Your speedy update on all the day’s stories, Monday, July 21 2014
The latest on MH17.
1. Soccer team friends pay tribute to the lost Maslin children.
On Saturday, Scarborough Junior Club’s team mourned with devastated Perth parents Rin Norris and Anthony Maslin, who lost their three children, Mo, 12, Evie, 10 and Otis, 8, while they were travelling with their grandfather, Nick Norris, on MH17. Rin and Anthony returned home from Amsterdam on Saturday and joined Mo’s team mates as they released green and yellow (the team colours) balloons in tribute to the Maslin kids.
2. Tony Abbott looks to declaring MH17 a terrorist attack.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott sought advice today on whether to declare MH17 as a terrorist attack. If it was classified as such, it would result in payments for families of Australian victims to receive up to $75,000.
Abbott has appointed former Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston as his personal envoy in the Ukraine. Houston is the former Defence chief and co-ordinator of the MH370 recovery (the plane that went and remains missing earlier this year).
3. Bring our people home.
The Australian government is working with the United Nations Security Council to sponsor a resolution that will condemn the MH17 attack, call for immediate access to the crash site and demand an independent investigation.
Abbott said, “In order to bring them home, we have to first get them out. That is what all of our energies and efforts are directed to – getting them out and getting them home.”
In other news.
4. Doctors accused of missing the signs 9 times before a young mother died from cervical cancer.