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NATO concerned over Russian army buildup on Ukraine border - CNN Posted: 23 Mar 2014 09:17 AM PDT STORY HIGHLIGHTS NEW: NATO commander says Russia has a large force on Ukraine's eastern border NEW: "Russia is acting much more like an adversary than a partner," NATO commander says "We must not allow a new division of Europe," says German foreign minister Pro-Russia rallies planned in southern, eastern Ukraine (CNN) -- NATO's top military commander expressed concern Sunday about the buildup of Russian forces on Ukraine's border, as Moscow's forces consolidated their control of Crimea over the weekend. Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Philip Breedlove said Russia had a large force on Ukraine's eastern border and that he was worried it could pose a threat to Moldova's separatist Trans-Dniester region. "The (Russian) force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizable and very, very ready," Breedlove, a U.S. Air Force general, said. "There is absolutely sufficient force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Trans-Dniester if the decision was made to do that, and that is very worrisome." Pro-Russian militia members evacuate a local resident as Russian troops assault the Belbek air base, outside Sevastopol, Crimea, on Saturday, March 22. On Saturday, six Russian special forces armored personnel carriers broke through the gates of the air base, firing warning shots into the air, a spokesman for Ukraine's Ministry of Defense in Crimea told CNN. Russia's military activities in Crimea and its move to annex the region have been condemned by Ukraine's interim government in Kiev, the European Union and the United States. The standoff has sparked an international crisis, reviving concerns of a return to Cold War relations. Crisis in Ukraine HIDE CAPTION << < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 > >> Russia said its forces complied with international agreements. Moscow annexed Crimea following a controversial snap referendum in the autonomous region last week that produced an overwhelming majority of votes in favor of leaving Ukraine to join Russia. "Russia is acting much more like an adversary than a partner," Breedlove said, speaking at an event held in Brussels, Belgium, by the German Marshall Fund think tank. Other officials expressed concern too. "It's deeply concerning to see the Russian troop buildup along the border. It creates the potential for incidents, for instability," Tony Blinken, White House deputy national security adviser, told CNN's "State of the Union." "It's likely that what they are trying to do is intimidate the Ukrainians. It's possible that they are preparing to move in." Pro-Russia demonstrations planned Pro-Russia demonstrations were planned for Sunday in Ukrainian cities outside Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula. The shows of favor for Moscow were scheduled for cities in Ukraine's south and east, where there are many ethnic Russians. On Saturday, six Russian special forces armored personnel carriers broke through the gates of Belbek air base, firing warning shots into the air, a spokesman for Ukraine's Ministry of Defense in Crimea told CNN. One journalist was injured in the attack, said Vladislav Seleznev. In a separate incident, pro-Russian self-defense forces stormed the Novofederoskoe military base, also in Crimea, taking control of it, a Ukraine Defense Ministry spokesman said. Seleznev also said that Crimean self-defense forces and Russian special forces took a Ukrainian ship, the Slavutych. The ship was captured "after a two-hour assault," he said, though the Ukrainian ship's crew members came ashore and didn't suffer any injuries. Ukrainian forces on the Novofederoskoe base threw smoke bombs during the incident and retreated to the base's headquarters, Seleznev said in a Facebook posting. The base's aviation brigade then sang the Ukrainian national anthem, lowered the Ukrainian flag and left the base, he said. The White House urged Russia to open talks with the Ukrainian government. But in a statement, it also held the Russian military directly responsible for any casualties inflicted on Ukrainian military members -- whether from regular Russian troops or militias not wearing insignias. Crimea remarries -- but that divorce will be messy International monitors The incidents occurred as international observers were set to arrive in Ukraine to monitor the security and human rights situation, in a posting expected to last at least six months. But they will not enter the contested region of Crimea, a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry said, because this "became part of Russia." The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will eventually deploy a total of 100 observers throughout Ukraine in hopes of "reducing tensions and fostering peace, stability and security." They will also check that the rights of ethnic minorities are being protected. The OSCE may widen the mission to include 400 more monitors, and extend it for a second six-month period if requested by the Kiev government. Russia, which is one of the OSCE's 57 member states, approved the mission, according to state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti. Russia's Foreign Ministry said it hoped the observers' work would stop nationalist extremists, who Moscow says have a strong influence on Kiev's government, and protect linguistic rights. Many Ukrainians speak Russian as their native language. Russia has previously said it reserves the right to enter Ukrainian territory to protect ethnic Russians from what it says is a threat from ultranationalists