An Indian-born, Australian-raised mathematics genius Akshay Venkatesh is among the four recipients of this year’s Fields Medal. He received it for his “profound contributions to an exceptionally broad range of subjects in mathematics”.

Delhi-born Venkatesh, 36, was the youngest ever student to attend the University of Western Australia at the age of 14. He is currently teaching at Stanford University.

He has received the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize in 2008 and Ostrowski Prize in 2017.

The Fields Medal is awarded every four years by the International Mathematical Union to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement.

The award consists of gold medal bearing the profile of Archimedes and a cash amount of 15,000 Canadian dollars.

The prestigious medal has been given to Venkatesh for “his synthesis of analytic number theory, homogeneous dynamics, topology, and representation theory, which has resolved long-standing problems in areas such as the equidistribution of arithmetic objects”.

“Akshay Venkatesh has made profound contributions to an exceptionally broad range of subjects in mathematics, including number theory, homogeneous dynamics, representation theory and arithmetic geometry.

“He solved many long-standing problems by combining methods from seemingly unrelated areas, presented novel viewpoints on classical problems, and produced strikingly far-reaching conjectures,” the International Mathematical Union said on its website.

The other three laureates are Peter Scholze, Alessio Figalli and Caucher Birkar.

Birkar, Kurdish refugee turned Cambridge University professor, has been given the medal “for the proof of the boundedness of Fano varieties and for contributions to the minimal model program”.

Italian mathematician Figalli has won it for “contributions to the theory of optimal transport and its applications in partial differential equations, metric geometry and probability”.

Germany’s Peter Scholze was awarded the Fields medal for his work in arithmetic algebraic geometry.

The names were announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday.

Italy balks at commission’s offer saying it doesn’t want ‘charity’ to accept migrants arriving from the Mediterranean.

by Al Jazeera

The European Commission has offered to bear the cost of taking in migrants from boats in the Mediterranean, seeking to entice more governments to shoulder the burden after Italy’s new government closed its ports to rescue vessels.

In a proposal published on Tuesday, the commission said it would pay 6,000 euros ($7,010) for each migrant taken in by EU member states, as well as funding the cost of hundreds of personnel to process mostly African migrants seeking asylum in Europe.

Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini denounced the offer as far too little.

“We aren’t asking for charity handouts. Every asylum seeker costs the Italian taxpayer between 40,000 and 50,000 euros ($46,700 and $58,400). Brussels, they can keep their charity for themselves,” Salvini told reporters. “We don’t want money. We want dignity.”

The commission’s plan, which is aimed at EU governments that set up processing centres on their soil, follows a June leaders’ summit that claimed success in reaching a hard-fought agreement to control immigration but left many details unresolved.

Undocumented migration has fallen steeply since 2015 when more than one million people entered the EU, but polls show it is still a top concern for many of the union’s 500 million citizens.

The governments of Italy and Germany are under heavy pressure at home to ensure fewer migrants come to their territory from across the Mediterranean Sea, while Eastern European leaders are bitterly opposed to taking them in.

Italy has shut its ports to humanitarian rescue ships, saying it is bearing an unfair burden of asylum seekers.

By publishing its proposals, Natasha Berthaud, a European Commission spokeswoman, said it was seeking “a truly shared regional responsibility in responding to complex migration challenges”, although governments have yet to come forward to host new processing centres.

EU envoys are expected to discuss the proposal on Wednesday, with another meeting planned in Geneva on July 30.

he Karnataka government has already diverted the flow of the Mhadei river at Kalsa-Bhandura and the Goa government will file a contempt petition before the central tribunal, appointed to resolve the inter-state dispute, as a counter-measure, Water Resources Minister Vinod Palienkar said on Tuesday.

“Digging work was carried out at the Kalsa-Bhanduri nullah and the flow of (Mhadei) water towards Goa has been stopped and diverted to the Mahaprabha (river) basin. Therefore, our team will be filing an application in court tomorrow, including contempt of court, before the Tribunal,” Palienkar said.

Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra are in a dispute over the controversial Kalsa-Bhandura dam project across the waters of the Mhadei river at a central Tribunal.

Mahadayi also was known as the Mandovi river is the lifeline of the northern parts of the State. It originates in Karnataka and meets the Arabian Sea in Panaji in Goa, while briefly flowing through the territory of Maharashtra.

