World

PERTH, Australia — The sighting of a wooden pallet and other debris that may be linked to a Malaysian passenger jet raised hopes Sunday of a breakthrough in the international search for the missing plane.

The sense that the hunt was finally on the right track after more than two weeks of false leads and dead ends was reinforced by new French satellite data indicating floating objects in the southern search area.

Australian officials said the pallet, along with belts or straps, was spotted Saturday in a remote stretch of the Indian Ocean that has become the focus of the search — around 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth.

“It’s still too early to be definite,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters during a visit to Papua New Guinea.

“But obviously we have now had a number of very credible leads and there is increasing hope — no more than hope, no more than hope — that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft.”

Australian and Chinese satellite images have picked up large objects floating in the inhospitable region, and Malaysia’s transport ministry said Sunday that France had provided similar data “in the vicinity of the southern corridor”.

The Malaysian statement gave no details of the French satellite data.

But France’s foreign ministry said it came in the form of satellite-generated radar echoes, which contains information about the location and distance of the object which bounces a signal back.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) confirmed that the pallet and other debris marked the “first visual sighting” since Australian, New Zealand and US spotter planes began scouring the area on Thursday.

Wooden pallets are quite common in aircraft and ship cargo holds.

The objects were spotted by observers on one of the civilian aircraft taking part in the search.

An air force P3 Orion aircraft with specialist electro-optic observation equipment was diverted to the same location, but only reported sighting clumps of seaweed.

“That’s the nature of it,” AMSA aircraft operations coordinator Mike Barton said.

“You only have to be off by a few hundred metres in a fast-travelling aircraft.”

Sunday’s search involving four military and four civilian aircraft plus an Australian warship ended with “no sightings of significance” but would resume Monday, AMSA said.

Sunday’s search covered 59,000 square kilometres.

More ships, planes 

China has dispatched seven ships to the hunt for the plane, adding to British and Australian naval ships involved.

“Obviously the more aircraft we have, the more ships we have, the more confident we are of recovering whatever material is down there,” Abbott said.

AMSA said Chinese and Japanese planes would join Monday’s operation.

If the plane did crash in the ocean, investigators are hoping to identify the impact site before the plane’s black box stops emitting tracking signals — usually after 30 days.

The flight recorder will be crucial in solving the mystery of what caused the Boeing 777 with 239 passengers and crew aboard suddenly to veer off course over the South China Sea en route to Beijing.

Satellite and military radar data suggest the plane backtracked over the Malaysian peninsula and then flew on — possibly for hours — either north into South and Central Asia, or south over the Indian Ocean.

The question of what happened on board has become a topic of unbridled speculation, with Malaysian investigators standing by their assessment that the plane was deliberately diverted by someone on board.

Three scenarios have gained particular traction: hijacking, pilot sabotage, or a sudden mid-air crisis that incapacitated the flight crew and left the plane to fly on auto-pilot for several hours until it ran out of fuel and crashed.

A ‘humanitarian’ exercise 

The long, largely fruitless search for the aircraft has been especially agonising for the relatives of the 227 passengers — two-thirds of whom were Chinese — and 12 crew.

Their grief and frustration boiled over Saturday at a hotel in Beijing when police had to restrain angry family members confronting Malaysian officials whom they accused of withholding information.

After a similar meeting on Sunday, some relatives said they were still dissatisfied.

“I’m so furious,” said one woman. “I watch the television everyday. Very often I feel like I’m about to go insane. My emotions are all over the place. I asked the Malaysians to give the answers and they said they couldn’t.”

Although the plane’s disappearance is already the subject of a criminal investigation, Abbott stressed that the search was essentially a “humanitarian” exercise.

“We owe it to the almost 240 people on board the plane, we owe it to their grieving families, we owe it to the governments of the countries concerned, to do everything we can to discover as much as we can about the fate of MH370,” he said.

BELBEK AIR BASE, Crimea — Pro-Russian forces stormed a Ukrainian air force base in Crimea, firing shots and smashing through concrete walls with armoured personnel carriers. At least one person was wounded, the base commander said.

An APC also smashed open the front gate of the Belbek Base near the port city of Sevastopol, according to footage provided by the Ukrainian defence ministry. Two ambulances arrived and then departed shortly after, and at least one of them was carrying what appeared to be a wounded person, an Associated Press journalist said.

The Ukrainian commander of the base, Yuliy Mamchur, said there was at least one injury. He called his men together, they sang the Ukrainian national anthem and then stood at ease. He said they are going to turn over their weapons.

Russian forces have been seizing Ukrainian military facilities for several days in the Black Sea peninsula, which voted a week ago to secede and join Russia.

Elsewhere, more than 5,000 pro-Russia residents of a major city in Ukraine’s east demonstrated in favour of holding a referendum on whether to seek to split off and become part of Russia.

The rally in Donetsk came less than a week after the Ukrainian region of Crimea approved secession in a referendum regarded as illegitimate by Western countries. After the referendum, Russia formally annexed Crimea.