and fascists. Meanwhile, European leaders have demanded that independent monitors be granted access to the Crimean Peninsula. OSCE monitors made multiple attempts to enter Crimea during the height of the crisis, when pro-Russian militias took control of the region. But armed men at the borders turned them back. Russia sanctions: EU should leave trade alone Claims on Crimea Ukraine, the United States and other Western powers maintain Crimea is still a part of Ukraine. "We must not allow a new division of Europe," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Saturday in Kiev, where he met with with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and acting President Oleksandr Turchynov. Russia insists its actions are legitimate. Crimea had belonged to Russia until 1954, when it was given to Ukraine. The region also has a majority ethnic Russian population and other long historic ties to Russia. Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based in the Crimean city of Sevastopol, making it strategically important to Moscow. Moscow has doggedly pursued its own course, even as Western leaders have denounced its actions as violations of Ukraine's sovereignty and a breach of international law. U.S. President Barack Obama plans to meet with leaders of the G7 group of industrialized nations this week to discuss Ukraine. Russia has been excluded from the talks on the sidelines of a nuclear summit in the Netherlands. A planned EU-Russia summit has also been canceled, as the West seeks to increase Moscow's isolation over its actions in Ukraine. EU leaders imposed a new round of sanctions against 12 individuals last week, bringing the total number of people facing EU asset freezes and travel bans to 33. The United States announced its own new round of sanctions against 20 individuals and a bank which U.S. officials say is linked to Putin and senior Russian officials. Washington had already announced sanctions on 11 individuals. "What we've seen the President do in recent weeks, and what we'll see him do this week, is bring the world together in support of Ukraine, to isolate Russia for its actions ... and reassure our partners and allies in NATO and Europe," Blinken said. Sanctions on Russia: Would World Cup boycott hit harder? Opinion: Putin's breathtaking lies about Russia Journalist Azad Safarov and CNN's Ivan Watson, Frederik Pleitgen, Laura Smith-Spark, Tom Watkins, Matt Smith and Ben Brumfield contributed to this report. 0 Comments » SHARE THIS Print Email More sharing

Missing Malaysia Airlines flight: New sighting of debris - Sydney Morning Herald Posted: 23 Mar 2014 07:32 AM PDT Video will begin in 5 seconds. Missing plane: French satellite spots debris A French satellite reveals a new sighting of objects in the Indian Ocean in the ongoing search for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane. PT0M48S http://www.smh.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-35blr 620 349 March 23, 2014 - 10:01PM Kuala Lumpur: A French satellite has revealed a new sighting of objects in the Indian Ocean, further raising hopes of finding the missing Malaysian Airlines airliner and unraveling one of the most baffling mysteries of modern aviation. French authorities say new satellite images show "potential objects" in Indian Ocean where Australia and China have already released images that shown possible debris from the Boeing 777. Malaysia late on Sunday sent the images to Australia's rescue co-ordination centre in Canberra. Indian Ocean search: Malaysia has reportedly handed over new satellite images from the French to Australia as the country heading the operation in the southern corridor. Photo: AP In a statement Malaysia's transport ministry said the images from the three countries "show potential objects, which may be related to MH370" in what they have identified as a southern search area that includes the vast expanses of the southern Indian Ocean. Advertisement "All this information has been forwarded to Australia, as the lead country in the area of concern," the statement said. Authorities in Kuala Lumpur did not release details of the size or of the location of the objects identified by French authorities. Since the plane disappeared they have released only scant information, angering relatives and friend of those on board. Malaysian officials spent six hours with relatives of Chinese passengers in Beijing on Sunday. "The government wishes to reiterate its commitment and continued engagement with the relatives of those on board MH370," the Malaysian government said in a statement. Malaysia Airlines has promised to fly relatives of the passengers to Perth if debris from the plane is found in the Indian Ocean. Perth would become the staging port for the recovery operation. Malaysian officials said a number of search flights due to depart Kuala Lumpur Sunday were cancelled because of Cyclone Gillian that has formed in the Indian Ocean. But they said two Indian search aircraft joined the search. Malaysian authorities cancelled a daily media briefing while search operations headquarters was moved from a hotel near Kuala Lumpur airport to the city centre. An official in Kuala Lumpur said the French sighted objects were in the same general area of the Australian and Chinese sightings. Co-ordinators of a 26-country search for the plane from Central Asia to the far southern reaches of the Indian Ocean are now focusing on how to scour the depths of the Indian Ocean if the objects are confirmed to be from MH370. The ocean is as deep as 7,000 metres in some places. The Australian Defence vessel Ocean Shield, which has a sub-sea remotely operated vehicle, is en-route to the area.