Karnataka also aims to build seven dams at various points along the river, including at Kalsa village, aimed at diverting the flow into what it claims is the water-starved Malaprabha basin in North Karnataka. The state has demanded that Goa should allow the transfer of over seven TMC of water to tide over its irrigation and drinking water needs.

Diversion of the water was one of the key issues in the North Karnataka region during the recently concluded assembly election.

Recently, a prominent South African artist, Mohau Modisakeng, who represented South Africa at the 2017 Venice Biennale, was briefly arrested for assaulting his female companion in a boarding area of Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi, Kenya.

He was, according to multiple witness accounts, abusive – both verbally and physically. When Modisakeng’s companion refused to leave the airport with him, he allegedly tore up her passport. Kenyan authorities eventually arrived at the scene and arrested him. A passport is considered the property of the state, and purposefully destroying one is considered a serious crime.

The incident came to be widely known when Simphiwe Dana, a critically acclaimed South African singer, took to social media on June 21 to say that she was sorry to have unwittingly aided an “abuser”. She told her followers that Modisakeng, who is a “family friend”, had contacted her when he was arrested in Kenya, and she helped – through her contacts there – to get him released.

She said she did not fully understand why he was detained at the time and, in hindsight, she regrets her decision to help. Katlego Malatji, a South African passenger who had intervened and helped Modisakeng’s companion get on the flight and get home safely, also took to Twitter on the same day to detail what he had witnessed.

He was upset that Modisakeng was released. Following Dana and Malatji’s tweets, the incident was also covered in the media.

Soon after Modisakeng allegedly assaulted his female companion and damaged her passport, I was scheduled to travel to Australia to be at the opening of a remarkable exhibition at the Cairns Art Gallery in Queensland.

“Continental Drift: Black / Blak Art from South Africa and north Australia” brings together contemporary artwork by indigenous Australian and South African artists, and celebrates and critically examines “global black art and culture”.

I had written one of the two catalogue essays, focusing on the South African artists’ works, and was invited to give talks at opening events. Among the works by South African artists were three large works by Modisakeng.

I wondered about how to proceed, given that Modisakeng’s works, which critically examine the aftereffects of violence on a deeply personal level, were a prominent part of the exhibition. There was never a doubt in my mind that I would disclose what I knew about Modisakeng’s actions to the gallery’s director and the curator, but I assumed they already knew.

Usually, when an incident like this happens, art dealers and galleries move quickly to protect their corporate interests and send PR statements publicly declaring their deep and abiding commitment to women’s rights, while awaiting the processes of justice to proceed.

However, it turned out, I was the first person to inform the Cairns Art Gallery about what happened in Kenya.

Whatiftheworld Gallery, which represents Modisakeng, had decided to remain silent. Even when I personally asked them to provide an explanation, their response came weeks after the incident, on July 20: The gallery was in “discussion with Mohau to hear his side … [and] actively trying to get a response [from] Kenyan airport officials and other witnesses”; and “while we can’t condone we also can’t alienate and seek to make a meaningful behavioral change in a vacuum”.

In his own response, which came after the issue was covered in the media, Modisakeng claimed that he neither “physically assaulted” his fiancee, nor was “detained or arrested”. He added that they are “both undergoing counselling to help us address emotional issues” and “remain committed to each other”. He returned to social media, and posted an image of a boat at sea on his Instagram page, with the caption, “Come hell or high water”.

I commend Modisakeng for finally taking responsibility for his rage. And while I agree with his gallery’s statement, I wonder how “meaningful behavioural change” could happen, given the propensity to silence any discussion about “troubling behaviour” in the art industry.

I didn’t want to be part of the industry of whitewashing – especially not at an exhibition meant to examine the long-term effects of colonial violence on black and indigenous people. At the same time, I didn’t want to spoil the Cairns Art Gallery’s wonderful exhibition.

An opening event is celebratory, a time to recognize deserving and innovative artists’ work. I worried that in my attempt to call on all those present – art professionals, fellow artists, writers, and collectors – to be responsible and take action, I would, instead, focus the spotlight on an undeserving and abusive artist.

