World

ANKARA — Turkey lifted a much-criticised block on Twitter on Thursday, 24 hours after its highest court had overturned the ban as a breach of the right to free speech.

Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan on March 20 shuttered access to the social media site after it had been used to spread a torrent of anonymous leaks implicating his inner circle in corruption.

Turkey’s NATO allies and international human rights groups strongly criticised the ban — as well as an ongoing block of video-sharing website YouTube — as a step backward for Turkey’s democracy.

On Wednesday Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled the Twitter ban violated free speech and ordered the communications ministry and telecoms authority to reverse it “with immediate effect”.

The government took 24 hours to react. First the telecoms authority TIB removed from its website a court order on the Twitter block and started contacting Internet service providers to lift the ban.

Shortly after — as many of Turkey’s Twitter accounts came live again —  the transport and communications ministry confirmed the move in a brief statement.

“In line with the decision made by the constitutional court... the measure blocking access to the Twitter.com Internet site has been removed,” it said. “After the necessary technical arrangements, the site will be opened to use.”

The ban had been widely circumvented by many of Turkey’s almost 12 million Twitter users, who have instead sent tweets via text message or by adjusting their Internet settings.

‘Sultan has agreed’ 

Many Twitter users quickly commented on the move, with Nervana Mahmoud writing from Egypt, “Joy to the world, the Sultan has agreed”, using a common nickname for Erdogan.

Turkish journalist Adem Yavuz Arslan urged caution, warning that users should maintain the VPNs or virtual private networks they have used to get around the ban.

“Twitter has been unblocked,” he wrote. “But do not change your VPN settings yet. Because the government has the plug on the Internet. It can pull it whenever it wants.”

San Francisco-based Twitter had Wednesday reacted, tweeting: “We welcome this constitutional court ruling and hope to have Twitter access restored in Turkey soon.”

When the micro-blogging service wasn’t live in Turkey by Thursday morning, critics started pushing, fearing that the government may ignore the order.

A lawmaker from Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) suggested on TV that the ruling may not be implemented immediately, saying: “We will evaluate the verdict.”

Sezgin Tanrikulu, a lawmaker for the secular main opposition Republican People’s Party, warned that defying the court order “would mean an abuse of power”.

President Abdullah Gul, a regular Twitter user, said “the bans on Twitter and YouTube now need to be lifted”, speaking with journalists during a visit to Kuwait.

‘Anchor of stability’ 

Erdogan had ordered the Internet curbs in the lead-up to key local elections last Sunday, in which his party chalked up sweeping wins despite the claims of sleaze and graft and a harsh police crackdown on protesters last June.

Polling has shown that the Twitter and YouTube bans — despite earning rebukes from Brussels, Washington, rights group Amnesty International and a host of the world’s literary greats — had little effect on Erdogan’s conservative Muslim loyalists.

Research centre Ipsos found that only 3.6 per cent of AKP supporters said they had been influenced by the Internet blocks, and three quarters said the corruption claims had “no effect”.

Millions of Turks approve of Erdogan, despite criticism of a growing authoritarianism, because of the strong economic growth seen during his 11-year rule, analysts say.

“The Turkish economy is betting on Erdogan as an anchor of stability, and so are the people,” said Michael Meier of German think tank the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation.

“The corruption allegations are there, but at times of economic growth voters are pragmatic. That’s because there’s still enough left of the cake to go around.”

Meier said: “Erdogan has been able to touch the Turkish soul and pride... To many he embodies the dream of rising from a poor Istanbul neighbourhood to head of government.”

KIEV — Ukraine’s Western-backed leaders on Thursday blamed Russian agents and the country’s ousted president of organising two days of bloodshed in February that claimed nearly 90 lives.

The explosive allegations were levelled only moments before Russia responded to the new course taken by its ex-Soviet neighbour by hiking the price it must pay for gas shipments to what Ukrainian officials say is the highest rate for any European state.

Moscow also lashed out at its old Cold War nemesis NATO for building up the defences of ex-Communist and Soviet nations that have felt threatened by Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea and massive buildup of forces near Ukraine.

The furious East-West battle for Ukraine’s future has exposed the deep divide that splits the nation of 46 million between those who see themselves as either culturally tied to Russia or a part of a broader Europe.

Those tensions exploded on February 18 when gunshots in the heart of snow-swept Kiev heralded the onset of pitch battles between riot police and protesters — some armed with nothing more than metal shields — that left scores dead.

Both sides have blamed the other for starting the violence. But no formal probe results had been unveiled until acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov presented his initial findings to reporters on Thursday.

Avakov’s conclusion was decisive and potentially devastating for the new leaders’ relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The acting interior minister said that deposed president Viktor Yanukovych had issued the “criminal order” to fire at the protesters while agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) helped him plan and carry out the assault.

