Search for MH370 reaches calmer waters as Malaysia reaffirms commitment

KUALA LUMPUR, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Fresh objects floating in the southern Indian Ocean has renewed hopes for families of those aboard the missing Malaysian flight MH370 but uncertainty still surrounds even three weeks after its disappearance.

Orange items over two meters have been spotted in the remote Indian ocean region where search operations are ongoing but they are yet to be confirmed as belonging to MH370.

Search for the missing flight resumed on Monday with 10 aircraft and 10 ships. Australia who is spearheading the search operations has insisted that they will continue expanding the search until debris are found.

Australian navy ship Ocean Shield, fitted with a "black box" detector and an autonomous underwater vehicle, is also engaged in the search and officials are battling the clock as they attempt to uncover the plane's black box, the flight data recorder, whose batteries are designed to last about 30 days.

The plane, with 239 passengers and crew on board, disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8.

Relatives of the 239 passengers and crew have begun arriving in Kuala Lumpur seeking more information from Malaysian officials. They have also requested that officials continue to search for survivors no matter how remote it is.

Malaysia's Acting Transportation Minister Hishamuddin Hussein who met relatives on Saturday assured greater engagement and agreed not to close the door on the possibility of survivors.

He also called for calm from relatives as emotions ran high between them and the Malaysian government. "As long as there is even a remote chance of survival we will pray and do whatever it takes," he promised.

"What they (families) want is a commitment on our part to continue the search, and that I have given," Hishammuddin said. " For me, as the minister responsible, this is the hardest part of my life at the moment," he told reporters.

"Miracles do happen, remote or otherwise, and that is the hope that the families want me to convey -- not only to the Malaysian government, MAS (Malaysia Airlines), but also to the world at large."

An international panel on aviation security along with a parliament select committee may be appointed by the Malaysian government to probe overall airline safety.

Steps are also being taken to step up security in the entire aviation industry in the long term. "On the point of responsibility I've indicated that not only the Malaysian air force is doing the panel of inquiry, the Ministry of Transport is coming up with an international panel, which is being formed at the moment. The Malaysian government is to decide whether it would have a parliamentary select committee or royal commission and I believe all our partners would like to see what we have discovered through this exercise," he said.

Hishammuddin pointed out that aviation industry stakeholders including Boeing, Rolls Royce, the FBI, Chinese agencies and AAIB from Britain are involved in the search operations, which made the right platform to also discuss future security measures for the aviation industry. "You practically got everyone in the aviation industry involved. This is the best time for everybody to relook, not only at the aviation landscape but also on the issue of security and defense."

Meanwhile, arrangements to fly families of passengers to Perth will only be done after recovered debris is confirmed as from MH370.

Releasing a short statement, Malaysia Airlines clarified it will be making arrangements to fly family members to Perth, only once it has been authoritatively confirmed that the physical wreckage found is that of MH370. "Arrangements will be made as soon as the relevant government agencies have provided clearances for Malaysia Airlines to bring family members to the site where aircraft wreckage will be kept," the statement added.

The statement said a Family Assistance Centre (FAC) will be established in Perth. The FAC will become the focal point for all activities that have been planned for the families including briefings, religious and prayer services. "Malaysia Airlines is fully committed to supporting all efforts by the relevant foreign governments who continue to search for and recover the aircraft, and it continues to cooperate with all authorities involved in the investigation."

The Malaysian government has ordered the country's Attorney General to look into the legal implications of flight MH370 including possible claims of compensation.

Malaysia's powerful Cabinet of Ministers during a meeting on Friday morning decided to alert the Attorney General's department to consider all the legal repercussions that could be faced by the government or Malaysian airlines.

Malaysian airlines is separately consulting lawyers to obtain legal advice on how to proceed with the potential financial compensation that could be demanded from the 239 families of those on board the Boeing 777 flight. "We are obviously talking to various legal parties and also the families on this. So far what we have been requested, especially for the family members, is to identify the evidence affirmatively. That means they are still looking for evidence of the aircraft, so that is why search operations have been focused on," Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said in response to questions at the media briefing.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), which oversees the search, announced Friday that the search area was being shifted about 1,100 km to the northeast on what was said to be a credible new lead developed from a refined analysis of satellite and radar monitoring of the aircraft before it vanished.

Can Michigan continue hot shooting today vs. Kentucky?

INDIANAPOLIS — It doesn’t seem possible.

It’s critical for Michigan to shoot well from long range to beat Kentucky today in the NCAA regional final at Lucas Oil Stadium. But after two straight games topping 50% from three-point range, it is possible for them to match or even exceed that today? Recently for the Wolverines, the second game of a weekend often is often played at a higher level. Recall their dominant play against Texas last weekend and last year’s VCU, Florida and the strong start against Louisville in the national title game. “I just think it’s natural, once you’re in here, you’ve practiced twice, played a game, a shoot-around, you extra time, so the background

settings, the surroundings, become a little more familiar each time you come in,” U-M assistant coach LaVall Jordan said. “It’s not like playing at home but you get a little more comfortable each time.

The biggest external challenge to the Wolverines may not be the shooting background or the elevated floor at Lucas Oil Stadium, but instead the crowd, expected to be heavily slanted to the Wildcats with the Big Blue Nation taking over.

“Thank goodness we’ve had a pretty good road record this season,” Jordan said, as U-M is 15-6 away from home, 7-4 in true road games, which this may feel like. “They’re going to come out. But our fans are going to come out too, so we’ll see if we can match it.”

North and South Korea Trade Fire as Residents Evacuate

SEOUL, South Korea March 31, 2014 (AP)

By HYUNG-JIN KIM and JUNG-YOON CHOI Associated Press

South Korean marine LVT-7 landing craft sail to shores through smoke screens during the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises called Ssangyong, part of the Foal Eagle military exercises, in Pohang, South Korea, March 31, 2014.

Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo

North and South Korea fired artillery shells into each other's waters Monday, a flare-up of animosity between the rivals that forced residents of five front-line South Korean islands to evacuate to shelters, South Korean officials said.

The South Korean artillery fire came after shells from a North Korean live-fire drill fell south of the Koreas' disputed western sea boundary, an official with South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. No shells from either side were fired at any land or military installations, said the official, who provided no other details and spoke on condition of anonymity because of office rules.

The exchange of fire followed Pyongyang's earlier, unusual announcement that it would conduct live-fire drills in seven areas north of the poorly marked Yellow Sea boundary between the countries. North Korea routinely test-fires artillery and missiles into the ocean, but it's rare for the country to disclose such training plans in advance. The announcement was seen as an expression of Pyongyang's frustration at making little progress in its recent push to win outside aid.

In addition to sending residents of five front-line South Korean islands to shelters, Lee Han-seok, an official with Ongjin county, which governs the islands, also said that ferry service linking the islands to the mainland was stopped.