Cairns Art Gallery’s director, Andrea Churcher, who only came to know about the incident via my email, welcomed a frank – but private – conversation. She informed me that in the past when there were allegations of unethical or violent behavior against an artist, her institution had waited for a court of law to charge the person before making decisions about removing their work or making any public statements.

Even when I pressed via email for an official statement, I was told that our discussions were based on personal opinions, based on how the gallery’s board had previously responded and that there was no formalized policy.

In the end, it was up to me, alone, to make a statement on the opening night – if I so wished. It was an uncomfortable position to be in – made especially so by the lack of support from the institution.

But I knew I had to say something. I knew the significance of this exhibition, that it was attempting to counter colonial violence and erasures. I also knew that speaking about endemic violence among black artists’ communities in a gallery frequented largely by white patrons would be a complicated matter.

So when it was my turn to speak, I talked about what happened. I clarified why it is imperative that we speak openly about the violent behavior of artists and art practitioners in general. I contextualized why gender-based violence, especially in groups that have experienced centuries of colonial and state violence, remains rarely spoken about in public, especially not with “outsiders”.

We sometimes protect abusers, because we know racist caricatures about our people are furthered through the erroneous belief that “domestic” violence – assault of intimate partners – is a thing that only black men or the “native” do.

Statistics show that gender-based violence happens across class, professional, and racial groups.

Yet, we continue to believe mythologies that were essential to the colonial projects: that “white” societies, being egalitarian and civilized, must act as “saviours” – policing, protecting, and teaching the violent, native-other to be better. For those reasons, I was careful to point out that “white” communities are no strangers to gender-based and other forms of violence.

After all, the long after-effects of centuries of colonial violence towards indigenous and colonized populations – a subject that many artists included in the exhibition, including Modisakeng, were grappling with in their artworks – did not simply disappear.

That violence lives on through continued institutional violence; we see it in educational policies, policing practices, in how art institutions exclude black artists except when it is convenient to tokenize them, and in how judgments made by courts of law show systematic bias towards women and black persons.

After I spoke, several came over immediately after, and over the next few days, and thanked me for saying what I did. They are not foreign to similar issues and equally struggle with community and institutional silencing.

Stories of repetitive, unwanted sexual advances, harassment, and other forms of violence including sexual assault are not uncommon in the art industry – whether from those running the institutions, or from fellow artists, writers, and curators.

The #MeToo movement has forced many abusive, exploitative workplaces to come to a reckoning. That reckoning would have never happened if we continued to support a culture of silencing and the myth that violent “complicated” men produce brilliant work and that if abusers were no longer accepted we would have empty spaces or mediocre work on our walls.

I know that in order to avoid taking action, we often wrap ourselves in comfortable old cloaks. First, we hear a familiar refrain: that cultural institutions defer to decisions made by legal institutions, and avoid rumours and unjust judgments fashioned in courts of public opinion. However, this commitment to the processes and decisions made by institutions of the law shelters abusive “star” artists, curators, and others in positions of power. Institutions – be they courts or art galleries and museums – have been instrumental in violent and exclusionary practices towards women, colonized people, and other vulnerable communities.

Second, we avoid action by referring to how the value of artwork must be separated from the flawed person who creates it. If I show an overlap between the political and aesthetic in my evaluations of artwork, I know that I will be seen as “less sophisticated” than someone who knows how to value art outside of “politics”.

However, when perpetration of violent actions are happening in present time and has on-going effects that are devastating both physically and psychologically on victims, our silence – and celebration – of violent perpetrators become part of how we are complicit in the violence.

By claiming to wait for courts to decide, art institutions and those who are in positions of power at those institutions unwittingly help maintain cultures of abuse. They engage in protecting violent actors within their communities, even when violators are openly abusive towards women and other vulnerable people. Inaction and hand-wringing look good on the surface; we look reasonable, rational, ethical, rather than susceptible to rumour and unjust judgments fashioned in courts of public opinion.

I have no doubt that decision-makers are facing pressure to keep violent artists’ works on the walls. But no artist’s work is so sacred that it exists out of context – outside of their own actions, social conditions, the history, and the present that make us who we are.

We need ongoing conversations that demand accountability and necessary change. Taking work down or including a prominent statement is a start, but that, alone, is not a productive solution that will make violence – particularly intimate partner violence – magically disappear.

