CNN news 2014-03-19 加文本

cnn news 2014-03-19

CARL AZUZ, cnn ANCHOR: Happy Saint Patrick`s Day. Welcome to our March, 17th edition of cnn STUDENT NEWS. I`m Carl Azuz.

First up, voters in Crimea went to the polls yesterday and overwhelmingly chose to become part of Russia? The local government is sending a delegation to Moscow to apply for that. Russia welcomes the vote and will likely be willing to redraw its borders. But Ukraine, the European Union and the United States, all say the vote doesn`t count. That a region of Ukraine can`t just break away from the rest of the country and become part of another one. Ukraine`s been divided over whether to forge closer ties with Europe or Russia.

Its former president favored Russia, but violent protests in the capital led to his ouster last month. Now, with the U.S. and European Union supporting a unified Ukraine and Russia supporting Crimea`s secession, the country`s political future is unclear. There`s still no sign of a Malaysian Airlines plane that vanished in mid- flight more than a week ago. But U.S. intelligence officials think the captain and copilot might have had something to do with the disappearance, that it was not an accident. Part of the reason, the plane stopped transmitting information at what one official called the perfect place to disappear. Investigators have taken a flight simulator from the captain`s house. They are examining that for clues. The search now includes 25 countries, the area is tremendous.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Take off from Kuala Lumpur 12:41 a.m. local time last Saturday, Flight 370 headed north along its planned route to Beijing. But then, two communication systems stopped working within minutes of each other. And investigators now believe someone almost surely turned them off.

At 1:07 a.m., near the East Coast of Malaysia, the system known as ACARS stops transmitting information about the plane`s operating condition, and that was before the last radio transmission. All right, good night indicating everything was normal.

1:21 a.m., the transponder, which identifies the aircraft on radar, stops transmitting. Was someone trying to hide the plane? We also now know blips then seen on Malaysian military radar were in fact Flight 370 headed west, and authorities say there`s every indication someone was in control.

NAJIB RAZAK, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: Up until the point, at which it left military primary radar coverage, this movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Still unclear, whether it was a pilot or a hijacker. cnn has confirmed, the plane made erratic changes in altitude. It was flying what officials describe as a "strange path". At one point, it appears to have climbed to 45,000 feet, well above its approved altitude, then descending to 23,000. Now, a new analysis of satellite information shows the plane kept flying more than seven hours after takeoff, much longer than previously thought. A satellite searching for operational data from the plane, detected the aircraft every hour in a so called handshake, but no data was transmitted.

Its last contact, 8:11 a.m., somewhere along this arc that stretches as far north as Kazakhstan and as far south as the Indian Ocean west of Australia.