Kang Myeong-sung, speaking from a shelter on Yeonpyeong island, which is in sight of North Korean territory, said he hadn't seen any fighter jets but heard the boom of artillery fire. In 2010, North Korean artillery killed four South Koreans on Yeonpyeong. Pyongyang said it was responding to earlier South Korean drills in disputed waters.

The North in recent weeks has increased threatening rhetoric and conducted a series of rocket and ballistic missile launches that are considered acts of protest against annual ongoing springtime military exercises by Seoul and Washington. The North calls the South Korea-U.S. drills a rehearsal for invasion; the allies say they're routine and defensive.

Pyongyang threatened Sunday to conduct a fourth nuclear test at some point, though Seoul says there are no signs of an imminent detonation. Wee Yong-sub, a deputy spokesman at the South Korean Defense Ministry, said the North Korean warning about the live-fire drills Monday was a "hostile" attempt to heighten tension on the Korean Peninsula.

A woman who runs a lodging facility on another front-line island, Baengnyeong, said from a shelter that she was still hearing the sounds of artillery fire about 90 minutes after the North began its live-fire drills.

The western sea boundary has been the scene of several bloody naval skirmishes between the Koreas in recent years, including the 2010 artillery attack by the North.

Last spring, tension spiked after a near-daily barrage of North Korean threats, including warnings of nuclear strikes against Seoul and Washington, following international criticism of Pyongyang's third nuclear test in February of last year. The North has since gradually dialed down its threats and sought improved ties with South Korea in what foreign analysts say is an attempt to lure international investment and aid. There has been no major breakthrough in the North's reported push to win outside aid, however, with Washington and Seoul calling on the North to first take disarmament steps to prove its sincerity about improving ties, analysts say.

The North Korean live-fire drills and the country's hints at a nuclear test are meant to express anger and frustration over what the North sees as little improvement in progress in its ties with South Korea and the U.S., said Lim Eul Chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea's Kyungnam University. Lim said the North might conduct a fourth nuclear test and launch other provocations to try to wrest the outside concessions it wants.

The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 American troops are deployed in South Korea to deter potential aggression from North Korea.

Judge overrules Samsung objection to jury video depicting Apple devices

Samsung argued that the instructional video for jurors suggested that Apple's products were patentable and innovative

By John Ribeiro, IDG News Service

March 31, 2014, 12:14 AM — U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh on Sunday overruled Samsung Electronics' objections to showing jurors a recent instructional video on how patents work, ahead of a trial in a patent dispute between Apple and Samsung.

The South Korean company claimed that the video suggested at a minimum that Apple's products are patentable and innovative. The new video, called "The Patent Process: An Overview for Jurors," was developed by the Federal Judicial Center to provide jurors with an introduction to the patent system, and was posted to YouTube in November last year.

Samsung on Friday objected to the FJC video which it said includes several scenes in which Apple products are depicted and used. It recommended that the jurors be shown an earlier video that was also shown to the jury in another patent dispute between Apple and Samsung in the court, and does not feature products and brands at issue in the trial.

A note from the FJC to the November 2013 video states that individual judges will want to review it and consult with counsel before deciding whether to use it in a particular case, Samsung said in its filing.

At the 2:55 mark on the new video, for example, a series of Apple products are shown, including an iPad, a newer model of a laptop computer, and an iPhone, Samsung said. "The narration during this portion of the video addresses how the disclosure of a patent may 'inspire new inventions,'" Samsung's counsel wrote in a filing to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose division.

"At the 4:35 mark, the requirements that a patent be new, useful and non-obvious are shown on the screen in front of a still image of an Apple computer," the counsels wrote in the filing.

"At a minimum, the video strongly suggests that Apple's products are innovative and patentable," Samsung's attorneys wrote. Showing the jury such a video would be prejudicial to Samsung and threaten the impartiality of the jury, according to the filing. In her order on Sunday, Judge Koh wrote that the parties shall bring the November 2013 version of the video, and shall include a handout referenced in the video in the jury binders. In the lawsuit, Apple claims that Samsung infringed five of its patents in 10 models of phones and tablets, while Samsung has counterclaimed that Apple has infringed on two of its patents in nine phones and tablets.

The case covers some of both companies' better known and recent smartphone and tablet models such as the Galaxy S III and the fourth-generation iPad. On Monday, the two parties are expected to start with jury selection.

Facebook Will Build Drones and Satellites to Beam Internet Around the World

Mark Zuckerberg is putting together a lab where a team of Facebook engineers will build flying drones, satellites, and infrared lasers capable of beaming internet connections to people down here on earth.

Revealed this afternoon by the Facebook CEO and founder, it’s known as the Facebook Connectivity Lab. According to Zuckerberg, the lab’s engineering staff already spans “many of the world’s leading experts in aerospace and communications technology,” including researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA’s Ames Research Center, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. And the company is now adding engineers from a British company called Ascenta, an outfit that helped create the world’s longest solar-powered unmanned aircraft.

All this may seem like a stretch for a social networking company. But it’s a necessary part of Zuckerberg’s efforts to bring the net to the vast parts of the world that still don’t have it — an effort known as Internet.org that makes an awful lot of sense for a company whose continued expansion depends on the continued expansion of the net. And though the general public may not realize it, Facebook has a long history with building new hardware that can advance its cause. The company declined to comment on the lab, but it confirms that the lab will be run by Yael Maguire, the former MIT Media Lab researcher who played a big role in the Open Compute Project, Facebook’s effort to build a more efficient breed of computer servers and data centers for driving its web and mobile services.

Hinted at in earlier press reports, Facebook’s flying-internet efforts mirror a similar project that’s underway at Google. Known as Project Loon, it seeks to provide internet access to the hinterlands through high-altitude balloons. Like Facebook, Google stands to benefit in big ways if the net expands. The original services built by these two web giants are now used by enormous swaths of the online population, and eventually, the companies must push into an entirely new audience. As public companies, they’re under enormous pressure to continue the growth of their businesses — in perpetuity. In addition to Loon, Google is looking to expand the reach of high-speed internet landlines through a service called Google Fiber.

According to post on the website by Internet.org — a consortium that also includes such tech outfits as Samsung, Ericsson, Nokia, and Qualcomm — the new Facebook lab is exploring the possibility of using solar-powered high-altitude planes to provide internet access in suburban areas. These could “stay aloft for months, be quickly deployed and deliver reliable internet connections,” the site says. Then, for more remote areas, the lab is looking towards low-orbiting satellites. In both cases, it aims to beam internet access to the people using what’s called free-space optical communication, or FSO. Basically, this is a way of transmitting data through infrared lasers.

Facebook’s announcement comes two days after the company acquired a startup called Oculus, saying it would use the startup’s gaming headset as a way of moving its social network into the world of virtual reality. Compared to that, the Connectivity Lab is a rather straightforward business move. On Tuesday, while discussing the Oculus buy, Zuckerberg painted both projects as platforms that represent not the near future of Facebook, but the distant future.

