World

PARIS — France’s ruling Socialists on Monday responded to a stinging electoral setback by unveiling plans to block a potential breakthrough by the far-right National Front (FN) in nationwide local elections.

In a vote widely expected to trigger a far-reaching Cabinet reshuffle by President Francois Hollande, the anti-immigration FN is on track to take control of up to 15 towns across the country following a better-than-expected showing in Sunday’s first round of voting.

Candidates from Marine Le Pen’s FN will contest second round, runoff votes this coming Sunday in an unprecedented 315 municipalities and are well-placed to win more than a dozen of them having already claimed one mayor’s seat, in the depressed former mining town of Henin Beaumont, by claiming an overall majority at the first attempt.

In a bid to reduce the impact of the FN’s surge, the Socialists announced they would be joining forces with the Greens and the Communist Party to present joint lists where it can reduce the chances of an FN win in the second round.

Party first secretary Harlem Desir, a veteran anti-FN campaigner, also announced that the PS would stand down its candidate in the southern town of St Gilles to give the mainstream centre-right a better chance of defeating the FN candidate who topped the first round poll.

Pundits were unanimous in portraying the FN’s success and an unusually high abstention rate as a sign of the electorate’s anger, exasperation and disillusionment with Hollande’s administration, which has appeared rudderless at times as it grapples with a stagnating economy and record unemployment.

“The economic crisis has exacerbated a search for authority and there has been a general hardening of attitudes towards foreigners throughout French society, which the National Front has benefited from,” said Nonna Mayer, a political analyst at the CNRS think tank.

PM out, president’s ex in? 

Hollande is expected to announce significant changes to the government line-up in the aftermath of the election debacle with lacklustre Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault’s position widely thought to be on the line.

Popular Interior Minister Manuel Valls is tipped to replace Ayrault while the president’s former partner, Segolene Royal, is expected to be brought back from the political wilderness.

Royal, the mother of Hollande’s four children, is a longstanding Socialist Party heavyweight who was reportedly left out of the current government on the insistence of the woman who replaced her as the president’s girlfriend, Valerie Trierweiler. That is no longer an issue as Hollande and Trierweiler separated in January following the revelation of his affair with actress Julie Gayet (who is friendly with Royal).

“Francois Hollande must draw the conclusions from a vote that is clearly addressed to him,” the left-leaning Liberation daily said, describing the results as a “slap” in the face for the embattled president, currently the most unpopular leader in recent French history.

“The record figures of the National Front and the rise in the number of abstentions are... symptoms of an ailing democracy,” it said.

Record low turnout 

Voter turnout on Sunday was just over 61 per cent of the electorate: respectable in most countries but a record low in France.

The main opposition centre-right UMP Party and allies took 47 per cent of the vote nationwide, while the Socialists and allies took 38 per cent. The FN accounted for 5 per cent of votes cast nationwide but was only fielding candidates in a small number of selected municipalities.

Le Pen’s party scored far better in a number of mid-sized towns in the southeast of the country, traditionally fertile ground for the far-right, and in several depressed pockets of northern France, as well as claiming nearly a quarter of the votes cast in France’s second city, Marseille.

“Punished,” was the Le Parisien daily’s verdict on Hollande’s first electoral test since taking power two years ago after unseating the UMP’s Nicolas Sarkozy.

Socialist MPs appealed to supporters to make sure they turned out for the second round.

National Assembly Speaker Claude Bartolone said they should resist Marine Le Pen’s attempts to transform the image of the FN, which remains tainted by association to its founder, her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a veteran Holocaust denier with multiple convictions for racism.

“The FN still puts forward the same arguments of hatred and division,” Bartolone said.

Marine Le Pen claimed the FN’s success marked an end to two-party politics in France.

In a reference to the cronyism that has marked the party’s previous attempts to manage towns, she vowed that her followers would run model administrations.

“We will lower taxes in all the cities managed by us,” Le Pen said.

In Paris, the UMP was encouraged by an unexpected lead won by former Sarkozy minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who is competing against Socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo. The outcome sets the scene for a nail-biting runoff to decide who will be the French capital’s first ever female mayor.

LOS ANGELES — More than 100 people are still unaccounted for after a devastating landslide in the northwestern US state of Washington, while eight people are so far confirmed dead, officials said Monday.

The number reported missing or unaccounted for rose dramatically from 18 to 108 after the massive landslide slammed “like a freight train” into a mountainside in Snohomish County.

“We’re still in rescue mode here, but the situation is very grim,” said Snohomish County fire district chief Travis Hots.

“We’re holding out hope that we’ll find people that are still alive, but we haven’t found anyone alive since Saturday.”

Emergency management chief John Pennington stressed that 108 is the number of reported missing or unaccounted for, not necessarily actually missing after the disaster on Saturday.

But he said there were a total of 49 dwellings of various types in the area hit by the devastating landslide and that there were likely to have been more people at home on a Saturday than during the week.