With Crimea now effectively under the control of Russian forces, which ring Ukrainian military bases on the strategic Black Sea peninsula, concern is rising that Ukraine’s eastern regions will agitate for a similar move.

Russia has brought large military contingents to areas near the border with eastern Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said there is no intention to move into eastern Ukraine, but the prospect of violence between pro- and anti-secession groups in the east could be used as a pretext for sending in troops.

Eastern Ukraine is the heartland of Ukraine’s economically vital heavy industry and mining. It’s also the support base for Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president who fled to Russia last month after three months of protests in the capital, Kiev, triggered by his decision not to sign an agreement with the European Union.

Russia and Yanukovych supporters contend Yanukovych’s ouster was a coup and allege that the authorities who then came to power are nationalists who would oppress the east’s large ethnic Russian population.

“They’re trying to tear us away from Russia,” said demonstrator Igor Shapoval, a 59-year-old businessman. “But Donbass is ready to fight against this band which already lost Crimea and is losing in the east.”

Donbass is the name for the region of factories and mines that includes Donetsk.

About an hour after the Donetsk rally began, the crowd marched through the city centre and assembled before the regional administration building chanting: “Crimea! Donbass! Russia!”

Demonstrators waving Russian flags were faced off by lines of shield-wielding riot police. Inside, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was meeting with local officials.

The demonstrators erected several tents, an ironic echo of the massive tent camp that was established on Kiev’s central square after the protests against Yanukovych broke out in late November.

“I’m ready to live in a tent, but I’m not ready to submit to the West, to dance to their tune,” said Viktor Rudko, a 43-year-old miner.

The local parliament on Friday formed a working group to develop a referendum analogous to the one in Crimea. Activists on Saturday passed out mock ballots, although no referendum has been formally called.

A number of leading pro-Russian activists have already been detained by police on suspicion of fomenting secessionist activities. The country’s security services said Saturday that they have arrested Mikhail Chumachenko, leader of the self-styled Donbass People’s Militia, on suspicion of seeking to seize authority.

As tensions roil in the east, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is deploying an observer team aimed at easing the crisis.

Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement on Friday that Moscow hopes that the 200-strong team “will help to overcome the internal Ukrainian crisis” and ensure the respect for human rights there.

It is unclear whether the team will be allowed into Crimea. Russian forces last week stopped OSCE military observers from entering Crimea. The organisation on Friday did not specify whether the observers will go to Crimea.

Lukashevich said on Saturday that the OSCE’s mission “will reflect the new political and legal order and will not cover Crimea and Sevastopol which became part of Russia”.

Sevastopol, a city in southwest Crimea, is the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Daniel Baer, the United States’ chief envoy to OSCE, said the observers should have access to the territory because Crimea remains Ukrainian to the rest of the world.

The seizure of military facilities and navy ships by pro-Russian forces in Crimea has been proceeding apace since the peninsula was nominally absorbed by Russia.

On Saturday, a crowd stormed the Novofedorivka base, some 50 kilometres west of Simferopol, Ukraine’s defence ministry said.

Ukrainian television station TSN said troops inside the base hoisted smoke grenades in an attempt to disperse groups of burly young men attempting to break through the front gates.

TSN reported that there were children among the crowd attempting to seize the base.

The Russian defence ministry says that as of late Friday less than 2,000 of 18,000 Ukrainian servicemen in Crimea had “expressed a desire to leave for Ukraine”. The ministry, however, stopped short of saying the remainder of the troops would serve in the Russian army.

ISTANBUL — Turkey said on Saturday that Twitter was “biased” and had been used for “systematic character assassinations” of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, a day after Ankara’s ban on the site prompted an international outcry.

However, a senior Turkish government official later told Reuters that talks with the social media company on resolving problems which led to the block were going positively.

The Turkish authorities blocked Twitter late on Thursday, hours after Erdogan vowed to “wipe out” the social media service during the campaigning period for local elections on March 30.

Leading condemnation from Western governments and rights organisations, the White House said the Twitter ban undermined democracy and free speech in Turkey.

The site remained blocked in Turkey on Saturday. Those trying to access it found an Internet page carrying court rulings saying it had been blocked as a “protection measure”.

Many Turks reported difficulties in accessing not just Twitter but the Internet as a whole, according to media reports and comments on social media.

Erdogan’s office said in a statement the ban on Twitter had come in response to the company’s “defiance” in failing to comply with hundreds of court rulings since last January.

“Twitter has been used as a means to carry out systematic character assassinations by circulating illegally acquired recordings, fake and fabricated records of wiretapping,” the prime minister’s office said.

In recent weeks, audio recordings have been released via Twitter on an almost daily basis purporting to be telephone conversations involving Erdogan, senior government members and businessmen that reveal alleged corruption.

“It is difficult to comprehend Twitter’s indifference and its biased and prejudiced stance. We believe that this attitude is damaging to the brand image of the company in question, and creates an unfair and inaccurate impression of our country,” the statement from Erdogan’s office said.