4 p.m. update: Crews continue to battle Secret fire

A 6-acre fire burns Saturday 20 miles southwest of Flagstaff within the Secret Mountain Wilderness. (Coconino National Forest Service/Courtesy)

4 p.m. update:

The Secret fire, at the rim near Secret Mountain about 20 miles southwest of Flagstaff remains at about 6 acres as of 10 a.m. today. According to information from the U.S. Forest Service, the fire remains at 6 acres in size with visible smoke and is 30 percent contained. Nearly 40 Forest Service fire personnel are on scene including the Mesa Hotshots from the Tonto National Forest. Firefighters worked today on dropping snags and catching some spots thrown by the wind. Firefighters experienced strong southwest winds with gusts up to 50 mph and low relative humidity levels.

A line is in place on all sides of the fire.

The cause of the fire is still unknown. A red flag warning has been issued for northern Arizona, and temporary flight restrictions above the area are in place.

7 a.m. Sunday:

Today will be very windy across northern Arizona, with gusts up to 55 mph and visibility reduced to a quarter-mile in some areas due to blowing dust. Meanwhile, a hot shot crew will be on the scene of a 6-acre wildfire that broke out southwest of Flagstaff Saturday but was under control by evening.

The National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning starting at 10 this morning for an area starting just east of Flagstaff and extending to the New Mexico border. Blowing dust will affect travel along the Interstate 40 corridor, and low relative humidity will create fire weather conditions north of the Mogollon Rim.

Winds will subside after midnight, with the rest of the week facing unsettled weather and highs in the low 50s.

A wildfire Saturday 20 miles southwest of Flagstaff within the Secret Mountain Wilderness was reported at 9 a.m. The smoke was visible from Flagstaff and the fire had reached 6 acres in size by the evening.

Heather Noel, a Forest Service spokesperson, said 19 firefighters responded to the remote site and had encircled the blaze with a fireline by nightfall. A National Park Service helicopter dropped water on the fire.

Noel said firefighters were expected to remain on scene overnight, and a type 2 hot shot crew will arrive in the morning as a precaution because of the high winds in the forecast.

Noel said no cause of the fire has been determined, but campers are reminded that all campfires must be out and cold to the touch before leaving a campsite.

Debris reports offer 'more hope,' but still no confirmation of Flight 370's end

By Michael Pearson, Greg Botelho and Jethro Mullen, CNN March 29, 2014 -- Updated 0147 GMT (0947 HKT)

(CNN) -- Three weeks after Malaysia Airlines Flights 370 set off from Kuala Lumpur, search aircraft set off Saturday from Australia -- hoping to, finally, find the Boeing 777 in the southern Indian Ocean where experts now believe it ended up.

The area that search teams -- including a Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 and an Australian P-3 Orion that set off Saturday morning from Perth -- are now focusing on is 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the northeast from where they'd been concentrating for more than a week, and it's closer to the Australian coast. This change is thanks to a new analysis of satellite data that Australian authorities say show the commercial airliner could not have flown as far south as once thought.

Saturday's renewed search comes days after Japan and Thailand both said they'd sent new satellite images to Malaysia showing separate debris fields that could be related to the plane, which vanished with 239 people aboard. Air Vice-Marshal Kevin Short, commander of Joint Forces New Zealand, told CNN's Erin Burnett five of the dispatched aircraft "located debris in their search area" on Friday. Some of the spottings were "hundreds of miles away" from each other, although Short said this vast expanse is "not unusual" given the ocean conditions and the time passed since the airplane's purported crash.

That includes 11 small objects spotted by one of his military's P-3 planes. CNN's Kyung Lah, who went out on a U.S. Navy P-8 search plane Friday, said the crew of that plane spotted white objects, orange rope and a blue bag. "At one point, sure, everybody on board got a little excited, but it's impossible to tell from that distance what anything is," she said.

Aircraft setting off Saturday will try to relocate those objects, take photos of them for analysis, and direct four ships in the area "to their exact location," according to Short.

But again, the world must wait -- there's no confirmation that anything spotted from the air so far has anything to do with the missing airliner, which authorities have been hunting since early March.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority stressed what's been detected so far "cannot be verified or discounted as being from MH370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships," six of which are to arrive Saturday in the new search area. They could be flotsam, like one distinctive piece of fishing gear spotted in the revised zone. This was not the first time it turned out suspected debris ended up being unrelated to the mystery plane: A Chinese aircraft reported spotting possible aircraft debris early in the search, but that sighting turned out to be nothing. Still, Short said, "Finding debris ... gives a lot more hope."

Malaysia plane saga: Your questions answered Better conditions

The new search zone remains vast -- roughly 123,000 square miles (319,000 square kilometers). It is still also remote -- 1,150 miles (1,850 kilometers) west of Perth.

But John Young of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said conditions there are "likely to be better more often" than they were in the old search area, where poor weather grounded flights two days this week.

Planes will be able to spend more time in the air because the new search zone is closer to land, Young said. U.S. flight crews involved in the search aren't frustrated or disillusioned by the sudden change in the search, Cmdr. William Marks of the Navy's U.S. 7th Fleet said.

"For the pilots and the air crews, this is what they train for," he said. "They understand it." Marks told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Friday night that finding the debris is just part of the goal. Oceanographers could then analyze data about current, winds and more, then, to chart where they believe the bulk of the plane lies deep underwater "Finding the debris in of itself is OK. But it's working backwards to that starting point," Marks said aboard the USS Blue Ridge. "And this area will be, hopefully, much better (than the previous search area) for that." If and when the body of the 777 is found, the question still remains: Why did it go down? That may not be answered until investigators undertake the arduous process of retrieving the aircraft and trying to, literally, piece together what happened to it.

Wasted time? Some analysts have raised their eyebrows at the sudden search area shift. "Really? That much debris and we're not going to have a look at it to see what that stuff might be?" said David Gallo of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who helped lead the search for the flight recorders from Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.

Others lamented the amount of time, money and resources that were spent in the old search area. "This is time that has been wasted, there's no question," said CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien. Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein disputed that suggestion.

"I don't think we would've done anything different from what we have done," he said. CNN safety analyst David Soucie said it was "a good sign" that experts had adjusted their assumptions. "Assumptions are the key to all of this," he said. "If you assume something and you end up with a final conclusion, you have to constantly review that."

Vast, evolving search The shifting hunt for Flight 370 has spanned oceans and continents.

It started in the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, where the plane went out of contact with air traffic controllers. When authorities learned of radar data suggesting the plane had turned west across the Malay Peninsula after losing contact, they expanded the search into the Strait of Malacca.

When those efforts proved fruitless, the search spread north into the Andaman Sea and northern Indian Ocean. It then ballooned dramatically after Malaysia announced March 15 that satellite data showed the plane could have flown along two huge arcs, one stretching northwest into the Asian landmass, the other southwest into the Indian Ocean. The search area at that point reached nearly 3 million square miles.