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China Satellite Detects Object in Jet Search Area - ABC News Posted: 22 Mar 2014 09:10 AM PDT While possible clues about the fate of a Malaysia Airlines jet missing for more than two weeks keep coming from satellite images, it was as frustrating as ever Saturday to turn the hints from space into actual sightings. China released a satellite image showing an object floating in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean near where planes and ships have been crisscrossing since similar images from an Australian satellite emerged earlier in the week. China's image, showing an object that appeared to be 22 meters (72 feet) by 13 meters (43 feet), was taken around noon Tuesday. "The news that I just received is that the Chinese ambassador received a satellite image of a floating object in the southern corridor and they will be sending ships to verify," Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters. Australian officials said the location was within the 36,000-square-kilometer (14,000-square-mile) area they searched on Saturday, but the object was not found. Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Andrea Hayward-Maher said she did not know whether the precise coordinates of the location had been searched, but added that coordinators will use the information to refine the search area. The authority, which is overseeing the search in the region, said a civil aircraft reported seeing a number of small objects in the search area, including a wooden pallet, but a New Zealand military plane diverted to the location found only clumps of seaweed. The agency said in a statement that searchers would keep trying to determine whether the objects are related to the lost plane. The latest satellite image is another clue in the baffling search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which dropped off air traffic control screens March 8 over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board. After about a week of confusion, Malaysian authorities said pings sent by the Boeing 777-200 for several hours after it disappeared indicated that the plane ended up in one of two huge arcs: a northern corridor stretching from Malaysia to Central Asia, or a southern corridor that stretches toward Antarctica. The discovery of two objects by the Australian satellite led several countries to send planes and ships to a stretch of the Indian Ocean about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) southwest of Australia. But three days of searching have produced no confirmed signs of the plane. One of the objects spotted in the earlier satellite imagery was described as 24 meters (almost 80 feet) in length and the other was 5 meters (15 feet). The Boeing 777-200 is about 64 meters (209 feet) long with a wingspan of 61 meters (199 feet) and a fuselage about 6.2 meters (20 feet) in diameter, according to Boeing's website. In a statement on its website announcing China's find, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense did not explain why it took four days to release the information. But there was a similar delay in the release of the Australian satellite images because experts needed time to examine them. Two military planes from China arrived Saturday in Perth to join Australian, New Zealand and U.S. aircraft in the search. Japanese planes will arrive Sunday and ships were in the area or on their way. Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the currents in the area typically move at about one meter (yard) per second but can sometimes move faster.

Michigan's first gay marriage performed Ingham County; couples line up in ... - Detroit Free Press Posted: 22 Mar 2014 08:36 AM PDT Michigan's first gay marriage performed in Ingham County; couples line up in Oakland Michigan's first gay marriage was performed shortly after 8 a.m. today by Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum at the historic courthouse in Mason. Glenna DeJong, 53, and Marsha Caspar, 52, both of A link to this page will be included in your message.