How we, as professionals in the art world, decide to react towards the violent people working in our field will have a significant impact. Individuals in influential positions and persons on boards are the guides of institutional policies – they reflect prevailing “norms” and belief systems of dominant cultural groups. And conversely, institutions shape our values and what we accept as “norms”.

As we have seen many times over the years, unjust institutional values can change if and when there is a concentrated effort, willingness, strategy, and support. That gives me great hope for the principles and ethics that I will continue to fight to uphold.

 

Aljazeera

Narowal and Lahore, Pakistan – Driving through the flooded rice paddies of the eastern Pakistani district of Narowal, the sunlight streaming in through the monsoon clouds, Ahsan Iqbal is in turns confident and concerned.

He steps off his bulletproof pick-up truck and is immediately surrounded by well-wishers showering him with rose petals and placing colourful garlands around his neck.

Armed bodyguards form a ring around him as he walks towards a large tent, where a couple of hundred people have been waiting all day to hear him speak.

Ahead of him, some children lead the way, happily chanting the slogan of Iqbal’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) political party, and dancing to the beat of a dhol.

“Look who’s come, it’s the lion, it’s the lion,” they sing, a reference to the party’s election symbol.

If massive political rallies, attended by tens of thousands and addressed by party chiefs, are the muscles that power electoral campaigning in Pakistan, then “corner meetings” such as this one, under a small tent in a rice field in the middle of nowhere, are its heart and soul.

Pakistan goes to the polls on Wednesday, and if the PML-N is to fight off the challenge from the opposition PTI, the contest will be decided in constituencies such as this one, in the heart of Punjab province, where 141 of the 272 national parliamentary seats that are up for grabs are located.

Iqbal begins his stump speech, one he has repeated dozens of times.

He lists the achievements of his party’s last five years in power, pointing out his opponent’s relative lack of experience, and drawing attention towards his work in the constituency.

“You now sleep in comfort under a fan,” he says, referring to reduced electricity blackouts, “but the leader who gave you this has no comfort in jail.”

Nawaz Sharif, the chief of the PML-N, and his daughter Maryam Nawaz were jailed earlier this month after being convicted by an anti-corruption court.

His party says he received an unfair trial and alleges the country’s powerful military – which has ruled Pakistan for roughly half its 70-year history – pressured the judiciary to convict him. Both institutions deny the charge.

“You have a debt to him, to release him from jail through the power of your vote,” Iqbal continues.

Nearby, a young man on a tractor looks on impassively.

‘Engineering’ and ‘aliens’
Away from the crowds, Iqbal strikes a different note.

This has been no ordinary campaign, with widespread allegations that the military has been “engineering” the electoral process, and encouraging PML-N supporters and candidates to switch loyalties.

Political news coverage has also been tightly controlled, with the country’s two largest news organisations seeing their distribution networks disrupted when they refused to follow the military’s editorial guidelines.

“Our hope is that we get a high turnout on voting day so that we have a margin of victory that is too large to manipulate,” Iqbal told Al Jazeera.

Countrywide, dozens of PML-N candidates switched parties to the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, weeks ahead of the polls.

In Narowal, two key PML-N candidates defected.

Abrar-ul-Haq, a pop star-turned-politician, is hoping to lead the PTI to victory in the Punjab district of Narowal [Asad Hashim/Al Jazeera]
The party’s opponents dismiss allegations of rigging.

“Honestly, I’m still waiting for the aliens,” says Abrar-ul-Haq, the PTI’s candidate against Iqbal in Narowal, using a euphemism for the military popularised by PML-N chief Sharif.

“It has been much better than the last elections,” says ul-Haq, a pop star-turned-politician, about his experience on the campaign trail. “We’ve had huge rallies, boiling with enthusiasm, especially from the youth.”

In 2013, Haq lost the race in this constituency to Iqbal by a margin of more than 27 percent of the 154,637 votes polled.

This time, he is confident that he will win more support, having engaged more heavily with local kinship group leaders, who control thousands of votes in rural constituencies such as Narowal.

“Last time we only concentrated on big political rallies, but this time we have spoken to a lot of the [village and kinship leaders] as well, and many of them have switched their votes to us,” says Naeem Ahmed, an official with Haq’s campaign.

“In local politics, we cannot ignore those blocks of votes, those biraderis [kinship groups], that were with the PML-N last time, they are now with the PTI,” says Haq.