On Monday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that further analysis of the data had led authorities to conclude the plane went down in the southern Indian Ocean, far from land. Malaysian officials told the families of those on board that nobody would have survived. But many relatives have said that only the discovery of wreckage from the plane will convince them of the fate of their loved ones.

Russia shrugs off G8 snub as US, allies raise alarm over troop buildup

The U.S. and its allies announced Monday that they would, for now, exclude Russia from the G8 and boycott a planned summit in Sochi in retaliation over its Crimea takeover -- though Russia's government shrugged off the latest efforts to isolate the country.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit at The Hague, reportedly said it would not be a "big problem" if the G8 does not convene.

"If our western partners believe the format has exhausted itself, we don't cling to this format," he said, according to Reuters. He spoke as all members of the G8 group except for Russia -- known as the G7 -- met at The Hague on Monday to strategize over Moscow's aggression against Ukraine, amid concerns about a Russian troop buildup.

In a joint statement following that meeting, the leaders of the G7 nations warned that Russia's actions "will have significant consequences" and that they "remain ready to intensify actions ... that will have an increasingly significant impact on the Russian economy, if Russia continues to escalate this situation."

The statement announced that the G7 nations would not go to Sochi in June, and said they would "suspend" participation in the G8 "until Russia changes course and the environment comes back to where the G-8 is able to have a meaningful discussion." They said the June meeting would be held in Brussels instead of Sochi.

Though Russia so far has absorbed targeted sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union over Crimea, western leaders are urging Moscow not to make any further advances. President Obama, who began a tour of European cities on Monday with his meetings at The Hague, last week threatened to impose broad economic sanctions on Russia if the country does not stand down.

Secretary of State John Kerry met for a little over an hour with Lavrov in The Netherlands, and once again urged Russia to "de-escalate the situation."

According to State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, Kerry voiced concern about the "massing of a large number of Russian forces on the border and of the treatment of Ukrainian military forces, including many Ukrainian servicemembers who are missing." She also reiterated that the U.S. is "not going to Sochi" for the previously scheduled summit.

The warnings about further Russian incursions into Ukraine have mounted as Ukrainian officials say Moscow may be preparing for an attack.

Lavrov met for the first time Monday with his Ukrainian counterpart to discuss the crisis. Before the meeting, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia said the Ukrainian government has remained concerned about a Russian military buildup near Ukraine's border.

"The possibility of a military invasion is very high. We are very much worried about this concentration of troops on our eastern border," he said.

Meanwhile, ending days of wavering, Ukraine's fledgling government also ordered troops to pull back Monday from Crimea itself.

Putin's government moved with startling swiftness in annexing Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula last week following a referendum which the U.S. and other western governments decried as illegitimate. The U.S. and European Union have moved forward with modest sanctions, largely focused on individuals, but those efforts have not tempered the Russian government's advances.

According to AFP, Ukrainian leaders voiced concern that Putin could move beyond Crimea.

"The aim of Putin is not Crimea but all of Ukraine... His troops massed at the border are ready to attack at any moment," National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy reportedly told a crowd in Kiev.

Obama began his high-stakes tour through Europe with Russia at the top of the agenda.

"We're united in imposing a cost on Russia for its actions so far," Obama said after meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Officially, nuclear terrorism is the main topic for world leaders at the summit -- the third since Obama launched the series in 2009. It opened with Japan announcing it would turn over to the U.S. more than 700 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium and a supply of highly-enriched uranium, a victory for Obama's efforts to secure nuclear materials around the world.

But in another sign of how the Ukraine crisis was overshadowing diplomacy on other fronts, Putin declined to attend, sending his foreign minister instead.

Rutte said Russia's attempts to annex Crimea are "a flagrant breach" of international law. "The presence of so many international leaders in the Netherlands this week presents an important opportunity for the international community to discuss this subject as well as other pressing issues that affect our common interest," Rutte said.

Obama also met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. On Tuesday, Obama has planned a joint meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye, a session preceded by a sitdown with Prince Mohamed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the richest emirate in the United Arab Emirates federation.

The two-day nuclear summit was the long-scheduled draw for Obama's visit to The Netherlands, but the headline event Monday was a Ukraine-focused, hurriedly scheduled meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized economies -- the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

Discussion among Obama and his G7 counterparts centered on economic aid to Ukraine, while at the same time seeking to segregate Putin from the exclusive group, which Russia usually joins in Group of Eight meetings.

MH370 Malaysia plane: No debris found as search day ends

By BBC News Asia

10:39 AM 3/21/2014

Jonathan Head says a military base in Western Australia is leading the hunt

The second day of an international search for a missing Malaysian airliner has concluded without any sightings of debris in the southern Indian Ocean.

The operation is due to start again on Saturday. with extra vessels joining the search, Australian officials say. Five aircraft took part in Friday's search for flight MH370, which vanished on 8 March with 239 people on board. Satellite images have revealed objects possibly related to the plane in waters far south-west of Western Australia. Bad weather had initially hampered Thursday's operation, but conditions improved on Friday. Experts have warned that the searchers face extremely treacherous seas and that a recovery operation would be very dangerous.

'Gut-wrenching business' Operations were halted on Friday at nightfall , the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) confirmed. It added that an Australian navy ship, the HMAS Success, was on its way to the search area. In an earlier press conference, Malaysian authorities said the vessel was expected to "reach the vicinity of the objects tomorrow [Saturday]".

Australian authorities said one of the objects on the satellite images was 24m in size,

The objects were seen on satellite images dated 16 March and assessed by experts

Other countries deploying additional assets included China, Japan and the United Kingdom, Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said. He added that a French delegation was also assisting "with their considerable experience and expertise". The team "includes a man who led the investigation into the Air France (Flight) 447 crash", Mr Hussein said. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott earlier described the search as "a gut-wrenching business for so many people, not least those who are charged with keeping their citizens safe".

Tony Abbott: "If there is anything down there, we will find it"

"It's about the most inaccessible spot that you can imagine on the face of the earth, but if there is anything down there, we will find it," said Mr Abbott, who is currently visiting Papua New Guinea.

"We owe it to the families of those people (on board) to do no less."

But he also cautioned that the objects spotted by the satellites could be unrelated to the plane.

Flight MH370 was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it lost contact with air traffic controllers and disappeared from radar. Satellite data has led to a search in two corridors to the north and south of its last known location in the Malacca Straits - the opposite direction from its flight path.

The St Petersburg, a Norwegian merchant ship, was the first vessel to reach the area

Malaysian officials say they believe the plane was intentionally diverted. Authorities in many countries have scrutinised the backgrounds of both passengers and crew on board but say they have no substantive leads.

Other reports of debris to date have proved not to be linked to the missing plane.