Similar measures have been taken on the same grounds in other countries to prevent violations of personal rights and threats to national security, the statement added.

Erdogan is battling a corruption scandal which he says is a plot to undermine him by a US-based Turkish Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gulen. Gulen is a former ally whose network of followers include influential members of Turkey’s police and judiciary. Gulen denies orchestrating the graft investigation.

Erdogan’s government has responded to the scandal by tightening controls of the Internet and the courts, and reassigning thousands of police and hundreds of prosecutors, and judges, often demoting them.

Account closed

The Turkish government began talks with Twitter on Friday, saying the ban would be lifted if the San Francisco-based firm appointed a representative in Turkey and agreed to block specific content when requested by Turkish courts.

“The talks are continuing in Ankara and the process is going positively. The biggest problem with Twitter until now has been the lack of contact and that has been resolved,” the senior government official told Reuters.

He said one of the accounts to which Ankara objected had been closed and talks on others were continuing, but that it was too early to say when a solution would be reached. Turkish media reports said the closed account had contained pornographic material and did not refer to any link to the graft scandal.

“As far as we are concerned, when the court rulings are implemented the problems will be resolved and the block on Twitter will be lifted,” said the senior official.

The ban stirred concerns that Turkey may pull the plug on other social media and Internet services, but the government official said there were no plans to impose restrictions on other social media like Facebook or YouTube.

Twitter said in a tweet on Friday that it stood with its users in Turkey who rely on Twitter as a “vital” communications platform. It said it hoped to have full access returned soon.

Erdogan did not mention the Twitter ban at election campaign rallies on Friday. He was due to address another rally in the capital Ankara on Saturday.

Many Turks have been able to get around the Twitter ban, either by using virtual private network software or changing their Domain Name System (DNS) setting, effectively disguising their computers’ geographical whereabouts.

But on Saturday morning, many people reported that computers that had been set with DNS numbers widely circulated to help people get around the ban were unable to access the Internet.

“Apparently alternate DNS servers are also blocked in Turkey. New settings are being circulated,” wrote one user.

There was no official comment on whether alternate servers had been blocked. By early afternoon many on Twitter were reporting that the alternative DNS settings were working.

KUALA LUMPUR/PERTH — China said on Saturday it had a new satellite image of what could be wreckage from a missing Malaysian airliner, as more planes and ships headed to join an international search operation scouring some of the remotest seas on Earth.

The latest possible lead came as the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 entered its third week, with still no confirmed trace found of the Boeing 777 or the 239 people on board.

The new potential sighting was dramatically announced by Malaysia’s acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, after he was handed a note with details during a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, scooping the official announcement from China.

“Chinese ships have been dispatched to the area,” Hishammuddin told reporters.

China said the object was 22 metres long and 13 metres wide, and spotted around 120 km “south by west” of potential debris reported by Australia off its west coast in the forbidding waters of the southern Indian Ocean.

The image was captured by the high-definition Earth observation satellite “Gaofen-1” early on March 18, two days after the Australian satellite picture was taken, China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence said on its website.

It could not easily be determined from the blurred images whether the objects were the same, but the Chinese photograph could depict a cluster of smaller objects, a senior military officer from one of the 26 nations involved in the search for the plane said.

The wing of a Boeing 777-200ER is approximately 27 metres long and 14 metres wide at its base, according to estimates derived from publicly available scale drawings. Its fuselage is 63.7 metres long by 6.2 metres wide.

Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens early on March 8, less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on a scheduled flight to Beijing.

Investigators believe someone on board shut off the plane’s communications systems, and partial military radar tracking showed it turning west and re-crossing the Malay Peninsula, apparently under the control of a skilled pilot.

That has led them to focus on hijacking or sabotage, but they have not ruled out technical problems.

Remote seas

Since Australia announced the first image of what could be parts of the aircraft on Thursday, the international search for the plane has focused on an expanse of ocean more than 2,000 km southwest of Perth.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said one of its aircraft reported sighting a number of “small objects” with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, within a radius of 5 km.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft took a closer look but only reported seeing clumps of seaweed. It dropped a marker buoy to track the movement.

“A merchant ship in the area has been tasked to relocate and seek to identify the material,” AMSA said in a statement.

The search area experienced good weather conditions on Saturday with visibility of around 10 km and moderate seas.

Australia, which is coordinating the rescue, has cautioned the objects in the satellite image might be a lost shipping container or other debris, and may have sunk since the picture was taken.

“Even though this is not a definite lead, it is probably more solid than any other lead around the world, and that is why so much effort and interest is being put into this search,” Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters, before latest Chinese image was reported.

China said its icebreaker “Snow Dragon” was heading for the area, but was still around 70 hours away. Japan and India were also sending more planes, and Australian and Chinese navy vessels were steaming towards the southern search zone.

But the area is known for rough seas and strong currents, and Malaysia’s Hishammuddin said a cyclone warning had been declared for Christmas Island, far off to the north.

“There are vessels heading in that direction. They may have to go through the cyclone,” he said.