“FSB agents took part in both the planning and execution of the so-called anti-terrorist operation,” Ukrainian Security Service head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko told the same press briefing.

An FSB spokesman told Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency that Ukraine’s allegations were patently false. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for his part said “huge amounts of evidence” contradicted Kiev’s claims.

Yanukovych fled to Russia only days after the carnage and is now wanted in Kiev for allegedly ordering police to open fire against the crowds — a charge he denies but that is likely to keep him out of Ukraine for years to come.

“Former president Yanukovych will be prosecuted,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told the BBC. “He is accused of mass murder and we will bring him to justice.”

The raging security crisis on the eastern edge of the European Union has been accompanied by months of economic pressure that Russia had poured on Ukraine in a seeming effort to force its leaders to reverse their Westward course.

Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom — long accused of being wielded by the Kremlin as a weapon against uncooperative neighbours — on Tuesday hiked the price it charges Ukraine for natural gas shipments on which its industries depend by 44 per cent.

The punitive but largely expected step eliminated a price discount that Putin had extended the old government in December in reward for its decision to reject closer EU ties.

But Ukraine saw the price it must pay for 1,000 cubic metres of gas jump by another $100 to $485.50 following a failed round of negotiations in Moscow with the chief executive of Russia’s state energy firm Gazprom.

Moscow argues that a $100 rebate it awarded Kiev in 2010 in return for its decision to extend a lease under which the Kremlin keeps its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea no longer applied because the peninsula was now a part of Russia.

Kiev has vowed to contest the new charge — a warning that threatens a repeat of the 2006 and 2009 halts in gas supplies to Ukraine that also affected many of Russia’s other European clients.

“This is an unacceptable price for Ukraine because it is a political price,” said Ukraine’s Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan.

Europe’s worst security crisis in decades appeared to be only gaining momentum after NATO boosted the air power of Eastern European nations that Putin still views as part of Russia’s strategic domain.

The 28-nation bloc has said firmly it did not intend to get militarily involved in Ukraine no matter what Russia did.

But the alliance has vowed to review both its immediate strategy and historic mission after conceding that a Russian strike against Ukraine — a non-NATO member with an ill-equiped and underfunded army — could be both decisive and quick.

PERTH, Australia — Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak vowed Thursday “we will not rest” until the fate of flight MH370 is known, as Australia called it “the most difficult search in human history”.

Najib toured the military base in Perth being used as a staging post in the hunt for the Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 239 people that is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean.

“We want to find answers. We want to provide comfort to the families and we will not rest until answers are indeed found,” Najib said, as he thanked those involved in the eight-nation search.

Despite extensive scouring of the remote southern Indian Ocean, no debris that would indicate a crash site has been found, with time running out to locate the plane’s “black box” which only emits a signal for around 30 days.

Najib admitted the exhaustive hunt for the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8 was a “gargantuan task”, but said he was confident that “in due time we will provide a closure to this event, on this tragedy”.

Kuala Lumpur’s response has been widely criticised, especially by distraught relatives of the 153 Chinese nationals aboard.

Najib left without taking questions, as a reporter called out a query about Malaysia’s handling of the crisis.

Adding to the frustration for families affected, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said Wednesday a criminal investigation into what caused the flight to veer from its intended route between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing had so far been inconclusive.

In contrast, Australia’s mobilisation since it was handed increased responsibility in the search effort has been praised.

Australia has far more experience than Malaysia of rescue operations, routinely monitoring huge tracts of ocean, but Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the current search was the toughest ever.

“Every day, working on the basis of just small pieces of information, we are putting the jigsaw together. And every day we have a higher degree of confidence that we know more about what happened to this ill-fated flight,” he said.

“It is a very difficult search, the most difficult in human history, but as far as Australia is concerned we are throwing everything we have at it.”

International cooperation 

Eight nations, many of whom do not normally work together, have rallied to look for clues in the Indian Ocean to one of the greatest aviation mysteries the world has seen.

Both Najib and Abbott hailed the “truly remarkable” cooperation between Australia, Britain, China, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, South Korea and the United States.

“It shows what we can do, and if anyone would ever be unhappy or distraught about the prospects for international peace and harmony, this operation is a marvellous antidote to pessimism,” said Abbott.

A British nuclear submarine with underwater search capabilities on Wednesday joined planes and ships scouring the vast oceanic search zone, but again nothing was reported found.

Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre, which is directing the search, said eight planes and nine ships were involved Thursday as they further refined the search area, moving it to west north-west of Perth.

Australia’s Ocean Shield naval vessel, which is fitted with a US-supplied “black box” detector, is due to arrive in the area Friday. But without a confirmed crash site, hopes of finding the device are slim.