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Search for missing plane yields no results yet in 'pretty rough part of the world' - Washington Post Posted: 21 Mar 2014 09:16 AM PDT KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The world's largest hunt for a missing airliner has zeroed in on one of the most desolate corners of the planet, an area of ocean nearly two miles deep, swept by huge rolling swells and buffeted by strong winds known as the Roaring Forties. Trained observers on board five low-flying planes scoured the southern Indian Ocean by eye on Friday for objects — first spotted by satellite — that could be from Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished nearly two weeks ago with 239 passengers and crew on board. But a second day of searching failed to yield any results in the area that is as close to Antarctica as it is to Australia. "It's about the most inaccessible spot that you could imagine on the face of the earth," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters on a trip Friday to Papua New Guinea. "But if there is anything down there, we will find it." The search, however, is complicated by the fact that those satellite images were taken Sunday, meaning that any debris could since have moved more than 100 nautical miles in strong ocean currents and unpredictable eddies — or even sunk to the ocean floor at least 10,000 feet below the surface. To make matters worse, a series of weather fronts are expected to pass over the search area from Sunday, threatening stronger winds, rain, poor visibility and whitecaps on the ocean. Time is critical, not just to find anyone who might have survived, but also because if the Boeing 777 did indeed crash in that area, its black box will transmit a locating signal only for two to four more weeks before its battery runs out. The grainy satellite images published by Australia on Thursday showed two large objects bobbing in the ocean about 1,500 miles southwest of the city of Perth, in what officials called perhaps the most credible lead yet in the investigation into the fate of the plane. But there is no guarantee that those objects, around 80 and 15 feet long respectively, have not sunk by now. "Something that was floating on the sea that long ago may no longer be floating," Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters in Perth, according to the Reuters news agency. "It may have slipped to the bottom." Australia, the United States and New Zealand sent surveillance planes to survey the area where they believe the debris might have drifted Thursday, but low fog hampered the operation. The weather improved on Friday, with low cloud coverage but better visibility beneath the clouds. John Young of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said a radar survey of the search area Thursday has not yielded any results. As a result, Friday's effort was carried out as a visual-only search, with "low-flying aircraft and very highly trained and skilled observers looking out the aircraft windows." That means more planes, flying more closely together, would be needed, he said. Three Australian Orion surveillance planes and a U.S. Navy Poseidon were joined on Friday by a long-range corporate jet, with trained spotters at the windows, Young said. "Although the search area is much smaller than we started with, it nonetheless is a big area when you are looking out the window and trying to see something by eye, so we may have to do this a few times to be confident of our coverage of the search area," he said in a video released by AMSA. "We want to find these objects because they are the best lead to where we might find people to be rescued." The extreme conditions mean that even if the debris is confirmed to be part of the lost Malaysia Airlines plane, the search could be entering a still more difficult stage, one that could require years and tens of millions of dollars. Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, while cautioning that the debris was still unidentified, said he has asked select foreign countries to lend underwater acoustic equipment that could help locate the black box. He said he would also speak with U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to ask for further assistance. "This is going to be a long haul," Hishammuddin said. Japan is also sending two surveillance aircraft, while China is sending several ships and helicopters to the area. "Compared to what we saw yesterday, the visibility was great," Australian Flight Lt. Russell Adams told reporters Friday in Perth shortly after returning from the first flight of the day. "We have got a lot of hope, and if conditions remain as they are, hopefully we will find something soon." However, Friday's relatively benign weather in the area is unlikely to hold. The series of weather fronts expected to pass over the search area starting Sunday mean more low cloud cover, rain, winds reaching up to 30 to 40 knots, waves of up to 30 feet high and more whitecaps — all making it much harder to spot debris, according to Australian marine meteorologist Roger Badham. "Really, when you look at things in the next seven days, this afternoon and tomorrow are by far the best conditions we will see until the following weekend," he said. The Roaring Forties are named for their latitude and their strong westerly winds. When winter weather sets in around May, the seas will become significantly more inhospitable in the search area, Badham warned, with winds often surpassing 50 knots. "It's a pretty rough part of the world," he said. "The fronts there can be quite severe." Even if the debris is found and proves to have come from the missing Malaysian airliner, finding the main wreckage won't be easy. Complex calculations, bolstered by measurements of ocean currents, would be required to track back and