“Generally, conditions in the southern corridor are very challenging,” said Hishammuddin. “The ocean varies between 1,150 metres and 7,000 metres in depth.”

No sign in northern corridor

Where the missing plane went after it flew out of range of Malaysia’s military radar off the country’s northwest coast has been one of the most puzzling aspects of what has quickly become perhaps the biggest mystery in modern aviation history.

Electronic “pings” detected by a commercial satellite suggested it flew for another six hours or so, but could do no better than place its final signal on one of two vast arcs: a northern corridor from Laos to the Caspian Sea and a southern one stretching from Indonesia down to the part of the Indian Ocean that has become the focal point of the search.

Malaysia has said the search will continue in both corridors until confirmed debris is found.

Hishammuddin said that, in response to a formal diplomatic request from Malaysia, China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Laos, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan had all said, based on preliminary analysis, that there have been no sightings of the aircraft on their radar.

Aircraft and ships have renewed the search in the Andaman Sea between India and Thailand, going over areas in the northern corridor that have already been exhaustively swept.

The Pentagon said it was considering a request from Malaysia for sonar equipment. The P-8 and P-3 spy planes, which the United States is already deploying in the search, also carry “sonobuoys” that are dropped into the sea and use sonar signals to search the waters below.

The search itself has strained ties between China and Malaysia, with Beijing repeatedly leaning on the Southeast Asian nation to step up its hunt and do a better job at looking after the relatives of the Chinese passengers.

For families of the passengers, the process has proved to be an emotionally wrenching battle to elicit information.

In a statement on Saturday, relatives in Beijing lambasted a Malaysian delegation for “concealing the truth” and “making fools” out of the families after they said they left a meeting without answering all their questions.

“This kind of conduct neglects the lives of all the passengers, shows contempt for all their families, and even more, tramples on the dignity of Chinese people and the Chinese government,” they said.

Some experts have argued that the reluctance to share sensitive radar data and capabilities in a region fraught with suspicion amid China’s military rise, and territorial disputes may have hampered the search.

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW — US President Barack Obama announced sanctions on Thursday against prominent Russians including close allies of President Vladimir Putin, as Moscow raced to complete its annexation of Crimea and built up its forces in the region.

Moscow responded by announcing its own sanctions against senior US politicians in retaliation against visa bans and asset freezes imposed by Washington on its citizens, with the foreign ministry saying US action would “hit the United States like a boomerang”.

With Obama also clearing the way for possible sanctions on vital sectors of the Russian economy, Putin told Russian company bosses to bring their assets home to help the nation survive the sanctions and an economic downturn.

Obama said the action would also target a Russian bank, named by a senior administration official as Bank Rossiya, which is partly owned by Yuri Kovalchuk, a St. Petersburg banker whose association with Putin dates back to the early 1990s.

Speaking at the White House, Obama said Russia’s threats to southern and eastern areas of Ukraine — which like Crimea have large Russian-speaking populations — posed a serious risk of escalation of the crisis in the region.

“We’re imposing sanctions on more senior officials of the Russian government,” he said. “In addition, we are today sanctioning a number of other individuals with substantial resources and influence who provide material support to the Russian leadership, as well as a bank that provides material support to these individuals.”

Washington announced a first round of sanctions against 11 Russians and Ukrainians it said were involved with the Crimean annexation on Monday. The latest measures cover 20 people including Putin confidantes, the official said, adding that Bank Rossiya — which has $10 billion in assets — would be “frozen out of the dollar”.

Those on the Russian list included former presidential candidate Senator John McCain, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner.

Obama said he had signed a new executive order expanding the US government’s authority to take measures against economic sectors. “Russia must know that further escalation will only isolate it further from the international community,” he said.

European Union leaders also gathered in Brussels to consider imposing their own further sanctions on Moscow.

Annexation

In Moscow, Russia’s State Duma, lower house of parliament, approved a treaty taking Crimea, captured from Ukraine, into the Russian Federation, even as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was in the Russian capital for talks on the crisis.

Some of Russia’s largest companies are registered abroad where they may benefit from lower tax rates but also may enjoy some distance from the Kremlin and feel beyond its reach.

Without referring to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region or to slowing economic growth, Putin said it would also be in the bosses’ interests to support the Russian economy.

“Russian companies should be registered on the territory of our nation, in our country and have a transparent ownership structure,” Putin told heads of Russia’s largest companies. “I am certain that this is also in your interests.”

In Kiev, the government said its border guards in Crimea, surrounded and outnumbered by Russian forces, had begun redeploying to the mainland after units loyal to Moscow stormed two Ukrainian military bases in the Crimean peninsula’s main town of Simferopol on Wednesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament in Berlin that the 28 European Union leaders would show they are ready to ramp up punitive measures in a staged response against Russian officials and move to politically sensitive economic sanctions if goes further.

“The EU summit today and tomorrow will make clear that we are ready at any time to introduce Phase-3 measures if there is a worsening of the situation,” she said.