Passengers cleared
of suspicion

Malaysian police chief Khalid on Wednesday said all 227 passengers had been “cleared” of suspicion, as authorities probe a possible hijack or sabotage plot.

Police are still investigating the backgrounds of the plane’s 12 crew, as well as ground staff and flight engineers.

Authorities still have no idea how or why the plane vanished, and warn that unless the black box is found, the mystery may never be solved.

The battery-powered signal from the black box — which records flight data and cockpit voice communications — is expected to expire within days.

On Wednesday, Malaysian officials sought to explain to sceptical relatives their conclusion — based on complex satellite data — that the plane went down in the Indian Ocean.

That determination has outraged some families who say wreckage must first be recovered.

“I know that until we find the plane, many families cannot start to grieve,” Najib said.

“I cannot imagine what they must be going through. But I can promise them that we will not give up.”

FORT HOOD, Texas — The soldier suspected of gunning down three people before killing himself at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas was under psychiatric care but showed no signs of violence or suicidal tendencies, the secretary of the US Army said on Thursday.

There was no motive given for the incident, which also left 16 wounded, although officials have so far ruled out terrorism in the second mass shooting at the base in five years.

The gunman, who had been treated for depression and anxiety, was yet to be officially named but security officials said preliminary information identified the gunman as Ivan Lopez.

US Army Secretary John McHugh said the soldier, who joined the service in 2008, had served two tours of duty abroad, including four months in Iraq in 2011. He had no direct involvement in combat and suffered no wounds.

“He was undergoing a variety of treatment and diagnoses for mental health conditions, ranging from depression to anxiety to some sleep disturbance. He was prescribed a number of drugs to address those, including Ambien,” McHugh told a US Senate committee hearing.

“The background checks we have done thus far show no involvement with extremist organisations of any kind,” he said.

McHugh said the soldier and his wife were from Puerto Rico, and that he had served in the Puerto Rican national guard before joining the US Army.

The suspect’s wife was cooperating with law enforcement officers, a Federal Bureau of Investigation official said, according to CNN.

In a news conference late on Wednesday, Fort Hood commanding officer Lieutenant General Mark Milley said the shooter was undergoing evaluation for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The shooter had “self-reported” a traumatic brain injury after returning from Iraq but was never wounded in action, Milley said. He arrived in Fort Hood in February from another military installation.

At about 4:00pm local time (2100 GMT) on Wednesday, the soldier went to two buildings on the base and opened fire before he was confronted by military police, Milley said.

The gunman then shot himself in the head with a .45-caliber pistol. Milley said law enforcement was looking into reports of an argument at the base ahead of the shooting.

Heartbroken

The rampage is the third shooting at a military base in the United States in about six months that, along with a series of shootings in schools and malls, has sparked a national debate over gun-control regulations.

The Scott & White Hospital in Temple, Texas, where some of the wounded were taken, said nine patients were in intensive care, of which three were in critical condition and six were stable.

US President Barack Obama said he was “heartbroken” another shooting had occurred and that the incident “reopens the pain of what happened at Fort Hood five years ago”.

“We are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened,” Obama said.

The incident highlights the US military’s so-far frustrated efforts to secure its bases from potential shooters, who increasingly appear to target the facilities.

Milley said the shooter walked into one of the unit buildings, opened fire, then got into a vehicle and fired from there. He then went into another building and opened fire again, until he was engaged by Fort Hood law enforcement officers.

When confronted by a female military police officer, he shot himself with his semi-automatic weapon in the parking lot.

“He was approaching her at about 20 feet. He put his hands up, then reached under his jacket, pulled out the [.45] and she pulled out her weapon and then she engaged, and he then put the weapon to his head,” Milley said.

One of the buildings housed medical brigade day-to-day operations and the other, nearby, served the administration of the transportation battalion.

Security overhaul

As soon as the shooting broke out, the base went on lockdown. Police secured the base perimetre, emergency vehicles rushed to the scene, helicopters circled Fort Hood and officers went from building to building searching for the shooter.

Fort Hood, a base from which soldiers prepare to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan, had overhauled its security to better deal with potential “insider threats” after a 2009 rampage by an Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people and wounded 32 others.

In September, a gunman opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12 and wounding four before being killed by police. Last month, a civilian shot dead a sailor aboard a ship at a US Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered steps to improve Pentagon security after reviews found the Navy Yard shooting could have been averted if the gunman’s mental health had been properly handled.

IQUIQUE, Chile — Authorities in northern Chile discovered surprisingly light damage and just six reported deaths Wednesday from a magnitude-8.2 quake — a remarkably low toll for such a powerful shift in the Earth’s crust.