estimate where the plane might have crashed, said David Gallo, who co-led the search for Air France Flight 447 in 2009 and is director of special projects at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Every piece of debris will move in different ways, adding another layer of complexity and uncertainty, he said. "Some might stand higher in the water, like a sailboat that will be moved around by the wind," Gallo said. "Others may be like icebergs, more underwater, and moved more by the currents. So they don't all end up in the same place. They scatter." Matthew England, of the Climate Change Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, warned that this was a deep area of the Indian Ocean with rapid and complex currents, above an ocean floor marked by "plenty of ridges and canyons." "It's an eddy-rich region," he said. "Which means that superimposed on the long-term average current are these little eddies that spawn off the current and have a life of their own," he said. "They pinch off a bit of water and might move counter to the main flow." Charitha Pattiaratchi, a professor of coastal oceanography at the University of Western Australia in Crawley, said his modeling of ocean currents suggested the debris could have drifted up to 310 miles to the west and 125 miles to the north between March 8, when the plane disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and March 20, when the airborne search began in the southern Indian Ocean. That means that even assuming the debris was found, ships equipped with sonar technology would have a huge area of ocean to search for signals from the plane's black box, in heavy seas and in a race against time before the built-in location beacon runs out of battery power. "Remember, the black box battery only lasts for a month, so you have now got a window of two weeks," he said. "I would be surprised if they find it in that period." When Air France Flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic in similarly deep water in June 2009, the first wreckage and bodies were pulled out of the ocean five days after the plane's disappearance. But searchers still needed two more years to locate the black box in an operation that cost tens of millions of dollars and used sophisticated underwater drones trawling the ocean floor. Experts said the remoteness and the ocean conditions, as well as the simple fact that so much time has passed since the Malaysia Airlines plane vanished, make the task significantly harder this time around. Gallo said the debris field for Air France 447 was "pretty large" and had moved only about 30 miles north of the plane's last position when it was found. "There was a committee of some of the smartest analysts trying to figure out where in the haystack these things were first coming from," he said. "But the place they first picked was the wrong one — and we spent two months looking in the wrong place."

Mrs. Obama Takes Stab at Ping-Pong Diplomacy - Wall Street Journal Posted: 21 Mar 2014 08:57 AM PDT BEIJING—U.S. first lady Michelle Obama took ping-pong diplomacy to a new level on Friday on her weeklong tour of China as the two countries try a new tactic to build trust in a often tense relationship. More than 40 years after the traditional Chinese game restarted the two countries' diplomatic relations, it was again called upon during Mrs. Obama's visit. Accompanied by her mother and two daughters, the U.S. first lady was...

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Obama Hits Russia With More Sanctions Amid 'Grave Concern' - ABC News Posted: 20 Mar 2014 09:07 AM PDT Seeking to intensify pressure on Russia, President Barack Obama on Thursday expanded U.S. economic sanctions against Moscow over its actions in Ukraine, targeting President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff and 19 other individuals as well as a Russian bank that provides them support. Obama, warning of more costs to come for the Kremlin if the situation worsens, said he also had signed an executive order that would allow the U.S. to penalize key sectors of the Russian economy, including its huge energy business. Officials said Obama could act on that authority if Russian forces press into other areas of Ukraine, an escalation of the crisis in Crimea. The president said the latest penalties were the result of "choices the Russian government has made, choices that have been rejected by the international community." "Russia must know that further escalation will only isolate it further from the international community," Obama said, speaking from the South Lawn of the White House. European Union leaders, too, said they would expand the number of people targeted with various sanctions and indicated they would cancel an EU-Russia summit. Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German parliament that if the crisis deepens in Crimea and Ukraine, the EU is prepared to move to economic sanctions on a higher level. Russia retaliated quickly by imposing entry bans on American lawmakers and senior White House officials. Among them were Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Obama's senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer and his deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, were also targets of the Russian entry bans. Boehner's office said the speaker was "proud to be included on a list of those willing to stand against Putin's aggression." The new American sanctions hit close advisers to Putin, including Sergei Ivanov, the Russian president's chief of staff and a longtime associate. Also targeted were Arkady Rotenberg and Gennady Timchenko, both lifelong Putin friends whose companies have amassed billions of dollars in government contracts. Also sanctioned: Bank Rossiya, a private bank that is owned by Yuri Kovalchuk, who is considered to be