QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Crimea is a tragedy, a major tragedy.”
Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed Ukrainian president, who said he was wrong to ask for a Russian intervention in his country and intends to press Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine Article, this page
Jet hunt called most complex in history
PERTH, Australia - Malaysia’s prime minister arrived today at the Australian air force base that is serving as a hub in the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, as the coordinator of the multinational effort said the search is one of the most complicated in history.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak met with his Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott, at the base near the west coast city of Perth, and received a briefing by Angus Houston, the head of a joint agency coordinating the search for the jetliner that disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board.
“This is one of the most demanding and challenging search-and-rescue operations, or search-and-recovery operations, that I have ever seen - and I think probably one of the most complex operations of this nature that the world has ever seen,” Houston told Najib and Abbott.
A search in the Indian Ocean, where experts believe the plane went down, began more than two weeks ago, and now involves at least nine ships and nine planes.
Officials warned Wednesday that the search may never turn up anything and that a police investigation may never determine why the plane disappeared.
“Investigations may go on and on and on. We have to clear every little thing,” Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar said. “At the end of the investigations, we may not even know the real cause. We may not even know the reason for this incident.”
Cambodia repatriates 3 American MIAs
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A ceremony was held Wednesday in Cambodia to repatriate what are believed to be the remains of three American servicemen who disappeared in action more than 40 years ago during the Vietnam War.
The remains, in three white coffins draped with U.S. flags, were hoisted Wednesday into a C-17 military cargo plane for transport to Hawaii, where they will undergo DNA testing to try to confirm their identities. An honor guard of four U.S.
servicemen carried the coffins.
Some 90 Americans were listed as missing in action in Cambodia from the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975, but the remains of only 37 have been recovered and identified.
The latest sets of remains were found in eastern Kampong Cham province. U.S. forces staged a brief ground incursion into eastern Cambodia in 1970 and bombed the country heavily from 1969-73.
5 recruits among 8 dead in Iraq blasts
BAGHDAD - A series of bombings in Iraq killed eight people Wednesday as the country prepares for parliamentary elections on April 30.
The deadliest attack took place in the town of Riyadh, about 180 miles northwest of the capital, Baghdad. There, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives while standing next to army recruits waiting in line at the gate of a military base to apply for jobs early in the morning, police Col. Fatah Rasheed said.
The explosion killed five recruits and wounded 14, Rasheed said.
Separately, police said a bomb blast in a commercial street killed two people and wounded six in Madain, about 14 miles southeast of Baghdad. In western Baghdad, a bomb exploded in a commercial street, killing one person and wounding five, police said.
7.8 tremor in Chile raises tsunami alert
IQUIQUE, Chile - A powerful magnitude-7.8 aftershock hit Chile’s far-northern coast Wednesday night, shaking the same area that a magnitude-8.2 earthquake hit just a day before, causing some damage and six deaths.
Chile’s Emergency Office and navy Wednesday night issued a tsunami alert and ordered a precautionary evacuation of low-lying areas on the northern coast.
The aftershock caused buildings to shake and people to run into the streets in the port of Iquique, which was one of the cities that suffered some damage in Tuesday night’s big quake. But there were no immediate reports of new damage or injuries from the latest tremor, one of dozens of aftershocks to follow the magnitude-8.2 quake.
The United States Geological Survey said the aftershock was 14 miles south of Iquique and at a depth of 12 miles.
It was felt across the border in southern Peru, where people in the cities of Tacna and Arequipa reportedly fled buildings in fear.
Authorities reported six deaths from the magnitude-8.2 quake. It was possible others many been killed in remote communities that have yet to be contacted.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 04/03/2014