Some diplomats read her statement as an implicit recognition that Crimea was lost, and that only further steps by Russia to destabilise Ukraine or intervene in other post-Soviet republics would trigger sanctions that could hurt convalescing Western economies as well as Moscow’s.

Russian forces took control of the region in late February following the toppling of Moscow-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich by protests provoked by his decision to spurn a trade deal with the EU and seek closer ties with Moscow. People in Crimea voted overwhelmingly in a referendum last Sunday to join Russia.

Only one deputy in the State Duma voted against the treaty, while 443 lawmakers backed it, rising for the national anthem after the vote. The upper house is due to complete the formal ratification on Friday.

“From now on, and forever, the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol will be in the Russian Federation,” pro-Kremlin lawmaker Leonid Slutsky said in an address before the vote.

CARACAS — Venezuela upped pressure on the opposition Wednesday after weeks of protests, arresting two mayors including one in the town where they started and seeking a probe of a prominent anti-government lawmaker.

Authorities said the death toll from the protests rose to at least 30 after a policeman died trying to break up a protest in the western city of San Cristobal, where the demos began February 4.

They later spread to Caracas and many other cities, although they are now losing intensity.

But after days of relative calm, students called for more protests Thursday in a show of solidarity with the mayors.

President Nicolas Maduro’s government has been the target of daily protests fuelled by public anger over violent crime, inflation, shortages of such basic goods as toilet paper and further stoked by often heavy-handed police tactics.

It is all happening in the country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

Venezuela’s top opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, whom Maduro beat in last year’s presidential election, said Maduro is “pouring gasoline on the fire, and he and only he will be responsible for whatever situation develops. Everyone should know that”.

Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez said San Cristobal Mayor Daniel Ceballos has been detained on charges of fuelling “civilian uprising” and “supporting” violence in his city in the western state of Tachira.

Prosecutors “issued an arrest warrant... for [fomenting] civilian uprising”, which the Bolivarian Intelligence Service carried out, Rodriguez said on state television VTV.

“This is an act of justice... He has fostered and aided all the irrational violence first unleashed in the city of San Cristobal.”

Later, the supreme court said Enzo Scarano, mayor of the northern town of San Diego, had also been arrested and removed from his job. He is accused of “defiance” in his official duties.

Ceballos is the second leader of the opposition group Popular Will detained over the deadly protests, the biggest challenge yet to Maduro’s elected socialist government.

The group’s leader Leopoldo Lopez has been detained for over a month in a military facility near Caracas.

Lawmaker targeted 

In Caracas, congress voted to request a probe of prominent anti-government legislator Maria Corina Machado on suspicion of “instigating delinquency, treason, terrorism and homicide” stemming from the protests.

Pro-government legislators presented tapes of Machado’s telephone conversations as the basis for a probe. Her lawyers called the taping illegal.

If prosecutors do request a probe, they will have to go to the supreme court because Machado has immunity as a lawmaker.

She fired back on Twitter that “if they think that by threatening me and invading my immunity they are going to silence me, they do not know me”.

Machado, 46, has joined Lopez at the forefront of calling for street protests to force the departure of Maduro, the handpicked successor of the late populist icon Hugo Chavez, who died last year of cancer.

Elected in December, Ceballos says university students in his city who led protests against the government have been unjustly targeted, with at least one killed.

Maduro contends the protests are part of a “fascist” right-wing, US-backed plot to destabilise his year-old government.

CANBERRA — Australia said Thursday that two objects — one estimated at 24 metres long — had been spotted in the Indian Ocean, the “best lead we have” in the search for a Malaysian passenger jet.

Four search aircraft had been dispatched to the remote area of the southern Indian Ocean to check whether grainy satellite photos indicated debris from missing Malaysia Airlines MH370, as relatives of passengers huddled anxiously awaiting news.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told parliament the images represented “new and credible information” but stressed that the link with flight MH370 had still to be confirmed.

“Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible objects related to the search have been identified,” Abbott said.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished in the early hours of March 8 after veering drastically off course over the South China Sea while en route to Beijing.

The reason for the deviation remains unknown although investigators believe it was the result of “deliberate action” by someone on board.

‘Awash with water’ 

Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) official John Young said the largest object sighted was assessed as being 24 metres long.

The two objects were in the southern Indian Ocean, about 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth.

“The indication to me is of objects that are of a reasonable size and probably awash with water and bobbing up and down over the surface,” Young said, calling it, “the best lead we have right now”.

“But we need to get there, find them, see them, assess them, to know whether it’s really meaningful or not.”

A merchant ship was expected to arrive in the vicinity around 0700 GMT and the Australian naval vessel HMAS Success, which is capable of retrieving any debris, is some days away.

Abbott warned that it may turn out the objects “are not related to the search for flight MH370”.

The international search for the plane has been marked by numerous false leads, but the latest photos are the first solid clue since the search area was significantly expanded last weekend to take in a vast part of the Indian Ocean.

The expansion, based on sketchy radar and satellite data, involved two vast search corridors, stretching south into the Indian Ocean and north over South and Central Asia.