“To date there are 108 reports of names of individuals who are either unaccounted for or missing,” he said. “This doesn’t mean that there are 108 injuries, or 108 fatalities, it’s 108 reports,” he told reporters.

“It was Saturday, and it was probably a higher number than you would see during a weekday,” he said.

The wall of mud, rocks and trees smashed into the rural town of Oso, northeast of Seattle, destroying houses and part of a highway.

The field of rubble is about 2.4 kilometres across and some four to six metres deep in areas, The Seattle Times reported.

Rescuers reported hearing voices calling for help on Saturday, but Hots said they “didn’t see or hear any signs of life” on Sunday.

Among the missing was a four-month-old baby and her grandmother, local media reported.

Washington state Governor Jay Inslee, who declared a state of emergency for the area, told reporters there is “a full-scale, 100 per cent, aggressive rescue effort” going on, adding that helicopters, hovercrafts and rescue personnel had rushed to the scene.

The muddy area was so unstable that some rescue workers “went in and got caught literally up to their armpits” and had to be pulled out themselves, Inslee said.

 ‘Like a freight train’ 

People injured in the landslide include a six-month old infant and an 81 year-old man, both hospitalised in critical condition at a Seattle hospital, local media said.

“It sounded like a freight train,” landslide witness Dan Young told Komo4News. “In just 35 to 45 seconds it was over.”

Young’s home survived but is flooded. “It’s much worse than everyone’s been saying,” a firefighter who did not want to be named told The Seattle Times.

“The slide is about 1.6km wide. Entire neighborhoods are just gone. When the slide hit the [Stillaguamish] river, it was like a tsunami.”

Rain has been especially heavy in the Cascade Mountains region in the past weeks. The forecast is for more downpours throughout the week.

Patty Murray, who represents Washington in the US Senate, gave assurances that federal resources would be made available, as she offered thanks to rescue workers and her prayers to the families of the ravaged community.

KUALA LUMPUR — A new analysis of satellite data indicates the missing Malaysia Airlines plane crashed into a remote corner of the Indian Ocean, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Monday.

The news is a major breakthrough in the unprecedented two-week struggle to find out what happened to Flight 370, which disappeared shortly after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew aboard on March 8.

Dressed in a black suit, Najib announced the news in a brief statement to reporters late Monday night, saying the information was based on an unprecedented analysis of satellite data from Inmarsat.
He said the data indicated the plane flew "to a remote location, far from any possible landing sites."

"It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."

He said Malaysia Airlines has informed the families of passengers of the plane's fate.

Selamat Omar, the father of a 29-year-old aviation engineer who was on the flight, said some members of families of other passengers broke down in tears at the news.

"We accept the news of the tragedy. It is fate," Selamat told The Associated Press in Kuala Lumpur.

Selamat said the airline hasn't told the families yet whether they will be taken to Australia, which is coordinating the search for the plane. He said they expect more details Tuesday.

A multinational force has searched a wide swath of Asia trying to find the plane.

KIEV — Ukraine’s Western-backed leaders voiced fears on Sunday of an imminent Russian invasion of the eastern industrial heartland following the fall of their last airbase in Crimea to defiant Kremlin troops.

Saturday’s takeover involving armoured personnel carriers and stun grenades provided the most spectacular show of force since the Kremlin sent troops into the heavily Russified peninsula three weeks ago before sealing its annexation Friday.

Alarm about a push outside Crimea by Moscow’s overwhelming forces — now conducting drills at Ukraine’s eastern gate — were fanned further Sunday by a call by its self-declared premier for Russians across the ex-Soviet country to rise up against Kiev’s rule.

The interim leaders in Kiev fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin — flushed with expansionist fervour — is developing a sense of impunity after being hit by only limited EU and US sanctions for taking the Black Sea cape.

“The aim of Putin is not Crimea but all of Ukraine... His troops massed at the border are ready to attack at any moment,” Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy told a mass unity rally in Kiev.

Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya reaffirmed that message in an interview broadcast on Sunday on a top US political talk show.

“We do not know what Putin has in his mind and what would be his decision. That’s why this situation is becoming even more explosive than it used to be a week ago,” Deshchytsya told ABC’s “This Week”.

Europe’s most explosive crisis in decades will dominate a nuclear security summit opening in The Hague on Monday that will include what may prove to be the most difficult meeting to date between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The encounter comes with Russia facing the loss of its coveted seat among the G-8 group of leading nations and US financial restrictions imposed on the most powerful members of Putin’s inner circle for their decision to resort to force in response to last month’s fall of Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin regime.

‘Call to fight’ 

One of the biggest tests facing the besieged interim leaders in Kiev now comes from restless Russians who have been stirring up violent protests and demanding their own secession referendums in the southeastern swaths of Ukraine.

The region’s mistrust of the new team’s European values lies from cultural and trade ties with Russia that in many cases are centuries old — a fact seized upon on Sunday by Crimea’s Russia-backed Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov.

He said in an impassioned address he posted on Facebook and read out on local TV that Crimea began facing a “sad fate” the moment three months of deadly protests involving a mix of nationalist and pro-Western forces toppled the pro-Kremlin regime in Kiev.