Four military planes, including three Orions belonging to the Royal Australian Air Force, were taking part in the search, Amsa said. A civilian Bombardier Global Express is also involved.

The aircraft are searching a 23,000 sq km area, about 2,500 km (1,550 miles) south-west of Perth, Amsa said.

Each aircraft is able to search for no more than two hours, due to the distance from land.

China said it was sending three navy vessels to the search area. It also has an icebreaker in Perth that could join the search, its National Maritime Search and Rescue Centre said.

Two merchant ships have also joined the search.

'False information'

On Thursday, Malaysian authorities described the debris sighting as a "credible lead".

The largest object appeared to be 24m (78ft) in size, the Australian authorities said.

Correspondents say many families are hoping the objects are not debris from the plane, as they are holding on to hope that their relatives could be alive somewhere.

Wen Wancheng, whose 33-year-old son Wen Yongsheng was on the plane, said: "What wreckage? In a few days they are going to say it's not true.

"[The Malaysian authorities] need to stop giving us false information. I simply don't believe them any more."

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Fox sets 'Wolverine' and 'Fantastic Four' release dates through 2018

By Jeff Labrecque on Mar 21, 2014 at 9:54AM

10:39 AM 3/21/2014

t’s never too early to make movie plans. Especially when you’re a studio with a billion-dollar franchise at stake. 20th Century Fox, which has only recently cast its new Fantastic Four and has another X-Men movie out this summer, has announced release dates for Fantastic Four II, the next Wolverine standalone — and a mystery third Marvel film.

The rebooted Fantastic Four, with Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, and Miles Teller reportedly aboard, is scheduled for June 19, 2015, but Fox has already penciled in a sequel for July 14, 2017. Meanwhile, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, who stars in this May’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, will return in another standalone movie, targeted for July 14, 2017. His last solo effort, 2013′s The Wolverine, grossed $414.8 million globally. That film’s director, James Mangold, is attached to the next sequel as well. (Another X-Men all-star movie, X-Men: Apocalypse, will open May 27, 2016.) Fox will deliver another Marvel film on July 13, 2018, but the studio hasn’t yet announced which superhero will be suiting up. Since Fox owns only X-Men and Fantastic Four, there’s speculation that the film could be either a crossover or another standalone for a main character from one of those franchises.

In other Fox release-date news, Matthew Vaughn’s The Secret Service has been bumped up from March 6, 2015 to Oct. 24 of this year, swapping dates with an untitled Vince Vaughn movie. Daniel Radcliffe’s Frankenstein is moving from Jan. 16, 2015, to Oct. 2, 2015. Liam Neeson’s Taken 3 will open Jan 9, 2016 — right in the heart of Neeson Season! Fox is also counting on a still-unspecified Ridley Scott movie for a March 4, 2016 release date.

Studios like to stake out prime release-date real estate years in advance for their biggest blockbusters, to best protect their properties and theoretically maximize the industry’s box-office by preventing costly head-to-head showdowns. It doesn’t always work: Captain America 3 is currently on a collision course with Batman Vs. Superman on May 6, 2016.

Search Crews Scour 'Most Inaccessible Spot' for Signs of Plane March 21, 2014

By DAN GOOD and REBECCA LEE via GOOD MORNING AMERICA

10:39 AM 3/21/2014

The first plane sent today to fly over a remote section of the southern Indian Ocean returned empty handed from its hunt for objects possibly connected to the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, Australian officials said. Four other planes are also searching there today, scouring rough seas for objects detected on satellite images. The search area is so remote that it takes aircraft longer to fly there – four hours – than it allows for the search.

WATCH: New Satellite Images Reveal Possible Objects in Indian Ocean

As aircraft and naval ships resume their efforts, Australia’s prime minister is stressing the difficulty of the search. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the search location, about 1,400 miles southwest of Perth, is extremely remote, “about the most inaccessible spot that you could imagine on the face of the earth,” he said at a press conference Friday in Papua New Guinea.

But if there is anything down there we will find it. We owe it to the families of those people to do no less.” Abbott spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he described as “devastated.” Of the 227 passengers on the missing flight, 154 were from China.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared March 8 above the Gulf of Thailand en route to Beijing. The search for the plane has involved 26 countries.

Scenes of Grief, Anger in Search for MH370

Satellite images showing two objects led officials to re-focus efforts in the southern Indian Ocean. The largest object is about 80 feet long, officials said. Until the objects are recovered and studied, officials won’t be sure that they are connected to the lost plane. Abbott said the objects could simply be a container that’s fallen off a ship.

Oxytocin: the monogamy hormone?

10:39 AM 3/21/2014

Oxytocin has long been deemed "the love hormone," after its important role in social bonding has been documented. But now, researchers have performed a new experiment that suggests oxytocin stimulates the reward center in the male brain, increasing partner attractiveness and strengthening monogamy. The researchers, from Bonn University Medical Center in Germany, who published their results in the journal PNAS, are quick to point out that monogamy is not very widespread in mammals. More the exception than the rule, humans frequently exhibit this trait.

As such, the researchers say science has long tried to uncover the forces that prompt loving couples to practice fidelity. Dr. René Hurlemann, executive senior physician from the Bonn University Medical Center, notes that "an important role in partner bonding is played by the hormone oxytocin, which is secreted in the brain."

Familiarity 'not enough' to activate reward system

To investigate the effects of this hormone more closely, Dr. Hurlemann and his team, in collaboration with researchers from Ruhr University of Bochum in Germany and the University of Chengdu in China, showed 40 heterosexual men who were in a permanent relationship photos of their female partners.

For comparison, the team also showed the men photos of other women.

All the while, a dose of oxytocin was delivered to the subjects via a nasal spray, though later a placebo was also used.

Additionally, the researchers looked at the participants' brain activity with functional magnetic resonance tomography.

Lead author Dirk Scheele says that when the subjects "received oxytocin instead of the placebo, their reward system in the brain when viewing the partner was very active, and they perceived them as more attractive than the other women."

In later tests, the scientists looked at whether oxytocin has a similar effect when the subjects looked at photos of acquaintances and female work colleagues, in order to determine whether familiarity enhances the activation of the reward system in light of oxytocin.

However, Scheele explains that the reward system activation "with the aid of oxytocin had a very selective effect with the pictures of the partners." In other words, familiarity is not enough to prompt the bonding effect of oxytocin. They must be loving couples.

Oxytocin's drug-like effects Dr. Hurlemann says their findings show how oxytocin's effects are "very similar to a drug" for couples in a permanent relationship.

When drug users take drugs, they are trying to stimulate the brain's reward system, which is a similar effect shown in the experiment.

Australia checking 2 objects in search for plane

By SCOTT MCDONALD and KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press | March 20, 2014 | Updated: March 20, 2014 6:41am

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Military search planes flew over a remote part of the Indian Ocean on Thursday hunting for debris in "probably the best lead" so far in finding the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, officials said.

