BBC在线收听下载:国际社会仍在努力搜寻马航失踪飞机

BBC news 2014-03-10

BBC News with Marion Marshall.

An international effort is continuing throughout the night to try to locate an airliner that disappeared on a flight from Malaysia to China. A Vietnamese plane is reported seeing at least one object in the South China Sea of the country's coastline, but there is no confirmation that it is wreckage from the missing flight. Jonathan Head reports from Kuala Lumpur. “Two days after Flight MH370 vanished from radar screens, the Malaysian authorities still have very little information about its fate. The Boeing 777 was flying at cruising altitude in good weather, and was no radio communication from the pilots to suggest anything had gone wrong. The possibility, that the plane may have turned back before it disappeared, has promoted them to extend the search area, but no wreckage has yet been found. The focus of the investigation has turned, instead, to the discovery that two of the passengers were travelling on stolen passports, according to Malaysia's Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein.” The International police organization, the Interpol, said it was too early to speculate about possible link between the stolen passports and plane's disappearance.

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told the Russian President Vladimir Putin that she considers the forthcoming referendum in Crimea illegal. The vote, scheduled for March 16, will beyond whether Crimea should join Russia. She made comments to Mr. Putin in a telephone conversation, involving the two leaders and the British Prime Minister David Cameron. The former jailed Russian oil tycoon and critic of President Putin, Mikhail Khodorkovsky has addressed rallies in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. He told the tens of thousands of people gathered in Independence Square that the Kremlin was lying to its own people by portraying the protesters in Kiev as neo-fascists. There were rallies in several cities across Ukraine throughout the day. Most passed off peacefully. But in Sevastopol in Crimea, ethnic Russians beat up some pro-Ukrainian demonstrators. Ben Brown was there. “First, they attacked the driver of a white van, smashing his windscreen. He tried to drive through the mob to get away, but crashed and was attacked again. Another Ukrainian was dragged into some bushes, kicked, beaten and lashed with a Cossack's whip. We were threatened, too, by the Russians, but managed to run away before they attacked us as well. It was a terrifying moment, and a glimpse of the abyss that Crimea now teeters over.”

The Pakistani army has sent urgent relief teams to the drought stricken desert region, the Thar in the country southern province of Sindh. Doctors of the district's main hospital say almost 30 children have died from malnutrition just this month. Thousands of families have left the area in search of food and water. The Pakistani Prime Minster, Nawaz Sharif, has assured the provincial authorities the federal government's full support.

You're listening to the latest World news from the BBC

The Maldives’ Supreme Court has sentenced all the members of the country's election commission to six months in prison for disobeying orders. The sentences come at a time the commission is supposed to be organizing parliamentary elections. From Colombo, here's Charles Haviland. “The four members of the Maldives’ elections commission were given six months jail sentences suspended for three years for disobeying orders. The Commission's President Fuwad Thoufeek and his deputy have been stripped of their membership of the body. Mr.Thoufeek had criticized the Supreme Court last October after it annulled a Presidential election deemed free and fair by hundreds of observers. The commissioners were brought to trial a few days ago under new rules that allow the Supreme Court to initiate proceedings, prosecute and pass judgment.”

Pope Francis has taken more than 18 members of the Vatican's bureaucracy to a modest countryside retreat for a week of prayer for Lent. Before setting off, the Pope said Lent was a time to resist worldly temptations like economic comfort and concentrate on life essentials. From Rome, here's David Willey. “It's Lent, a time of prayer and fast in preparation for Easter. And each year, the Pope and his top advisors normally cancel their public engagements and spend a week in seclusion inside the Vatican. But this year, Pope Francis decided to move the whole Roman leadership of the Catholic Church out to the Alban hills near Rome for their a week of, what they called, spiritual exercises. They travelled on an ordinary pilgrim coach and another minibus.”

There are reports that a group of Syrian nuns kidnapped last year have been released. The nuns were taken by unidentified gunmen from their convent in the ancient town of Maaloula last December after it was taken over by Islamist rebels. It's not clear where the nuns are at the moment, but it's reported that a convoy has taken them to Damascus.

BBC News