Page 4 - Away Point News Today

Way point before it turns north and arrives in the arctic. over the last few days the polar pioneer, as it traveled across the pacific ocean has had some company on the open sea. theres a greenpeace ship called "the esparanza" that has been following it 5,000 miles now. they started in malaysia. the greenpeace folks have been tweeting pictures of the rig as they have been following it and putting up photos and messages showing themselves the greenpeace crew gearing up for something. they posted ...

Security here. on that secretary im going to go to jim cavanaugh who is back with us. hes one offer nbc news, msnbc analysts with a particular focus on terrorism and experience in that area as a former atf special agent. mr. cavanaugh, tell us, what do you think this tells us about the ability of international -- individuals traveling an commercial flights to traverse this region going forward? are people correctly going to be more reluctant to take these routine flights that pass over this vola...

Solid basis that we have to go on, who is available for this type of an attack. nina, we have been discussing the various possibilities. if this was separatist, what would they have to gain. were not saying thats the case but thats the subtext of the ukrainian officials. >> ukrainian officials are saying that the russians have the capabilities to do that. whether its the russian separatists is irrelevant at this point. of course, the russians or ukrainian separatists would say its ukrainians bec...

Call with vladimir putin. that was predominantly to discuss the latest sanctions on russia. but it appears they also discussed this situation. are you hearing anything on what if any, action the united states is going to take to assist in the response to this? >> we do know that president obama has directed his national security team to be in direct and immediate contact with senior officials in ukraine. that is as far as the white house will go at this point. but i would anticipate that as a pa...

But i think russia has nothing to gain from that, if it is done purposely. >> were down to the benefit of anyone in the region. we all agree on that. we have andrea mitchell here with an update on that as well. andrea, have we gotten to you at this point? >> yes, indeed. the state department has been briefing at this hour. they have no information as to whether this was an accident, a shoot-down. they dont know. they are investigating. the intelligent officials are going to be briefing the senat...

Radar to hit a plane that high. its tough to logistically bring a plane down at that altitude if its a criminal act like a missile from a war. capability is the thing that you have to look at to start the investigation. if its not accidental, then who has the capability to bring it down? thats the point that youve been discussing with the experts from foreign policy, who would have the capability because you would have to have something that could do it, shelter fire missiles can do it but their...

But again, and i want to underscore this point, the administration saying president obama has been briefed on the reports of the downed plane but they say its just too early for them to confirm any of those reports. and ronan, as i just said, i was speaking to officials with the national security team who say they just dont know who is behind this. so a lot of unanswered questions, but i think that to your point, this certainly adds a whole new dimension, a whole new level of pressure to -- >> t...

This could have been a target that wasnt intended to be struck and the may be more likely perpetrators are separatists within the country. i want to go to nina, a professor at the new school and an expert on this region. what do you think separatists if indeed this was a deliberate effort, and if, indeed this came from them. these are both assumptions at this point, would hope to achieve from striking de ining commercial airliner like this. >> i agree that most likely, it was just a very inept...

I would imagine that would be one of the first questions they receive. >> tom costello, you are a great help in making sense of this. the latest were receiving from malaysian airlines, they are not yet confirming the exact nature of the fate of this flight but they are saying they received notification from ukrainian atc that they lost contact with flight mh-1730 kilometers from the tamak way point. well be following this closely from every angle. i want to go back to john cox, our aviation expe...

That apparently there were 23 u.s. passengers -- >> weve seen the public reports. i spoke to our team right before i came out here. we dont have any additional details at this point on american citizens. were looking to, of course, obtan that information. as soon as we have it available, well make it available to all of you. >> as the secretary, we know that the president was -- spoke to president putin this morning about, not this, but the plane came up. has the secretary made any calls to anyo...