Most analysts had favoured the southern corridor, saying it was unlikely the airliner passed undetected over nearly one dozen countries in the northern arc.

The satellite photos were taken on Sunday, meaning the objects have been subjected to four days of ocean drift, making them a “logistical nightmare” to locate, said Australian Defence Minister David Johnston.

“We are in a most isolated part of the world. In fact it probably doesn’t get, if I can be so bold, more isolated,” Johnston told Sky News Australia.

 Fundamental questions 

Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein stressed the urgent need to verify and “corroborate” what the images showed.

Experts said the fact that Abbott himself had released the information added weight to its credibility.

But David Kaminski-Morrow, air transport editor with aviation magazine Flight International, said the history of false starts meant the information will be “treated with extreme caution”.

“It’s the best lead simply because, with so little information, it’s effectively the only lead,” he said.

Malaysian authorities have been criticised for their handling of the investigation, especially by relatives of those on board who have complained of confusing or non-existent information.

Nearly two-thirds of the passengers were Chinese nationals.

China is paying “great attention” to the news from Australia, Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement.

“The Chinese side is ready to make relevant arrangements based on the latest updates,” he added, without elaborating.

There was a mixed reaction to the news among families gathered at a Beijing hotel, who for two weeks have been clinging to the slim hope that the plane might have secretly landed somewhere.

Some simply refused to countenance a crash scenario.

“My son is still alive. My son is still alive. I don’t believe the news,” cried Wen Wancheng, 63, as he pushed his way through a throng of reporters outside the hotel room used to update relatives.

Others cited the previous sightings that went nowhere.

“I am sick of hearing there is new information only for it to be dismissed later,” one man told AFP angrily.

In Malaysia, there had been chaotic, emotional scenes Wednesday when a group of tearful Chinese relatives tried to gatecrash the government’s tightly controlled daily media briefing at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur airport.

If the plane is found, fundamental questions will remain as to what caused it to crash.

Malaysia has asked the FBI to help recover data deleted from a flight simulator belonging to the missing plane’s chief pilot, Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, and removed from his home Saturday.

Zaharie, a 33-year veteran of the airline, was highly regarded by his peers. But suspicion has clouded the pilots since investigators concluded the plane’s communication systems were disabled manually before it changed course.

In his first on-camera comments on the mystery, US President Barack Obama, who is due to visit Malaysia next month, said he wanted anguished relatives to know Washington considers solving the riddle a “top priority”.

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine/MOSCOW — The United States warned Moscow it was on a “dark path” to isolation on Wednesday after Russian troops stormed Ukraine’s naval headquarters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol and raised their flag.

The dramatic seizure came as Russia and the West dug in for a long confrontation over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, with the United States and Europe groping for ways to increase pressure on a defiant Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“As long as Russia continues on this dark path, they will face increasing political and economic isolation,” said US Vice President Joe Biden, referring to reports of armed attacks against Ukrainian military personnel in Crimea.

Biden was in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, part of a quick trip to reassure Baltic allies worried about what an emboldened Russia might mean for their nations. Lithuania, along with Estonia and Latvia, are NATO members.

“There is an attempt, using brutal force, to redraw borders of the European states and to destroy the post-war architecture of Europe,” Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon meets Putin in Moscow on Thursday and travels to Kiev on Friday. He will urge a peaceful end to a crisis that began when Ukraine’s president abandoned a trade pact with the European Union and turned instead to Moscow, prompting violent street protests that led to his overthrow.

Russian lawmakers raced to ratify a treaty making Crimea part of Russia by the end of the week, despite threats of further sanctions from Washington and Brussels.

The Russian military moved swiftly to neutralise any threat of armed resistance in Crimea.

“This morning they stormed the compound. They cut the gates open, but I heard no shooting,” said Oleksander Balanyuk, a captain in the navy, walking out of the compound in his uniform and carrying his belongings.

“This thing should have been solved politically. Now all I can do is stand here at the gate. There is nothing else I can do,” he told Reuters, appearing ashamed and downcast.

Ukrainian military spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said the commander of the Ukrainian navy, Admiral Serhiy Haiduk, was driven away by what appeared to be Russian special forces.

In Washington, the White House condemned Russian moves to seize Ukrainian military installations, saying they are creating a dangerous situation. NATO accused Russia of trying to “redraw the map of Europe”.

Mixed feelings

Russia sent thousands of soldiers to Crimea in the buildup to a weekend referendum in which the Russian-majority region voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine and join Moscow, reflecting national loyalties and hopes of higher wages.

But there is unease among pro-Ukrainian Crimeans who have complained about the heavy armed presence across the region.

“I was born here, my family is here, I have a job here and I am not going anywhere unless there is an all-out military conflict,” said Viktor, a 23-year-old salesman. “It is my home but things will not be the same any more.”

A few hundred metres away, the local authorities attached new, Russian letters spelling “State Council of the Crimean Republic” on the building of the local assembly.