The four planes were checking to see if two large objects spotted in satellite imagery bobbing in the ocean were debris from Fight 370 that went missing March 8 with 239 people on board. 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.

One of the objects spotted by satellite imagery was 24 meters (almost 80 feet) in length and the other was 5 meters (15 feet). There could be other objects in the area, a four-hour flight from Australia's southwestern coast, said John Young, manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's emergency response division.

"This is a lead, it's probably the best lead we have right now," Young said. He cautioned that the objects could be seaborne debris along a shipping route where containers can fall off cargo vessels, although the larger object is longer than a container.

Young told a news conference in Canberra, Australia's capital, that planes had been sent to the area about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth to check on the objects. He said 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."

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott earlier told Parliament about the debris, and said Orion search aircraft had been dispatched. 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." Military planes from Australia, the U.S. and New Zealand have been searching in a region over the southern Indian Ocean that was narrowed down from 600,000 square kilometers (232,000 square miles) to 305,000 square kilometers (117,000 square miles)

Young said the depth of the ocean in the latest area, which is south from where the search had been focused since Monday, is several thousand meters (yards). He said commercial satellites had been redirected in the hope of getting higher resolution images. He did not say when that would happen. The current images are not sharp enough to determine any markings.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority released two images of the whitish objects floating on or just under the surface. The images were taken March 16, but Australian Air Commodore John McGarry said it took time to analyze them. "The task of analyzing imagery is quite difficult, it requires drawing down frames and going through frame by frame. The moment this imagery was discovered to reveal a possible object that might indicate a debris field, we have passed the information from defense across to AMSA for their action," he said.

The AMSA said on their official Twitter account that the crew of a P3 Orion plane was not able to spot the objects Thursday through limited visibility but that the search would continue. Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference Thursday that the satellite images, "while credible, still must be confirmed."

Some analysts said the debris is most likely not pieces of Flight 370. "The chances of it being debris from the airplane are probably small, and the chances of it being debris from other shipping are probably large," said Jason Middleton, an aviation professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

The area where the debris was spotted is about halfway between Australia and desolate islands off the Antarctic.

The hunt for the Boeing 777 has been punctuated by several false leads since it disappeared 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.

Hishammuddin also made clear that although international search efforts are continuing in both on land and sea in the northern and southern hemispheres, the effort is mostly concentrated south of the equator over the vast Indian Ocean.

Out of a total of 29 aircraft, 18 ships and six ship-borne helicopters deployed in the operation, only four aircraft are now scouring the north.

Flight 370 disappeared 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 plane was deliberately turned back across Malaysia to the Strait of Malacca, with its communications systems disabled. They are unsure what happened next.

Police are considering the possibility of hijacking, sabotage, terrorism or issues related to the mental health of the pilots or anyone else on board.

The false hopes and wait for information on the missing plane have weighted on the families of the passengers, who have accused Malaysia officials of not releasing timely information.

"For all the families around the world, the one piece of information that they want most is the information we just don't have — the location of MH370," Hishammuddin said.

Selamat Bin Omar, the father of a passenger, said he could only wait for the results of the search and accept that fate.

"We do not yet know for sure whether this is indeed MH370 or something else," he said. "We are still waiting for further notice from the Australian government."

Malaysian authorities have said that files were deleted Feb. 3 from the home flight simulator of the missing plane's pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and Hishammuddin said he had no new information on efforts to recover those files. The FBI has joined forces with Malaysian authorities in analyzing deleted data on the simulator. 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.

Consider culture in counseling on infant feeding: study

By Ronnie Cohen

(Reuters Health) - Obesity prevention efforts directed at infants may not work if cultural differences in childcare are not taken into account, suggests a new U.S. study. Researchers found specific practices thought to promote childhood obesity - from putting infants to bed with bottles to feeding them while watching television - were more common in certain racial and ethnic groups compared to others.

"Rather than focus on the ethnic and racial differences, these results show us that we can all do better and begin our efforts to prevent obesity earlier in life," lead author Dr. Eliana Perrin told Reuters Health.

"I'm hoping this study is a wakeup call that families of all races and ethnicities need early counseling to lead healthier lives," said Perrin, a pediatrician and professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

More than one quarter of U.S. children aged two to five years old are overweight or obese, according to Perrin and her coauthors, whose results are published in Pediatrics.

Perrin's team enrolled 863 parents who brought their infants to one of four university-affiliated pediatric clinics for a two-month-old preventive services visit. The researchers asked parents about a variety of behaviors that have been linked to childhood obesity in previous research.

Most of the participating parents were mothers and the questions covered topics including what infants ate, how the food was given to them, activities parents performed during or around mealtime and measures of babies' physical activity levels.

The researchers found that more than 80 percent of the two-month-olds had been introduced to formula, and 12 percent had been fed solid food, although the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) urges mothers to feed their babies breast milk exclusively for the first six months.

More than one third of parents reported coaxing their babies to finish drinking bottles, and nearly a quarter propped bottles in their infants' cribs or bassinets.

Nearly half the parents reported watching television while feeding their infants, and 43 percent reported putting their babies to bed with a bottle.

Half the infants in the study actively watched an average of 25 minutes a day of TV, although the AAP discourages television for children under the age of two.

"Most pediatricians don't talk about television until a baby is at least 12 to 15 months old. I think this study tells us we need to talk about television early on in a baby's life," Perrin said.

"The message should be 'talk with your babies, play with your babies, allow your babies to begin to prop themselves up in a safe space, try not to have them watch television and try to notice when you're feeding them whether they're hungry or full,'" she said.

Babies who get food every time they cry and are prodded to eat when they are sated may learn to reach for food whenever they feel any kind of need, Perrin said.

When the researchers looked at the unhealthy behaviors by racial and ethnic group, no single group was free of the bad habits, but some were more common in certain cultures compared to the others.

Hispanic infants watched an average of 11 minutes of television a day, for example, whereas white children watched an average of 24 minutes and African-American children watched an average of 51 minutes. Less than 4 percent of Hispanic parents had introduced their infants to solid foods, whereas 16 percent of white mothers and nearly a quarter of black mothers had.

Compared with white parents, black parents were twice as likely to put children to bed with a bottle and three times as likely to prop a bottle on something like a blanket during feeding instead of holding it.

Hispanic parents were about twice as likely as whites to encourage children to finish the contents of the bottle and to prop the bottle.

Dr. Alma Guerrero, a pediatrics professor from Mattel Children Hospital UCLA in California, called the findings on the amount of time babies spent in front of television "astonishing."

Guerrero agreed the results underscore the need for early counseling across ethnic groups. "It highlights the point that families from all races and ethnicities need counseling on early infancy feeding and activity behaviors," she told Reuters Health.

Guerrero, who was not involved in the current study, recently began work on a five-year study of dietary behaviors that lead to obesity in Latino children between six months and five years old. The results of the current study led Guerrero to consider looking at even younger babies, she said.

