friday prayers.

Only men aged over-50 are being allowed into Al Aqsa mosque after a massive protest in the West Bank last night resulted in the deaths of two Palestinians.

Friday prayers are being held at the Al Aqsa mosque

Israeli security forces have been put on heightened alert and deployed in and around Jerusalem's Old City after Palestinians declared today a "day of rage" following the violent and deadly clashes.

Sky's David Bowden, in east Jerusalem, said: "Riot police charged down the road a short time ago towards a group of youths who were protesting, throwing rocks.

"The riot police fired baton rounds and they arrested at least one protester who was dragged away with his hands behind his back.

"A water cannon followed the police down, and actually they had set fire to a couple of massive tyres, and they used the water cannon to put that fire out.

"I don't want to over-egg this. It wasn't a great conflagration, but it gives you an idea of the tension here already."

At least 150 people were injured in the mass protest

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Sky News: "Once we receive clear indications that there are going to be disturbances on the Temple Mount it is necessary for an implementation of age limits in and around the Old City.

"We are taking all of these measures in order to prevent people from being injured or possibly killed around this area."

Amid the growing tensions, US Secretary of State and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pressed for a ceasefire as the Palestinian death toll rose to 815.

Hamas attempted to attack Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv with three rockets - two of which were destroyed mid-air by the Israelis.

A pregnant woman was among this morning's casualties in Gaza following a fresh wave of Israeli airstrikes.

Surgeons managed to save the 23-year-old's unborn child, but a 12-year-old and 15-year-old were said to be among those killed in the strike on the southern city of Rafah, health officials said.

More than 140,000 people have fled the conflict, while some 33 Israeli soldiers have been killed, and three civilians have died in Israel from rocket fire.

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Air Algerie: First Images From Crash Site

The first photos have emerged of the site in Mali where an Air Algerie flight crashed, killing all 116 people on board, including 51 French nationals.

It comes as a 10-year-old French girl is reported to have spoken of her fears before the flight.

The 10-year-old perished along with her entire family in the tragedy

The girl, called Chloe, perished in the tragedy along with her parents, Bruno Cailleret and Caroline Boisnard, as well as her elder brother and grandmother.

The loss of the entire family in the disaster has left the small town of Menet in central France "devastated", according to Denise Labbe of the town hall.

Flight AH5017 had been heading to Algiers when it crashed in southern Mali

The five had been returning from a trip to Burkina Faso, where Ms Boisnard's uncle lived.

They had been due to land in the southern city of Marseille after flying via Algiers, which is where doomed flight AH5017 was heading when it crashed in southern Mali.

French President Francois Hollande said no one survived the crash

The plane was owned by Spanish private airline Swiftair and operated by Air Algerie.

The burnt-out wreckage of the passenger aircraft - which vanished from radar in West Africa - has been discovered south of Gao.

No one survived the crash, French President Francois Hollande has said.

Ms Labbe said: "Everyone is devastated in the town. We all know the family, who live in front of the town hall. No one can quite believe it, it's like having a bad dream."

Chloe had been excited about the trip to Burkina Faso said Ms Labbe but added she "had confided in her teacher before leaving about her fear of taking the plane, which she was doing for the first time".

Ms Boisnard's brother had gone to meet them at the airport and became aware of the tragedy when the family failed to appear at the arrivals gate.

A family of 10, including four grandchildren, from the Rhone-Alpes region of France were also killed in the crash.

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