Ukrainian security chief Andriy Parubiy said the Kiev government would urge the United Nations to declare Crimea a demilitarised zone.

“The Ukrainian government will immediately appeal to the United Nations to recognise Crimea as a demilitarised zone and take necessary measures for Russian forces to leave Crimea and prepare conditions for redeployment of Ukrainian forces,” Parubiy said.

Ukraine announced plans to introduce visas for Russians, and Russia said it might respond in kind.

Putin said his move to annex Crimea was justified by “fascists” in Kiev who overthrew pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich last month.

Ukraine and Western governments have dismissed the referendum as a sham, and say there is no justification for Putin’s actions.

Germany makes move

Germany’s Cabinet approved EU plans for closer political cooperation with Ukraine, a government source said, clearing the way for Chancellor Angela Merkel to sign part of a so-called association agreement at an EU summit later this week.

The 28-member bloc is expected to sign a more far-reaching trade accord with Ukraine later.

But maintaining aggressive rhetoric reminiscent of the Cold War, Russia accused Western states of violating a pledge to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and political independence under a 1994 security assurance agreement, saying they had “indulged a coup d’etat” that ousted Yanukovich.

Moscow, which has said it will retaliate for so far largely symbolic Western sanctions targeting Russian officials, announced on Wednesday it was closing its military facilities to a European security watchdog for the rest of the year.

The Russian defence ministry was quoted as saying the signatories of a 2011 Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe agreement had exhausted their quotas to inspect Russian military facilities and a planned inspection in the coming days would be the last.

Further sanctions?

Biden said in Warsaw on Tuesday the United States may run more ground and naval military exercises to help Baltic states near Russia beef up their capacity after what he called Putin’s “land grab” in Ukraine.

The Truxtun, a US guided-missile destroyer, started a one-day military exercise with the Bulgarian and Romanian navies in the Black Sea on Wednesday, a US naval forces official said.

Washington and Brussels said further sanctions would follow the visa bans and asset freezes imposed so far on a handful of Russian and Crimean officials, drawing derision from Moscow.

On a visit to Japan, which has joined the Western chorus of condemnation of Moscow’s action, close Putin ally Igor Sechin, CEO of Russian oil major Rosneft, said expanding sanctions would only aggravate the crisis.

European Union leaders will consider widening the number of people targeted by personal sanctions when they meet on Thursday and Friday, diplomats said, as well as signing the political part of an association agreement with Ukraine’s interim government.

EU officials say they have identified more than 100 potential targets. Some media reports say Sechin and the head of Russian gas monopoly Gazprom are on the wider list.

ANKARA — President Abdullah Gul has dismissed suggestions that outside forces are conspiring against Turkey, openly contradicting Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s assertions that a corruption scandal is part of a foreign-backed plot to undermine him.

The graft inquiry swirling around Erdogan’s government has grown into the biggest challenge of his 11-year-rule. He has repeatedly cast it as a scheme by political enemies at home and abroad to damage him ahead of March 30 local elections.

“I don’t accept allegations about foreign powers and I don’t find them right... I don’t believe in these conspiracy theories as if there are some people trying to destroy Turkey,” the Hurriyet newspaper quoted Gul as telling reporters during a visit to Denmark.

“Of course Turkey has its long-standing opponents in the world. Certain groups have praised our work for the past 10 years... Now that they are criticising us, why is this an issue? These types of comments are for third world countries,” he said.

Turkey’s rapid growth into a major emerging market has largely been based on the stability brought by Erdogan’s firm rule over the last decade. But the past several months of political uncertainty have unnerved investors, helping send the lira currency down sharply.

Gul co-founded the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party with Erdogan and has remained a close ally. But he is viewed as a more conciliatory figure than the combative prime minister and their relations have at times appeared strained.

“The political atmosphere we are in is not making any of us happy. It doesn’t make me happy. I am both troubled and saddened by the things we are going through,” Gul was quoted as saying.

Gul has been under growing pressure from both within and outside Turkey to calm tensions generated by the graft scandal and is seen as a potential successor to Erdogan as prime minister and head of the AK Party, should Erdogan decide to run for the presidency in an August vote.

He and Erdogan had appeared to have closed ranks since the graft scandal erupted in December, with Gul approving controversial laws tightening Internet controls and giving the government greater influence over the judiciary — moves seen by Erdogan’s critics as an authoritarian response to the probe.

Election impact

The long-running investigation became public on December 17 when police detained the sons of three Cabinet ministers and businessmen close to Erdogan. The three ministers resigned a week later, while others were removed in a Cabinet reshuffle.

Parliament, currently in recess for the local election campaign period, will reconvene for an extraordinary session on Wednesday, demanded by the opposition, to hear prosecutors’ files on the allegations against four of the former ministers.

Last week, a Twitter account behind a string of leaks in the scandal posted what it presented as prosecutors’ files accusing the former ministers of involvement with an Iranian businessman in a bribery and smuggling racket.

Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the documents and the former ministers have denied any wrongdoing.