President Michelle Bachelet arrived in Iquique before noon to review damage after declaring a state of emergency. Hours earlier, she sent a military plane with 100 anti-riot police to join 300 soldiers deployed to prevent looting and round up escaped prisoners.

Thousands of people evacuated from low-lying areas were returning home after a spending a long night outside due to the threat of a tsunami. The government’s mandatory order to leave the coast was spread through cell phone text messages and Twitter, and reinforced by blaring sirens in neighbourhoods where people regularly practice earthquake drills.

Seawater flooded city streets and washed away some fishing boats in Iquique, but by early Wednesday no major tsunami damage was apparent. Chile’s entire coast was initially subject to the mandatory evacuation order, which lasted nearly 10 hours in coastal communities closest to the offshore epicenter.

The shaking that began at 8:46pm Tuesday also touched off landslides that blocked roads, knocked out power for thousands, damaged an airport and started fires that destroyed several businesses. Some homes made of adobe were destroyed in Arica, another city close to the quake’s offshore epicenter.

Mining in Chile, which is the world’s top copper producing nation, was not affected, although world prices for the red metal jumped as the quake raised supply concerns because most of the Chilean mining industry is in the northern regions.

About 300 inmates escaped from a women’s prison in the city of Iquique, forcing the closure of the border with Peru. Officials said some two dozen had been captured early Wednesday.

Bachelet, who just returned to the presidency three weeks ago, waited five hours after the quake struck to address her nation. It was not lost on many Chileans that the last time she presided over a major quake, days before the end of her 2006-10 term, her emergency preparedness office prematurely waved off a tsunami danger. Most of the 500 dead from that magnitude-8.8 tremor survived the shaking, only to be caught in killer waves in a disaster that destroyed 220,000 homes and washed away large parts of many coastal communities.

“The country has done a good job of confronting the emergency. I call on everyone to stay calm and follow the authorities’ instructions,” Bachelet tweeted after Tuesday night’s temblor.

She put her interior minister in direct charge of coordinating the emergency response, and announced that schools would be suspended in evacuated areas while authorities assessed the damage.

The only US impact might be higher waves Wednesday for Hawaii’s swimmers and surfers, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii said.

The US Geological Survey said the temblor was centreed in the Pacific Ocean 99 kilometres northwest from coastal Iquique. More than 20 significant aftershocks followed, including one of magnitude 6.2.

The quake was so strong that the shaking experienced in Bolivia’s capital about 470 kilometres away was the equivalent of a magnitude-4.5 tremor, authorities there said.

But Tuesday night’s quake was not the big one seismologists expect eventually.

“Could be tomorrow, could be in 50 years; we do not know when it’s going to occur. But the key point here is that this magnitude-8.2 is not the large earthquake that we were expecting for this area. We’re actually still expecting potentially an even larger earthquake,” said Mike Simons, a seismologist at the Geological Survey.

Chile is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries because just off the coast, the Nazca tectonic plate plunges beneath the South American plate, pushing the towering Andes cordillera to ever-higher altitudes. Nowhere along this fault is the pressure greater than in far northern Chile, an area known as the “Iquique seismic gap”.

The USGS says the seismic gap last saw a major quake in 1877, when a magnitude-8.8 quake unleashed a tsunami that caused major damage along the Chile-Peru coast and fatalities as far away as Hawaii and Japan. Another quake of similar force hit just north of the area in 1868.

“This is the one remaining gap that hasn’t had an earthquake in the last 140 years,” said Simons. “We know these two plates come together at about 6, 7 centimetres a year, and if you multiply that by 140 years then the plates should have moved about 11 metres along the fault, and you can make an estimate of the size of earthquake we expect here.”

The latest activity began with a strong magnitude-6.7 quake on March 16 that caused more than 100,000 people to briefly evacuate low-lying areas. Hundreds of smaller quakes followed in the weeks since, keeping people on edge.

KUALA LUMPUR — A police investigation may never determine the reason why the Malaysia Airlines jetliner disappeared, and search planes scouring the Indian Ocean for any sign of its wreckage aren’t certain to find anything either, officials said Wednesday.

The assessment by Malaysian and Australian officials underscored the lack of knowledge authorities have about what happened on Flight 370. It also points to a scenario that becomes more likely with every passing day — that the fate of the Boeing 777 and the 239 people on board might remain a mystery forever.

The plane disappeared March 8 on a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur after its transponders, which make the plane visible to commercial radar, were shut off. Military radar picked up the jet just under an hour later, on the other side of the Malay Peninsula. Authorities say that until then its “movements were consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane,” but have not ruled out anything, including mechanical error.

Police are investigating the pilots and crew for any evidence suggesting they may have hijacked or sabotaged the plane. The backgrounds of the passengers, two-thirds of whom were Chinese, have been checked by local and international investigators and nothing suspicious has been found.