Putin's banker. The U.S. sanctions followed a first round of U.S. economic penalties ordered earlier in the week on 11 people the U.S. said were involved in the dispute in Ukraine. Russia moved its military into Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula three weeks ago and has since formally annexed the strategically important region into its borders. The U.S. has declared Russia's incursion into Crimea a violation of international law and does not recognize its annexation of the peninsula. Still, U.S. officials privately acknowledge that Russia is unlikely to give up Crimea. Instead, their top priority is keeping Russia from moving into other areas of Ukraine with pro-Russian populations. "The world is watching with grave concern as Russia has positioned its military in a way that could lead to further incursions into southern and eastern Ukraine," Obama said. Senior administration officials said the individuals targeted by Thursday's sanctions will have assets frozen in the United States, will be barred from doing any business in the U.S. and will be unable to make transactions in American dollars. The officials said some of those sanctioned are close associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Possible debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 spotted - CBS News Posted: 20 Mar 2014 08:58 AM PDT Last Updated Mar 20, 2014 8:22 AM EDT KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Four military search planes were dispatched Thursday to try to determine whether two large objects bobbing in a remote part of the Indian Ocean were part of a possible debris field from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight. One of the objects spotted in the satellite imagery was approximately 24 meters (79 feet) long, and another was thought to be about 5 meters (16.5 feet). There could be other objects in waters nearby in the area that's a four-hour flight from Australia's southwestern coast, said John Young, manager of Australian Maritime Safety Authority's emergency response division. "This is a lead, it's probably the best lead we have right now," said Young, while cautioning that the objects could also be seaborne debris along a key shipping route where containers periodically fall off cargo vessels. A satellite image taken on March 16, 2014 and released by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority shows debris believed to be possible wreckage from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the Indian Ocean, about 1,500 miles west of Perth. AMSA Young told a news conference in Canberra, Australia's capital, that planes had been sent to the area about 1,550 miles southwest of Perth to check on the objects. He said that satellite images "do not always turn out to be related to the search even if they look good, so we will hold our views on that until they are sighted close-up." He said one of the planes had arrived and dropped marker buoys to begin tracking the drift of objects in the ocean currents in the area. In all, four planes were sent -- two Australian, one from New Zealand and one American -- to try and find the two large objects spotted in satellite imagery bobbing in the ocean. Australian authorities said the first plane to reach the area was unable to locate the debris through clouds and rain, but that other planes would continue the hunt. Young said and Australian Navy vessel was en route to the area to try and collect the floating objects and determine conclusively whether they're linked to the missing passenger plane. That ship was "days" away. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had earlier told Parliament about the debris. Young said visibility was poor and may hamper efforts to find the objects. He said they "are relatively indistinct on the imagery ... but those who are experts indicate they are credible sightings. The indication to me is of objects that are a reasonable size and probably awash with water, moving up and down over the surface." CBS News' Bob Orr reported Thursday that the objects spotted on the satellite images were at the extreme southern end of the projected southern search corridor, so in an area where all earlier information suggested crews might expect to find the missing jet. He said it was conceivable that the largest object -- nearly 80 feet in length -- was one of the Boeing 777's wings. As the flight would have been near the end of its fuel supply in reaching the area, the fuel tanks in the wings would be close to empty, giving the wings added buoyancy. Military planes from Australia, the U.S. and New Zealand have been covering a search region over the southern Indian Ocean that was narrowed down from 232,000 square miles to 117,000 square miles. A map provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority on March 20, 2014, shows the area being searched after satellite images showed possible debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. AMSA The hunt for the Boeing 777 has been punctuated by several false leads since it disappeared March 8 above the Gulf of Thailand. Oil slicks that were spotted did not contain jet fuel. A yellow object thought to be from the plane turned out to be a piece of sea trash. Chinese satellite images showed possible plane debris, but nothing was found. But this is the first time that possible objects have been spotted since the search area was massively expanded into two corridors, one stretching from northern Thailand into Central Asia and the other from the Strait of Malacca down to southern reaches of the Indian Ocean. Abbott said he spoke to the prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, about the latest developments. Australia's envoy to Malaysia, Rod Smith, joined a meeting of senior Malaysia search officials at a Kuala Lumpur hotel after Abbott's