Perrin said she hoped that clinicians could use data from her study to target counseling for newborn parents based on their ethnic background.

Why were there no phone calls from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?

By Frances Cha, CNN March 19, 2014 -- Updated 0524 GMT (1324 HKT)

(CNN) -- It's a popular question on social media: Why didn't passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 make mobile calls? Many recall that when United Flight 93 was hijacked on September 11, 2001, passengers were able to make two cell phone calls during the flight's final moments. Several other calls were made using airphones.

If metadata was detected from cell phones on Flight 370, surely it would shed more light on the missing plane's flight path? The plane may have been flying too high or too fast to register with cell towers, according to telecoms experts, but careful analysis of the passengers' cell phone records will need to be completed to be certain.

"So far, we have not had any evidence of any telephone company of any member trying to contact," said Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya at a news conference on Monday. "But anyway, we are still checking. There are millions of records to process. It is being done as part of the investigation."

Was the plane too high? According to radar analysis, the plane is believed to have been flying as high as 45,000 feet and as low as 23,000 feet. But even this lower altitude is too high to register with mobile towers, experts say.

"If you look at the data in this case, the altitude at which the planes were traveling is too high," Vincent Lau, wireless communications specialist and professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, told CNN.

"Even on the ground it wouldn't be easy to pick up from that distance, and if you are flying it's even more difficult because at those angles you are only picking up what we call leakage from the side loops of the antennas, which are substantially weaker than the signals from the main loops of the base stations."

While business class seats on the aircraft are known to have been equipped with phones that worked via satellite, it would be easy to strike down that system from inside the plane, said Lau. Reports on Monday that the plane flew as low as 5,000 feet or less over mountainous terrain -- possibly in order to evade radar detection -- haven't been confirmed.

"In terms of the altitude it would have to be no higher than around 10,000 feet. Anything higher ... would be problematic," according to Bill Rojas, director of telecom research at IDC Asia Pacific.

Unlike in urban areas, where cell phone antennae are typically pointed down toward the ground, cell towers in rural areas are up to 30-45 meters high and are often pointed at an angle meant to cover wider distances.

So if you're up in the sky, you can receive the signal as well, Rojas said.

"If the airplane were flying over northern Malaysia or southern Thailand -- basically the rural area -- then it's very possible that a cell tower could register the signal from the phones, assuming they were on," said Rojas.

"Technically it is possible."

Retrieving the data

If smartphones had been on and registered with a cell tower, the records would be relatively easy to retrieve.

"The registrations would typically be logged and depending on the operator they will be kept for hours, days or months," said Rojas.

The telecom expert said that he'd place particular focus on the phone numbers of passengers from Thailand or Malaysia.

"I would assume that the authorities are checking with the mobile operators by comparing known passenger cell numbers to see if there were any pings or attempted or successful network registrations in northern Malaysia or southern Thailand or possibly even Indonesia," said Rojas. "Any passenger who had roaming capabilities or a local Malaysian number -- if the plane were over Malaysia -- could in theory have been registered on the network if their phone was on.

"If a passenger does not have international roaming then their access would be rejected by the network and for a period of time that metadata might be stored by the network."

If the metadata records were erased automatically after a few days or a few hours, could they be retrieved?

"Each mobile operator will have its own guidelines for the duration of metadata storage and would not normally be made public for obvious national security and law enforcement reasons." Rojas said as far as speed was concerned, the aircraft would need to have been flying at speeds below 250 kilometers per hour (155 mph) in order for passengers to make or receive calls. Passengers on high-speed trains in Japan and other countries can make calls via 3G networks at speeds of up to 240 kilometers per hour, but cell towers aren't able to register a signal beyond those speeds, Rojas said.

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: MH370's man in the middle, Hishammuddin Hussein

Megan Levy, Lindsay Murdoch

He has become the public face of the investigation into one of the world’s most baffling aviation mysteries. And Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s Defence Minister and acting Transport Minister, has found himself bearing the brunt of international criticism as the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet enters its 12th day, with frustratingly few results.

Mr Hishammuddin has been touted as a contender to become Malaysia’s next prime minister, and a look at his family ties shows that, if that prediction comes true, he has plenty of people to call on for advice.

The 52-year-old is the son of Malaysia’s third prime minister, Tun Hussein Onn, and the nephew of its second prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak. He is also the cousin of the current Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak, while his wife is a princess from the state of Pahang.

As Malaysia’s acting transport minister, Mr Hishammuddin has found himself thrust into the international spotlight in helping to co-ordinate the hunt for Flight 370 that vanished in the early hours of March 8 with 239 passengers and crew on board.

But as the missing plane became the latest fodder for Malaysia’s bickering political rivals, Mr Hishammuddin has struggled during daily press briefings to defend his country’s handling of the search and investigation.

In a country where the government has controlled the mainstream media for decades, he has appeared uncomfortable answering unscripted questions amid days of misinformation and confusion. On Sunday, Mr Hishammuddin appeared to give a crucial clue pointing to the possible complicity of the pilots in the plane’s disappearance when he said that the plane’s communications system had been ‘‘disabled’’ at 1.07am.

That was before somebody in the cockpit, later identified as the plane’s first officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid, gave the verbal sign-off to air traffic controllers of ‘‘all right, good night’’.

But the following day, Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said Mr Hamid’s final voice transmission may have occurred before any of the jet’s communications systems were disabled. Standing beside Mr Ahmad Jauhari at the Monday briefing, Mr Hishammuddin waved off numerous questions about why he had given the incorrect information the previous day. "What I said yesterday was based on fact, corroborated and verified," he said.

In response to another question, he said that uncertainty about the chronology underlined the importance of finding the aircraft and its data recorders. Mr Hishammuddin kept telling the media that information could not be released until it was verified, releasing only scant details about the disappearance that has captivated the world. For three days, he refused to comment on a report in Britain’s Mail on Sunday claiming that MH370’s senior pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was a “political fanatic” and an “obsessive” supporter of Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim.

The report alleged that Mr Zaharie had hijacked the plane because he was upset that Mr Anwar had being sentenced to five years jail on a sodomy charge. People close to the investigation quickly rejected the claim as far-fetched, but it went viral anyway on Malaysia’s social media. On Tuesday night, when Mr Hishammuddin was asked about the Mail On Sunday report, he said he was focused on finding the plane. “Our position remains that this issue is above politics,” he said.

A French reporter appeared to stump Mr Hishammuddin at the same press briefing. “Can you confirm that you are PM Najib’s cousin? Are you protected?” the reporter asked. After a seemingly embarrassed pause, Mr Hishammuddin replied: “Yes. I can confirm that Najib is my cousin and I do not know what I am supposed to be protected from.” A few hours later, the pro-government New Straits Times rushed to his defence.