“Investigations may go on and on and on. We have to clear every little thing,” Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar told reporters. “At the end of the investigations, we may not even know the real cause. We may not even know the reason for this incident.”

Police are also investigating the cargo and the food served on the plane to eliminate possible poisoning of passengers and crew, he said.

The search for the plane began over the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea, where the plane’s last communications were, and then shifted west to the Strait of Malacca, where it was last spotted by military radar. Experts then analysed hourly satellite “handshakes” between the plane and a satellite and now believe it crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.

A search there began just over two weeks ago, and now involves at least nine ships and nine planes.

The British government said a nuclear-powered submarine with advanced underwater search capability had arrived in the southern Indian Ocean.

The current search area is a 221,000-square kilometre patch of sea roughly a 2½-hour flight from Perth.

Angus Houston, the head of a joint agency coordinating the multinational search effort out of Australia, said no time frame had been set for the search to end, but that a new approach would be needed if nothing showed up.

“Over time, if we don’t find anything on the surface, we’re going to have to think about what we do next, because clearly it’s vitally important for the families, it’s vitally important for the governments involved that we find this airplane,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Flight Lieutenant Dave O’Brien, captain of an Australian P-3 Orion that arrived back after dark Wednesday at base Pearce near Perth, said it was another fruitless day of searching despite favourable weather and sea conditions.

“We didn’t see anything at all of interest,” he said. “So a fairly quiet day for us out there. However, we are back out tomorrow to try it all again.”

With no other data available indicating where the plane went down, spotting wreckage is key to narrowing down the search area and ultimately finding the plane’s flight data recorders, which would provide a wealth of information about the condition the plane was flying under and the communications or sounds in the cockpit.

The data recorders emit a “ping” that can be detected by special equipment towed by a ship in the immediate vicinity. But the battery-powered recorders stop transmitting the pings about 30 days after a crash. Locating the data recorders and wreckage after that is possible, but it becomes an even more daunting task.

Malaysia has been criticised by the relatives of some Chinese passengers on board, who accuse it of not providing enough information or even lying about what it knows about the final movements of the plane. In the early days of the crisis, the Chinese government itself expressed irritation at the speed of the probe and the lack of information.

On Wednesday, China’s ambassador to Malaysia sought to distance the government from the more strident criticism, perhaps concerned about any lasting damage to ties between Beijing and Kuala Lumpur.

“I wish to responsibly point out that these extreme and even somewhat irresponsible views are not representative of the overall group of Chinese relatives and even more so not representative of the Chinese government’s attitude,” Huang Huikang told reporters.

Scores of relatives are staying in hotels in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur, courtesy of Malaysia Airlines.

Authorities organised a closed-door briefing in Malaysia for the families with officials and experts involved in the hunt, including the chief of the Malaysian air force.

It was relayed by video conferencing technologies to the relatives in Beijing. Malaysia’s civil aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, said officials answered all the questions raised by the relatives and that they had “a very good meeting”. Several relatives interviewed after the session said officials showed them more satellite and other data, but that they were still not satisfied.

“The fact is they didn’t give us any convincing information,” said Steve Wang, a representative of some of the Chinese families in Beijing. “They said themselves that there are many different possibilities, but they are judging on the basis of just one of them.”

Malaysian officials have on occasion given conflicting accounts and contradictory information over the last three weeks. They maintain they are doing their best in what it is an unprecedented situation, and stress they want the same thing as the families, namely to locate the plane as quickly as possible.

BRUSSELS — NATO’s foreign ministers ordered an end to civilian and military cooperation with Russia on Tuesday and told their generals and admirals to quickly figure out ways to better protect alliance members that feel threatened by Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.

The 28-member alliance, the keystone of US and European security since the end of World War II, was reacting to its most serious crisis in years: Russia’s unilateral annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, which the US and its allies have condemned as an illegal landgrab.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and the other ministers, meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels behind closed doors, unanimously agreed Tuesday on a number of measures. A civilian NATO official who attended the meeting and briefed reporters afterward on condition of anonymity said the steps included:

— The suspension of “all practical civilian and military cooperation” between NATO and Russia. NATO officials said ambassadorial-level contacts will remain open to assure a reliable channel of communication.

— The possible deployment and reinforcement of military assets in eastern NATO members, such as Poland and the Baltic states, that feel menaced by Moscow’s latest actions.

— A possible increase of readiness levels for the NATO rapid response force.

— A possible review of NATO’s crisis response plans, as well as its military training and exercise schedules.

NATO Supreme Commander Gen. Phil Breedlove and his subordinates will draw up the proposals within a few weeks and then submit them to political leaders for their approval, the NATO official said.