Iqbal, meanwhile, appears to be preaching a post-biraderi brand of politics, campaigning mainly on service delivery rather than engaging with influential locals.

The PML-N has led the government in Punjab for a decade, and socioeconomic indicators have shown improvement during their reign.

“I am going direct to the people,” he says, en route to another corner meeting. “Citizens are now empowered and informed, and they prefer candidates to come to them directly.”

Dangerous games
Narowal may be a sleepy town on the edges of Pakistan’s mainstream, but there is a dangerous edge to the campaign here, one that is being replicated across the country.

In May, Iqbal was shot while at a campaign event, the bullet shattering his elbow and lodging in his stomach.

The attacker accused Iqbal of having committed blasphemy by supporting a minor change to an electoral oath pushed through parliament by the PML-N last year.

That shooting came after supporters of the far-right Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party had blockaded the Pakistani capital for weeks over the issue, finally dispersing only after securing the resignation of a federal minister and legal immunity for damage caused during the rioting.

Haq, Iqbal’s opponent, has frequently repeated the blasphemy allegations at political rallies.

Elections banners for the PML-N and PTI parties fly across Lahore, as the two leading parties in the elections face off for control of the country [Asad Hashim/Al Jazeera]
Blasphemy is a sensitive issue in Pakistan. At least 74 people have been murdered in connection with accusations of the crime since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally.

In Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi, Jibran Nasir, an independent candidate, has faced a series of attacks by charged TLP members, also accusing him of blasphemy.

“[Haq’s] main argument is inciting hatred against me on religious grounds,” says Iqbal, gesturing towards a dozen armed guards in two police escort vehicles. “It does restrict you […] but at the same time, you also have to take a risk. Because politics, or public life, cannot be done from behind a curtain.”

Asked if he believes it is dangerous to accuse Iqbal of having committed blasphemy, Haq is nonchalant.

“As far as it being dangerous is concerned, well in Pakistan it is also dangerous to walk down the street,” says the PTI candidate.

The battle for the crown
The streets of Lahore are a couple of hours from Narowal, but the differences are stark.

Sharif may be in jail, but in Lahore, he is everywhere. Banners across the city repeat his rallying cry: “Give honour to the vote.”

In the narrow, congested lanes of Gulshan-e-Ravi, PTI candidate Yasmin Rashid is conducting her own corner meetings, despite the rain.

Her supporters blast the Sharif family and their alleged corruption, as she smiles and waves from underneath an umbrella.

Rashid is attempting to do what many believed, up until a few months ago, to be impossible: to win Lahore’s historic NA-125 seat, in the heart of the provincial capital, from the PML-N.

PTI candidate Yasmin Rashid addressees a corner meeting in the eastern city of Lahore
The incumbent party has never lost this seat, the jewel in its crown of dominance over Punjab province over the last three decades.

“Imran Khan has worked constantly for 22 years … he says that until there is justice in Pakistan, he will not stop,” she says, as the crowd calls out: “The PTI is coming, the PTI is coming.”

Rashid’s message focuses on the corruption convictions against the Sharifs, while she promises honest, efficient government.

“You can feel the pulse is different, and now the majority of them are convinced that Nawaz Sharif has been convicted correctly,” she tells

Rashid’s chances – and those of the PTI across this province – will hinge on how many PML-N voters she is able to convert.

“Ever since we were young, we have always voted for the PML-N,” says Muhammad Rizwan, 32, a participant at the PTI meeting. “But just look at the state of these streets.”

The PML-N “have changed nothing” and he will vote for the PTI, he says.

Others, however, are unmoved by the PTI’s promises to use their electoral symbol, a cricket bat, to strike corruption out of the arena.

“I will vote for the PML-N, as I always have,” says Muhammad Siddiq, a 62-year-old who sells vegetables on a pushcart.

His wife, Nadira, interjects.

“Look, whoever wins, whether it’s the lion or the bat, the truth is that we’re still going to be out on the street, pushing that cart.”

 

Aljazeera

At least three people were killed and over 50 others injured on Monday when an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale jolted Japan’s Osaka city.

The victims comprised a nine-year-old girl and two men, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported.

The earthquake was recorded at 7.58 a.m. and had its hypocenter at about 13 km depth in Osaka Prefecture on the island of Honshu, the largest in the Japanese archipelago, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

However, no tsunami warning was issued, reports Efe news.