“Since MH370 disappeared on March 8, Hishammuddin has been taking the flurry of media inquiries in his stride with many crediting the 52-year-old minister for his calm and collected manner in handling the press,” it said.

Mr Hishammuddin has risen through the ranks of the United Malays National Organisation, Malaysia’s largest political party that has ruled the south-east Asian country since independence from Britain in 1957. Before his political career, he completed a law degree from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1984, and attended the London School of Economics, where he received a master of laws in commercial and corporate law in 1988.

Malaysia Airlines passenger's partner says she's certain her soul mate is alive

From David McKenzie, CNN March 18, 2014 -- Updated 1019 GMT (1819 HKT)

Beijing (CNN) -- Sarah Bajc has a bag packed, ready to join her partner of two years, a passenger on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, wherever he is. She has included an outfit for him.

"Because he wouldn't want to wear his dirty old stuff anymore," she said of Phil Wood, a 51-year-old IBM executive. "And he probably wouldn't want to wear a hospital gown, if that's the case. So it's all ready."

She is the first to admit that some of her friends say she is in denial about his fate, but Bajc is on a desperate search to find the man she calls her soul mate. She believes he is still alive and being held hostage somewhere.

"This is a planned activity. Somebody wants to do something and make a message out of it," she said. Bajc, 48, said her logic tells her that there are hostages and it would serve no good for the captors to kill the passengers. The hijackers would look callous and brutal, and they wouldn't have as much bargaining power, she believes.

"I have to believe the hostages are valuable to them," she said.

If there was a hijacking or other emergency, Wood would have been one of the passengers who steadied the ship.

"He's very level-headed," she said. "And I think he is the kind of person who would help to calm a really chaotic situation."

She said she's not ready to take the path at the fork in the road that leads to bad news, but she has prepared.

"Because no matter what, I still have to go forward, and no matter what, his family still has to go forward," she said, standing among moving boxes. She and Wood were about to move from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur and were going to get married this year.

They met in 2011 at a bar in Beijing called Nashville. They soon moved in together, along with her teenage son.

Wood and Bajc have new jobs in Kuala Lumpur (she will work at a school there), and the movers showed up the day the plane disappeared. She had to send them away.

The news said the plane was missing. Her stomach crashed. Then she just didn't believe it. The 10 days since have been surreal, she said.

Wood was one of three Americans on the plane, which went missing on March 8.

Bajc started a Facebook page and a Twitter account called "Finding Philip Wood" to gather and share information about the flight. Some people are sending comforting thoughts -- "I so believe in my heart they are at out there!! Praying for all and safe return home!!!!" writes Debbie Walton Vaughan. Others are sharing theories and news reports.

In one post, Bajc writes: "Facebook and Twitter are resources. Perhaps there are other useful platforms as well. If we keep sharing this, you never know who will see it and be able to answer some questions." She told CNN that people ask her what Wood is like, and she said if you were in his presence, you'd see him as a good, generous and thoughtful man who loves his family and friends. He made her feel a way that "I didn't believe was possible to feel," she said. And she feels him still. "I genuinely feel his presence," she said. "I don't believe he has left us yet."

L'Wren Scott, noted fashion designer, Mick Jagger's girlfriend, found dead

(CNN) -- L'Wren Scott, a noted fashion designer who has been Mick Jagger's companion for more than a decade, was found dead in her New York apartment Monday of an apparent suicide, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. She was 49.

Scott's assistant found the designer hanging from a door knob with a scarf around her neck, the official said.

There were no signs of forced entry, and police did not find a suicide note, the official said.

Her assistant told police Scott sent a text Monday morning asking the assistant to "come by, and when the assistant arrived at approximately 10:02 a.m., Scott was dead in the living room, prompting the assistant to call police," according to the official.

The New York Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death, according to Sgt. Nieves with the New York Police Department

A spokesman for Mick Jagger said that the singer was completely shocked and devastated by the news.

Scott had been dating Jagger, 70, since at least 2003. The lanky former model designed clothes worn by a number of celebrities, including Madonna, Allison Williams and Christina Hendricks. She also created many of Jagger's looks for the Rolling Stones' 50th anniversary tour, which began in 2012 and is currently in Australia. The band called off Wednesday night's show in Perth, following the news.

"Frontier Touring and Concerts West regret to announce

Caffeine may boost long-term memory

By MNT

Numerous studies have suggested that caffeine has many health benefits. Now, new research suggests that a dose of caffeine after a learning session may help to boost long-term memory. This is according to a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The research team, led by Daniel Borota of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, notes that although previous research has analyzed the effects of caffeine as a cognitive enhancer, whether caffeine can impact long-term memory has not been studied in detail. To find out, the investigators analyzed 160 participants aged between 18 and 30 years. On the first day of the study, the participants were shown pictures of different objects and were asked to identify them as "indoor" or "outdoor" items. Soon after this task, they were randomized to receive either 200 mg of caffeine in the form of a pill, or a placebo tablet. The next day, the participants were shown the same pictures as well as some new ones. The researchers asked them to identify whether the pictures were "new," "old" or "similar to the original pictures.

200 mg of caffeine 'enhanced memory

From this, the researchers found that subjects who took the caffeine were better at identifying pictures that were similar, compared with participants who took the placebo. However, the researchers note that both groups were able to accurately distinguish whether pictures were old or new.

The team conducted further experiments using 100 mg and 300 mg doses of caffeine. They found that performance was better after the 200 mg dose, compared with the 100 mg dose, but there was no improvement after the 300 mg of caffeine, compared with 200 mg.

"Thus, we conclude that a dose of at least 200 mg is required to observe the enhancing effect of caffeine on consolidation of memory," the study authors write

The team also found that memory performance was not improved if subjects were given caffeine 1 hour before carrying out the picture identification test.

They investigators say there are many possibilities as to how caffeine may enhance long-term memory. For example, they say it may block a molecule called adenosine, preventing it from stopping the function of norepinephrine - a hormone that has been shown to have positive effects on memory. They note that further research should be conducted to better understand the mechanisms by which caffeine affects long-term memory.

They add:

"Given the widespread use of caffeine and the growing interest in its effects both as a cognitive enhancer and as a neuroprotectant, these questions are of critical importance."

Potential benefits and risks of caffeine consumption

According to the latest figures from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the average American consumes 300 mg of caffeine a day. The main sources of the compound are coffee, tea and soft drinks.

Many studies have suggested that caffeine offers health benefits. Last year, Medical News Today reported on a study suggesting that caffeinated drinks may reduce the risk of liver disease, while another study says drinking 2-4 cups of coffee a day may reduce suicide risk.

But it is not all good news. One study suggests that the stimulant is able to disrupt sleep patterns hours after consuming it, while another proposes that caffeine from energy drinks may alter heart function.

Written by Honor Whiteman

PHOTOGRAPHY 12-3-2014 (by Rival Rasyid)

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography

Rival Photography