To reassure alliance members closest to Russia and Ukraine, NATO already has stepped up air patrols over the Baltic Sea and AWACS surveillance flights over Poland and Romania.

Prior to the meeting, the chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation downplayed reports of a Russian troop withdrawal from areas along its border with Ukraine. Russia’s defence ministry on Monday said one battalion — about 500 troops — had pulled back.

“This is not what we have seen,” NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters Tuesday. “And this massive military buildup can in no way contribute to a de-escalation of the situation — a de-escalation that we all want to see — so I continue to urge Russia to pull back its troops, live up to its international obligation and engage in a constructive dialogue with Ukraine.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking to reporters in Berlin, echoed those comments.

“[Even if some troops left] it’s certainly not the final step,” she said. “The [Russian] troop concentration on the Ukrainian border is very high.”

An estimated 35,000 to 40,000 Russian troops equipped with tanks, other armoured vehicles and fixed and rotary wing aircraft remained positioned near the border with Ukraine, a NATO military official told The Associated Press on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.

The official described the Russian buildup as “a complete combat force” that was highly threatening to Ukraine.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, who was meeting with his NATO counterparts, planned to speak to reporters later in the day.

In other developments, Russia sharply hiked the price for natural gas to Ukraine and threatened to reclaim billions in previous discounts, raising the heat on Ukraine’s cash-strapped government. In Kiev, Ukrainian police moved to disarm members of a radical nationalist group after a shooting spree in the capital.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier renewed a push for internationally backed direct talks between Russia and Ukraine.

“What will be important in the coming days is getting Russia and Ukraine around a table together,” Steinmeier said at a meeting with his French and Polish counterparts in Weimar, Germany, before heading to Brussels.

Despite annexing Crimea, Putin and other Kremlin officials have said that Russia has no intention of invading other areas of Ukraine. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu insisted Tuesday the Kremlin wants a “political settlement that would take interests and rights of the entire Ukrainian people into account.”

KUALA LUMPUR/PERTH — The last words from the cockpit of a missing Malaysian jet were a standard “Good night Malaysian three seven zero”, Malaysian authorities said, changing their account of the critical last communication from a more casual “All right, good night”.

Malaysia on Tuesday released the full transcript of communications between the Boeing 777 and local air traffic control before it dropped from civilian radar in the early hours of March 8 as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The correction comes as Malaysian authorities face heavy criticism, particularly from China, for mismanaging the search, now in its fourth fruitless week, and holding back information. Most of the 239 people on board the flight were Chinese.

“There is no indication of anything abnormal in the transcript,” Malaysian Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said in the statement, without giving explanation for the changes in the reported last communication.

“The transcript was initially held as part of the police investigation,” he added.

Minutes after the final radio transmission was received the plane’s communications were cut off, and it turned back across Peninsular Malaysia and headed towards the Indian Ocean, according to military radar and limited satellite data.

The search is now focused on a vast, inhospitable swathe of the southern Indian Ocean west of the Australian city of Perth, but an international team of planes and ships have so far failed to spot any sign of the jetliner.

“In this case, the last known position was a long, long way from where the aircraft appears to have gone,” retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the head of the Australian agency coordinating the operation, told reporters in Perth.

“It’s very complex, it’s very demanding and we don’t have hard information like we might normally have,” he said.

Malaysia says the plane was likely diverted deliberately, probably by a skilled aviator, leading to speculation of involvement by one or more of the pilots. Investigators, however, have determined no apparent motive or other red flags among the 227 passengers and 12 crew.

The transcript, issued on Tuesday, and shared with families of the passengers and crew, covers about 55 minutes of apparently routine conversation, beginning about quarter of an hour before take-off.

The last exchange took place at 1:19am (1719 GMT). Nothing appeared to be wrong, as Malaysian air traffic controllers told the pilots they were entering Vietnamese air space and received a fairly standard sign-off with call sign in reply.

Air Traffic Control: “Malaysian Three Seven Zero contact Ho Chi Minh 120 decimal 9, good night.”

MH370: “Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero.”

“Previously, Malaysia Airlines had stated initial investigations indicated that the voice which signed off was that of the co-pilot,” Transport Minister Hishammuddin said in the statement.

“The police are working to confirm this belief and forensic examination of the actual recording is on-going.”

Malaysia’s ambassador to China had told Chinese families in Beijing as early as March 12 that the last words from the cockpit had been “All right, good night”, which experts said was more informal than called for by standard radio procedures.

Search goes on

Nine ships and 10 aircraft resumed the hunt for wreckage from MH370 on Tuesday, hoping to recover more than the fishing gear and other flotsam found since Australian authorities moved the search 1,100km north after new analysis of radar and satellite data.

Houston said the challenging search, in an area the size of Ireland, would continue based on the imperfect information with which they had to work.