announcement. Smith did not respond to reporters' questions. "As I've been doing from day one, I've followed every single lead. And this time, I hope it is a positive development," Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters CBS News has confirmed the FBI has been provided electronic data to analyze from a flight simulator belonging to the pilot of the missing jet. It is expected the hard drive will be brought to an FBI lab in the United States. This FBI is lending technical expertise, not taking over the investigation. Files containing records of flight simulations were deleted Feb. 3 from the device found in the home of the pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu said. It was not clear whether investigators thought that deleting the files was unusual. They might hold hints of unusual flight paths that could help explain where the missing plane went, or the files could have been deleted simply to clear memory for other material. Hishammuddin told a news conference Wednesday that Zaharie is considered innocent until proven guilty. He said members of the pilot's family are cooperating in the investigation. Zaharie was known to some within the online world of flight simulation enthusiasts. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation by name, said the FBI has been asked to analyze the deleted simulator files. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in Washington that the FBI was working with Malaysian authorities. He said U.S. investigators are prepared to help any way they can.. "At this point, I don't think we have any theories," he said. President Obama says finding out what happened to the missing Malaysia Airlines plane is a top priority for the U.S. "We have put every resource that we have available at the disposal of the search process," Obama said in an interview with Dallas-Fort Worth television station KDFW. He said the nation's thoughts and prayers were with the grieving families. Three Americans were aboard the flight. Flight 370 disappeared March 8 on a night flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysian authorities have not ruled out any possible explanation, but have said the evidence so far suggests the flight was deliberately turned back across Malaysia to the Strait of Malacca, with its communications systems disabled. They are unsure what happened next. Investigators have identified two giant arcs of territory spanning the possible positions of the plane about 7-and-a-half hours after takeoff, based on its last faint signal to a satellite - an hourly "handshake" signal that continues even when communications are switched off. The arcs stretch up as far as Kazakhstan in central Asia and down deep into the southern Indian Ocean. Police are considering the possibility of hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or anyone else on board, and have asked for background checks from abroad on all foreign passengers. © 2014 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Justice Department announces $1.2 billion settlement with Toyota - Fox News Posted: 19 Mar 2014 09:03 AM PDT Toyota has reached a $1.2 billion settlement with the U.S. government that ends a four-year criminal investigation into the automaker's response to safety issues, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Wednesday. Under the agreement, the company will admit that it misled U.S. consumers by making deceptive statements about two safety issues affecting its vehicles. As a result, Toyota will pay a $1.2 billion financial penalty under a "deferred prosecution agreement." Holder called Toyota's conduct in the matter "shameful," and said that the automaker showed "a blatant disregard for systems and laws designed to look after the safety of consumers. By the company's own admission, it protected its brand ahead of its own customers. This constitutes a clear and reprehensible abuse of the public trust." The settlement represents the largest penalty of its kind imposed on an automotive company by the U.S. Holder added that "other car makers should not make Toyota's mistake," while U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara underlined this point, saying that Toyota's public admissions should be a warning to other automakers. In a statement early Wednesday, Toyota said it has "cooperated with the U.S. Attorney's office in this matter for more than four years" and had "made fundamental changes to become a more responsive and customer-focused organization, and we are committed to continued improvements." The criminal investigation focused on whether Toyota was forthright in reporting problems related to unintended acceleration troubles. Starting in 2009, Toyota issued massive recalls, mostly in the U.S., totaling more than 10 million vehicles for various problems including faulty brakes, gas pedals and floor mats. From 2010 through 2012, Toyota Motor Corp. paid fines totaling more than $66 million for delays in reporting unintended acceleration problems. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration never found defects in electronics or software in Toyota cars, which had been targeted as a possible cause. The settlement continues a string of bad publicity for Toyota, which before the unintended acceleration cases had a bulletproof image of reliability. Since the cases surfaced, the company's brand image has been damaged and it has lost U.S. market share as competition has intensified. Last year, Toyota agreed to pay more than $1 billion to resolve hundreds of lawsuits claiming that owners of its cars suffered economic losses because of the recalls. But that settlement did not include wrongful death and injury lawsuits that have been consolidated in California state and federal courts. In December, Toyota filed court papers after a four-year legal battle saying that it's in settlement talks on nearly 400 U.S. lawsuits, but other cases aren't included in the talks. The negotiations come less than two months after an Oklahoma jury awarded $3 million in damages to the injured driver of a 2005 Camry and to the family of a passenger who was killed. The ruling was significant because Toyota had won all previous unintended acceleration cases that went to trial. It was also the first case where attorneys for plaintiffs argued that the car's electronics — in this case the software connected to a midsize Camry's electronic throttle-control system — were the cause of the unintended acceleration. At the time, legal experts said the Oklahoma verdict might cause Toyota to consider a broad settlement of the remaining cases. Until then, Toyota had been riding momentum from several trials where juries found it was not liable. Toyota has blamed drivers, stuck accelerators or floor mats that trapped the gas pedal for the acceleration claims that led to the big recalls of Camrys and other vehicles. The company has repeatedly denied its vehicles are flawed. No recalls have been issued related to problems with onboard electronics. In the Oklahoma case, Toyota attorneys theorized that the driver mistakenly pumped the gas pedal instead of the brake when her Camry ran through an intersection and slammed into an embankment. But after the verdict, jurors told AP they believed the testimony of an expert who said he found flaws in the car's electronics. Toyota also had to pay millions for recalls, as well as a series of fines totaling $68 million to the NHTSA, the U.S. government's road safety watchdog, for being slow to report acceleration problems. Still, the payments won't hurt Toyota's finances very much. In its last fiscal quarter alone, Toyota posted a $5.2 billion profit, crediting a weak yen and strong global sales. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Early rounds fired in sanctions war - BBC News Posted: 19 Mar 2014 09:01 AM PDT 18 March 2014 Last updated at 05:50 Article written by Gavin Hewitt Europe editor More from Gavin Follow Gavin on Twitter If Russia formally annexes Ukraine on the basis of the weekend referendum further sanctions will be imposed All sanctions are intended to persuade, to change minds and to raise the cost of courses of action. President Putin and his close circle will on Monday have been watching Brussels and Washington, trying to decipher their determination to hurt Russia over its actions in Crimea. The acid test is whether the steps of the West carry conviction and reflect resolve. EU foreign ministers have taken a cautious, modest step. Putin's 'inner circle' Twenty-one Russians and Ukrainians have been targeted for asset-freezes and travel bans. Ukraine has announced a partial mobilisation of its forces and requested equipment from Nato Tensions are high in the east of Ukraine. especially in the city of Donetsk All the time there is the risk of an outbreak of violence in the country The US has given itself the right to impose sanctions on named officials of the Russian government But the ministers decided against cancelling a scheduled EU-Russian summit later in the year. Meanwhile, the US government has imposed financial sanctions on 11 Russians and Ukrainians whom it holds responsible for the operation in Crimea. It has also given itself the right to impose sanctions on named officials of the Russian government and any designated individual or entity that operates with the Russian arms industry. Economy 'in crisis' The next round comes on Tuesday when President Putin addresses both houses of the Russian parliament. Russia's weak point is its economy If he moves to formally annexe Crimea on the basis of the weekend referendum that will trigger further sanctions from the EU at their summit on Thursday and Friday. But these are the early rounds. Another step would be to target those in President Putin's inner circle. Everyone knows the real question is whether the EU is prepared to move towards economic sanctions that affect Russian exports and business. Such measures can take many forms, including the full sanctions that did such harm to the Iranian economy. Russia has begun laying out its vision to end the crisis We are a long way from that point. It would require a unanimous decision from the 28 EU members and there are many doubters. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that any measures must leave "ways and possibilities open to prevent a further escalation that could lead to the division of Europe". His Dutch counterpart said he would "do anything possible to avoid sanctions because I believe everybody will suffer". Italy, Spain and Greece - among others - would take a lot of persuading. But that is the dilemma for Europe - it will only carry conviction if it is prepared to accept some pain itself. And Russia's weak point is its economy. Its Deputy Economy Minister, Sergei Belyakov, said on Monday that "the economy shows clear signs of a crisis". The Russian Central Bank has so far spent more than $16bn (£9.5bn) defending the rouble. Long way apart Russia has begun laying out its vision to end the Ukraine crisis. It envisages an international support group - but Ukraine would have to recognise Crimea's secession. Kiev would have to adopt a new constitution upholding Ukraine's military and political neutrality. Although the Europeans have asked for a "contact group", the two sides are far apart. And all the time there is the risk of an outbreak of violence. Ukraine has announced a partial mobilisation of its forces and requested equipment from Nato. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Monday: "I wouldn't describe it as a new Cold War, but of course this will depend on the course of events over the coming days."

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