Russia under fire over MH17 crash probe

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop delivered a diplomatic version of the "shirt front" promised by Prime Minister Tony Abott as Russia came under fire over the fate of flight MH17 at the ASEM summit.
In an interview with AFP today, Bishop revealed that she had taken her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to task on the sidelines of the Asia-Europe gathering.
She said she had bluntly spelled out her government's frustration at what it sees as Moscow's hampering of the Dutch-led probe into the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine in July.
All 298 people on board died, including 38 who were citizens or residents of Australia.

Western governments believe the plane was shot down by pro-Russian rebels with a Russian-made missile.
Moscow says Ukraine is responsible for the incident.

Bishop's intervention came as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Roote upbraided Russian President Vladimir Putin for his failure to rein in the pro-Moscow rebels accused of restricting access to the crash site, which has never been properly secured.
A total of 153 Dutch nationals died in the crash and Dutch investigators are leading the probe into what caused it.
A total of 26 people who were on board the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight are still unaccounted for because their remains have not been identified.

Distressingly for relatives, there may still be human parts which have not been recovered from the crash site, which was inaccessible for much of August and early September because of fighting in the area.
"Russia has not been as cooperative as we would have expected," Bishop said after her face-to-face encounter with Lavrov.
"They even took action in the UN Security Council seeking to undermine the impartiality and independence of the investigation," he added.