Several buildings in Osaka and Takatsuki collapsed and were on fire.

Railway services in Osaka, Shiga, Kyoto and Nara, both high speed bullet trains and local rail services, were halted.

Osaka’s Kansai Airport has been shut down while its runways were being checked for damage.

The authorities said that none of the 15 nuclear reactors in this region have been affected by the quake.

The Japanese government has set up a task force to gather information related to the strong earthquake and the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, called on citizens to keep an eye on developments through the media.

Around 170,000 houses in Osaka prefecture are experiencing power outages following the quake, NHK reported.

According to the JMA, this is the first time that the Osaka prefecture has seen an earthquake of this intensity since 1923.

Japan sits on the so-called Ring of Fire, one of the most active seismic zones in the world, and experiences earthquakes frequently, which is why most infrastructure is specially designed to withstand earthquakes.

Russia slams ‘discrediting’ bid after Netherlands and Australia say it’s liable for 2014 downing of jet that killed 298.

by Al Jazeera

The Netherlands and Australia have formally accused Russia of being responsible for the 2014 downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet in 2014 that killed 298 people.

The move on Friday came a day after international investigators concluded that the missile which smashed into the flight MH17 came from a Russian military brigade in Kursk.

At the time of the incident on July 17, 2014, pro-Russian separatists were fighting Ukrainian government forces in the region.

The Boeing 777 broke apart in midair, flinging wreckage over several kilometres of fields in rebel-held territory.

The two countries “hold Russia responsible for its part in the downing” of the Malaysia Airlines flight, the Dutch government said in a statement on Friday.

They may now move towards submitting the complex dossier to an international judge or organisation, it added.

“Australia and the Netherlands have now informed the Russian Federation that we hold it responsible under international law for its role in the bringing down of MH17,” said Julie Bishop, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.

“Australia and the Netherlands have requested Russia to enter into negotiations to open up a dialogue about its conduct and to seek reparations.”

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from Russia’s second biggest city of St Petersburg, said the evidence provided by a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) led the Netherlands and Australia to believe that Russia was responsible.

“Holding a country legally responsible is a complex process but what Netherlands and Australia want is for Russia to enter into negotiations with both of them which will ultimately lead to reparations for the victims’ families.”

‘Discredit Russia’
Russia said on Friday the Netherlands had provided no evidence that Moscow was directly behind the shooting down of flight MH17, accusing the Dutch of promoting their own agenda.

“They have practically no doubt that the BUK missile came from Russia,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in St Petersburg.

“I asked [Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok] about facts proving these claims. He did not give me any facts saying they want Russia to help establish them based on unfounded suspicions,” Lavrov said.

He accused the Dutch of using the tragedy to “achieve their own political goals”.

“We are still ready to cooperate,” Lavrov added, saying that information that Russia has supplied should not be ignored or used selectively.

Russian President Vladimir Putin late on Thursday repeated calls that Moscow should be included in the investigation team.

The Russian foreign ministry also denounced what it called an attempt to “discredit Russia in the eyes of the international community”, but investigators, who painstaking recreated the BUK missile system’s route from Kursk across the border into rebel-held eastern Ukraine using videos and photos, stood by their findings.

The team “has come to the conclusion that the BUK-TELAR that shot down MH17 came from 53rd Anti-aircraft Missile Brigade based in Kursk in Russia,” top Dutch investigator Wilbert Paulissen said.

“The 53rd Brigade forms part of the Russian armed forces,” he told reporters on Thursday.

Prosecutors have said that the BUK missile system was fired from the Ukraine village of Pervomaysk and later returned to Russian territory.

Investigation officials have not yet said who actually fired the missile, stressing that the probe continues.

They have appealed for further information, especially from those who know people among the 53rd Brigade, as they seek to bring criminal charges against those who ordered the plane to be shot down.

Challands said that the information available was enough for Australia and the Netherlands to “push forward and accuse Russia of being responsible for the deaths of all those people”.

“Essentially for Russia this is a political culture where admitting any kind of guilt or contrition is essentially seen as a sign of weakness and for Vladimir Putin, who has invested so much political capital in his image around the world as a strong man leader, it’s basically not in his interests to back down or accept any of these findings now,” Challands said.