“But, inevitably, if we don’t find any wreckage on the surface, we are eventually going to have to, probably in consultation with everybody who has a stake in this, review what to do next,” he said.

Using faint, hourly satellite signals gathered by British firm Inmarsat PLC and radar data from early in its flight, investigators have only estimates of the speed the aircraft was travelling and no certainty of its altitude, Houston said.

Satellite imagery of the new search area had not given “anything better than low confidence of finding anything”, said Mick Kinley, another search official in Perth.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak will travel to Perth late on Wednesday to see the operation first hand. He was expected to meet Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday.

Among the vessels due to join the search in the coming days is an Australian defence force ship, the Ocean Shield, that has been fitted with a sophisticated US black box locator and an underwater drone.

Time is running out because the signal transmitted by the missing aircraft’s black box will die about 30 days after a crash due to limited battery life, leaving investigators with a vastly more difficult task. 

LONDON — The Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in Britain will be reviewed over concerns about possible links to violence, Prime Minister David Cameron said, widening pressure on a veteran Islamist movement facing an intensifying crackdown in the Arab world.

The Brotherhood, and affiliated organisations and parties are part of the political landscape in many Arab and Islamic states where they have placed deep roots in society thanks to their involvement in social and charitable works.

It also gained political power in some Arab nations after the 2011 uprisings that toppled long-entrenched autocratic regimes. But the Brotherhood has been crushed in Egypt after the military overthrew an elected Islamist president in July, declared a terrorist organisation in Saudi Arabia, and subjected to a wave of prosecutions and jailings in Gulf Arab kingdoms leery of any spread of Islamist influence since the Arab Spring.

Britain, where many Brotherhood-influenced organisations are based, said its review would include looking at allegations made by authoritarian Arab leaders that the group was linked to violence, a charge it has repeatedly denied.

“What is important... is to make sure we fully understand what this organisation is, what it stands for, what its links are, what its beliefs are in terms of both extremism and violent extremism, what its connections are with other groups, what its presence is here in the United Kingdom,” Cameron told reporters.

A spokeswoman for Cameron said the review would examine the philosophies and values of the Muslim Brotherhood and how it operated in different countries around the world, including in the UK, as well as its impact on Britain’s national security.

Both the British domestic and foreign intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, would be consulted as part of the review, she added, which would focus on the activities of the Brotherhood in the wider region, not Egypt alone.

“There have been some concerns as well that have been raised about potential linkages to violent activity and some extremist groups of some of the organisations that tend to come together under the wider Muslim Brotherhood organisation,” another spokesman said. Therefore the review would look at “alleged and reported links to extremist organisations”.

The government hopes the review, being led by John Jenkins, its ambassador to Saudi Arabia, will report findings by July.

In Cairo, Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty said: “Egypt welcomes Britain’s decision in carrying out urgent investigations into the role the Muslim Brotherhood group carries out from British soil and the extent of the relationship between the... Brotherhood and violent activities and extremism.”

The Muslim Brotherhood Press Office in London, which has become the movement’s main communication channel since July, said it would release a statement later on Monday.

“I think there’s a definite linkage between Cameron’s announcement of investigation of the Brotherhood in the UK to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf state perceptions of the Brotherhood as a threat,” said Theodore Karasik, director of research and consultancy at the Gulf security and military think-tank INEGMA.

“The pressure point is related to the fact that an event [can] occur on the Arabian Peninsula that is tied to the Brotherhood and originates in the UK,” he told Reuters.

Egypt shatters Brotherhood

Britain’s move came amid increasing Arab repression of the Brotherhood especially in Egypt, where security forces have killed hundreds of Islamists and jailed thousands including almost all leaders of the movement since the army ousted President Mohamed Morsi after mass protests against his rule.

The military-backed authorities have banned the Brotherhood and more than 500 members have been sentenced to death for murder over deaths during clashes with security forces. Morsi faces charges that could lead to the death penalty.

The Brotherhood has reiterated a decades-long policy of non-violence, denying any connection with recent bloodshed.

Analysts say Morsi, a leading Brotherhood figure, alienated all but a hard-core constituency by devoting his energy to asserting Islamist control of Egypt’s governing institutions rather than implementing civic-minded policies to revive its paralysed economy and heal political divisions.

Still, in the wake of Morsi’s removal Britain’s Foreign Office voiced concern over the collective round-up of Brotherhood members, warning that politicised arrests would hinder Egypt’s post-2011 transition towards democracy.

Saudi Arabia, a staunch supporter of the military-buttressed governing authorities in Egypt, formally designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation last month.

Riyadh fears that the group, whose Sunni Islamist doctrines challenge the Saudi principle of dynastic rule, has tried to build support in the kingdom since the Arab Spring revolutions.

