This post inspired by: Dutch media sue govt, demand it release full info on MH17 crash
So, Dutch media are having to take the drastic step of suing their own government over the failure to disclose the truth about the bringing down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 last year.
The case is said to be heard before the end of the year. Much of the documentation that has already been released by the Dutch Government is so heavily redacted as to provide no useful information. This of course has not stopped the British press from exclaiming, without any evidence, ‘So it WAS Putin?’ Fleet Street again twists MH17 coverage. The evidence there is, and the reluctance to divulge further information is indicative that this was in fact not the case.
Photo: National day of mourning for the victims killed in Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 plane disaster, in Schiphol © Cris Toala Olivares / Reuters
The reasons for the non-disclosure of evidence? Well…
‘The Netherlands National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism, Dick Schoof, who released the documents after the request of the media companies, said that the disclosure of the documents that had not been made public could lead to deterioration of relations with “some countries and international organizations,” as well as damage the reputation of “some persons.” ‘
We all know who they are talking about, don’t we? And it is not Russia. And it is not Mr Putin.
If it were, there would have been no holding back of the information, would there?
Not Something Else 
Yes, well said.
I tried both those links and got the error message :”The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.”
So I tried just rt.com because I’d never heard of it and got the same message. What is it?
That’s curious. RT is internet arm of the Russia Today international television network, set up to give a Russian perspective on world news, which otherwise would have no real outlet. The TV network has several different foreign language channels but the original has always been in English.
I find it a refreshing alternative take on both world and local (Aussie) events. It has a broad coverage, not just of Russian news and there is no (to me) apparent bias in its reporting. In fact, from RT news you can get information that is obviously withheld, suppressed or totally ignored by most of the world’s press.
I have never had any problem accessing the web site and I have just tested both links successfully.
I don’t know what browser or settings you are using but I always use Firefox and have it set to always search for the more secure https:// option for any links that I follow. The actual RT links in my post are known as ‘short links’ or ‘short URL’ and they are available directly from the individual RT web page and they always work for me, for instance the second link is http://on.rt.com/6ox4. Maybe your browser won’t let you use short links. The actual link is: https://www.rt.com/op-edge/312232-fleet-street-mh17-russia-missile/ Try that one. The other one is: https://www.rt.com/news/318051-dutch-media-mh17-lawsuit/ Please let me know if that is successful and I will stop using the short links. That would be a pity because they are much easier to copy and paste than long ones. Thanks for raising this.
Just one more thought Bev. Short urls are a perfectly valid form of internet link. YouTube uses them widely in all of the video links that it offers through sharing. If you elect to share a YouTube video, the link that you get to do the sharing is a short url (assuming that you don’t just copy and paste the full link from the address bar at top of the page). So, I am not sure why your browser won’t recognise them.
One final thought Bev, for completeness, and please excuse me if this appears to be a teaching granny to suck eggs situation. I have no idea just how tech savvy you are.
When you said that you tried just rt.com, I assume you entered that into the address bar. Again, forgive me if you already know this, but a good tip if you are not sure of a web address is to enter what you think it is in the search window instead of the address bar. That way you will get a list of valid sites that possibly includes the one that you are looking for 🙂
I’ve solved the problem. It’s my version of Firefox. I’m deliberately not upgrading, because I want to keep the Google Toolbar add-on and later versions of FF don’t support it. Sometimes I get problems loading sites and sometimes not. I pasted the links into Chrome (which I hate but which is up to date) and they worked. The iPad would have worked too but I didn’t try it.