Erdogan says his former ally, US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, orchestrated the corruption investigation through a “parallel state” of his supporters in the judiciary and police. Gulen denies the allegations.

Erdogan has responded by reassigning thousands of police officers and hundreds of judges and prosecutors, and driving through the legislation approved by Gul tightening controls of the judiciary and Internet.

Members of parliament have immunity from prosecution, but opposition parties are expected to call on Wednesday for the former ministers to face trial. Rival MPs have previously come to blows over the corruption allegations.

The impact of the graft probe on Turkey’s electorate remains unclear, according to widely diverging opinion polls prepared in the run-up to the March 30 elections.

Analysts say the AK Party’s core support has held up and that it is on course to remain the biggest party, although its predicted share of the vote ranges from 30 to 50 per cent.

The latest survey from one pollster, Konsensus, showed the AK Party would narrowly win the mayoral race in Istanbul but cede control of the capital Ankara to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) for the first time since coming to power in 2002.

SONAR, another pollster, forecast the AK Party would keep control of both of Turkey’s largest cities but fail to seize control of the western city of Izmir, a stronghold of the CHP.

KUALA LUMPUR — Angry Chinese relatives tried to gatecrash Malaysia’s tightly controlled daily media briefing on the missing plane Wednesday in chaotic scenes underlining the frustrations surrounding the 12-day search.

Shouting and crying, a handful of relatives of passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines flight 370 unfurled a protest banner reading “Give us back our families”. They accused Malaysian authorities of withholding information and doing too little to find the plane.

The dramatic protest unfolded just before Malaysian officials arrived for the briefing, in which they announced no progress in determining what befell the plane.

“They give different messages every day. Where’s the flight now? We can’t stand it anymore!” one woman wailed as reporters mobbed her and other relatives.

Shortly afterwards, Malaysia staged a shorter-than-usual press conference during which officials indicated the investigation was zooming in closer on the pilot.

Authorities said investigators had discovered that data had been deleted from the home flight simulator of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah about one month before the plane vanished early on March 8. But they cautioned against a rush to judgement.

“Some data had been deleted from the simulator, and forensic work to retrieve this data is ongoing,” said Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein.

Officials gave no details on the simulator data.

Zaharie, a 33-year veteran of the airline, was highly regarded by his peers. But suspicion has clouded him since investigators concluded that the plane’s communication systems were manually disabled and the Boeing 777 was deliberately diverted by a skilled aviator.

Increasingly agitated 

Hishammuddin said Malaysia’s own investigations, and background checks received from other countries, had so far raised no indications that any of the plane’s 227 passengers might have been responsible.

“So far, no information of significance on any passengers has been found,” he said.

The aircraft also carried 12 crew.

The international quest to find the jet came up empty again, 12 days after it mysteriously vanished, with the Malaysian government acknowledging red tape was slowing a massive search.

Relatives of passengers have become increasingly agitated at the failure of the airline and Malaysian government to explain what happened, especially the families of the 153 Chinese nationals aboard.

Security had to intervene to stop the uproar at the press venue in a hotel near Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Family members were bundled out of the room, with two of them physically carried out, still protesting and shouting.

“I fully understand what they’re going through. Emotions are high,” Hishammuddin said.

But he had no progress to report from an international search across a huge arc of land and sea the size of Australia.

Indonesia acknowledged earlier on Wednesday it had only just provided clearance for surveillance aircraft from Australia, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia to overfly its territory, while saying its own vessels were awaiting instructions from Kuala Lumpur.

India’s navy has suspended its search in the Andaman Sea for several days, citing a lack of instructions.

‘Awaiting clearance’

Hishammuddin confirmed that some search resources were “awaiting diplomatic clearance to begin operations”.

“Once we receive formal clearance, we can then speed up the deployment of assets along the search corridors,” he said.

The clock is ticking down on the 30 days during which the aircraft black box will transmit a signal.

In a further sign of miscommunication, the Thai air force revealed Wednesday that its military radar had picked up what appeared to be Flight MH370 just minutes after it was mysteriously diverted.

It went unreported by the Thai military for nine days and only emerged following a check of radar logs on Monday.

Air Marshal Monthon Suchookornat said the same plane was picked up again later swinging north and disappearing over the Andaman Sea, but Thailand saw no need to notify Malaysia.

Malaysia has been criticised for not responding quickly to radar indications that the plane veered north and west, losing valuable time in tracking it.

Cooperation elusive 

Malaysia has sought help including radar and satellite analysis, and surveillance vessels and aircraft, from 26 countries.

The two huge search corridors — based on satellite data that detected the plane more than seven hours after —running south in an arc across the Indian Ocean, and another stretching from northern Thailand into South and Central Asia.

But many of the countries involved are not used to such close cooperation — especially when it comes to sharing possibly sensitive data.

Paul Yap, an aviation lecturer at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore, said Malaysia faced a giant challenge coordinating the search and getting partners to share sensitive data that could divulge a country’s radar capabilities.

“I wouldn’t like to be in Malaysia’s shoes,” Yap said.