ANKARA — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan looked a step closer to a presidential bid and to gaining the upper hand in a bitter power struggle on Monday, casting strong local election results as a mandate to hunt down enemies within the state “in their lair”.

His AK Party swept the electoral map in Sunday’s polls, retaining control of the two biggest cities Istanbul and Ankara and increasing its share of the national vote as his pugnacious leadership style, beloved by a loyal, conservative voter base, trumped a stream of corruption allegations and security leaks.

From a balcony at AKP headquarters at the end of a long and bitter election that became a referendum on his rule, Erdogan told thousands of cheering supporters that his enemies in politics and the state, whom he has labelled “traitors”, “terrorists” and “an alliance of evil”, would pay the price.

“We will enter their lair,” he said, before a huge firework display lit up Ankara’s midnight sky. “They will be brought to account. How can you threaten national security?”

The harsh tone of his balcony address suggested he felt he now had a mandate for strong action against his enemies. “From tomorrow, there may be some who flee,” he said.

The election campaign has been dominated by a power struggle between Erdogan and US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom he accuses of using a network of followers in the police and judiciary to fabricate graft smears in an effort to topple him.

Erdogan, who has long drawn support from the same Muslim professional class that reveres Gulen, has purged thousands of police officers and hundreds of judges and prosecutors since anti-graft raids in December targeted businessmen close to the premier as well as the sons of some government ministers.

Investors, who have been unnerved by the turbulence, took solace in the election result, seeing it as a sign of political continuity. The lira rallied to its strongest in two months and stocks hit a three-month high.

“From a market perspective, the election result appears to be more or less what the doctor ordered: a solid win for the AKP which shores up the position of Turkey’s ruling party,” said Nicholas Spiro, head of Spiro Sovereign Strategy.

The main opposition CHP said it would challenge the result in Ankara, which was a particularly close race. But no major changes were expected in a nationwide tally which put the AKP on some 45.6 per cent with almost all the votes counted, a robust increase on its 39 per cent share at local elections in 2009.

Presidential ambition

Erdogan has made no secret of his ambition to become Turkey’s first directly elected president in an August ballot, but the feud with Gulen, the corruption allegations and street protests last summer had all raised questions over how easily he would secure a majority in the first round.

“Of course this has reinforced Erdogan’s bid for the presidential polls,” one source close to the government said of Sunday’s election result. “He was in need of a vote of confidence, both from the people and for those who have been critical of him within the party.”

A senior government official concurred, saying there were now “no obstacles before him” on the road to the presidency, although the official said rooting out Gulen’s influence within the state would remain Erdogan’s priority. He could, instead, choose to run for a fourth term as premier in a parliamentary election next year in order to finish off that battle.

“Erdogan is certainly much closer to the presidency,” the official said. “But he makes his own agenda. Very soon he will begin his assessment of what needs to be done together with the party’s ruling echelons.”

The crisis reached a new level at the end of last week when a recording of a top-secret meeting of security officials about possible intervention in Syria was posted anonymously on YouTube. The action, for which Gulen denies any responsibility, raised serious concern about government control of its own security apparatus and speculation about further damaging leaks.

“The prime minister takes this extremely seriously,” the source close to the government said. “Such a structure can not be allowed within the state and before he makes a move for the presidential bid he needs to make sure that these people will be carved out of the state institutions.”

‘Buried at the ballot box’

Erdogan, lacking trained personnel loyal to himself, filled government departments with Gulen supporters when he first was elected in 2002. Gulen, who runs a huge network of schools and businesses, is widely credited with having helped Erdogan break the political power of the armed forces using allies in the police and judiciary.

But in recent years friction has grown between the two men and came to a head when Erdogan moved to curb Gulen’s influence and close the schools that are a key source of income and influence.

He now seems likely to step up his drive against Gulen.

“Let me tell you, Erdogan’s response is coming,” said Tesev think tank chairman, Can Paker, seen as close to Erdogan.

“He will harshly and fully clean up the police and judiciary. And he will purge the press that supported the leaks. He will most certainly do that. He will say ‘I was elected to eliminate them’. He is not going to soften.”

The authorities have already begun an espionage investigation following the leaked Syria recording, and on Monday the Cihan news agency and the Zaman newspaper — both affiliated to Gulen — claimed they had come under “cyber attack” during their election night coverage.

Pro-government newspapers heaped scorn on Erdogan’s opponents, with one, Yeni Safak, showing pictures of opposition leaders and Gulen under the headline “Buried at the Ballot Box”.

“It’s already clear from his speech this evening that he’s basically threatening society,” said Gursel Tekin, CHP Vice President. “This shows his state of mind isn’t to be trusted, and these obvious threats are not something that we can accept.”