“But we resisted and won! Our motherland — Russia — extended her hand of help,” said Aksyonov. “So today, I appeal to you with a call to fight.”

“I call on you to resist the choice made for you by a bunch of political mavericks who are being financed by oligarchs.”

Aksyonov said he was “deeply convinced” that the future of southeastern Ukraine “rested in a close union with the Russian Federation — a political, economic and cultural union”.

Stun grenades 

Crimea’s authorities estimate they together with the Kremlin’s forces control at least half of Ukrainian bases on the Black Sea peninsula and about a third of its functioning naval vessels.

Ukraine’s acting Defence Minister Igor Tenyukh on Sunday lamented that his navy officers appeared too ready to surrender to Kremlin-backed militias and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet that has made Crimea its home since the 18th century.

“You know that in recent days, we have had our ships blockaded and seized even though our commanders had the authorisation to use force,” Tenyukh told reporters in Kiev.

“Unfortunately, the commanders made decisions on the spot. They chose not to use their weapons in order to avoid bloodshed.”

The Ukrainians’ refusal to engage Russian forces has led to a domino-like fall of their bases across the rugged peninsula of two million people.

The most dramatic episode of Russia’s excursion so far saw crack forces on Saturday break into the Belbek airbase near the main city of Simferopol after an armoured personnel carrier blasted through the main gate.

Two more armoured personnel carriers followed and gunmen stormed in firing automatic weapons into the air. An AFP reporter heard stun grenades before the situation calmed and the gunmen lowered their weapons.

Several unarmed soldiers began singing the Ukrainian national anthem during the ensuing lull.

Ukraine’s interim President Oleksandr Turchynov said Sunday that the Russian forces had also captured the base commander and demanded his immediate release.

Bid to ‘splinter Europe’ 

Russia’s diplomatic isolation is now growing as quickly as the reemergence of an ideological divide that appeared to have been bridged with the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.

The foreign minister of Germany — whose economic power is playing a decisive role in forging Europe’s response to Putin’s increasingly belligerent stance — warned after talks with Ukraine’s leaders that the continent’s future was at stake.

The show of diplomatic solidarity may play an important psychological role in Kiev as it faces new pressure from Russia that include open threats to throw Ukraine’s wheezing economy into convulsion by raising its gas rates and demanding colossal payments for disputed debts it could ill afford.

Yet both the United States and Europe have thus far limited their retaliation against Putin to targeted travel and financial sanctions that concern officials but do not impact the broader Russian economy.

Washington’s steps have been more meaningful because they hit what US officials call a Putin “crony bank” as well as oligarchs who are believed to be closest to the Russian strongman and — in one case — actually running a joint business with him.

Leading EU nations such as Britain and Germany — their financial and energy sectors intertwined with Russia’s — have questioned why they should suffer most in case of an all-out trade war.

ANKARA — Turkey’s defiant Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched a fierce new attack on social media on Sunday, just hours after the president voiced hope the government would soon lift its controversial ban on Twitter.

The conflicting comments from Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul underscore what appears to be a growing gulf between the two men just a week before crucial local elections.

The Twitter ban has been condemned by critics as a bid to muzzle a widening corruption scandal dogging the government and has drawn strong rebukes from rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies.

“I believe this problem will be over soon,” Gul told reporters before leaving for a visit to the Netherlands.

“This is of course an unpleasant situation for such a developed country as Turkey, which has weight in the region and which is negotiating with the European Union.”

The ban was implemented Thursday shortly after Erdogan threatened to “wipe out” Twitter.

On Sunday, Erdogan also took aim at popular Facebook and YouTube which he had previously threatened to ban after the local polls are held on March 30.

“I cannot understand how sensible people still defend Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. They run all kinds of lies,” he said at an election rally in the northwestern province of Kocaeli.

“I am obliged to take measures in the face of any attack threatening my country’s security even if the world stands up against us.”

The government on Saturday accused Twitter of being “biased and prejudiced” and said the US-based social media giant had failed to abide by hundreds of court orders to remove content deemed illegal.

Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been rocked by a corruption scandal that has ensnared members of the political and business elite.

The AKP is also struggling to shake off the after-effects of mass anti-government protests last year that were organised partly on Twitter, prompting Erdogan to label the site a “menace”.

“Blocking access to Twitter is the work of a government which is losing its self-confidence and strength,” veteran journalist Kadri Gursel wrote in the Milliyet newspaper.

Social media networks have been flooded almost daily with recordings allegedly depicting Erdogan talking with his son about hiding vast sums of money and interfering in court cases, business deals and media coverage.

Erdogan has dismissed most of the recordings as “vile” fakes concocted by his political rivals, including US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, once a staunch ally.

Erdogan’s office says his opponents used Twitter to carry out “systematic character assassinations”.

Erdogan, who has been in power for 11 years, is accused of ruling the aspiring EU member with increasing authoritarianism and imposing his conservative values on society.

The government has also come under fire for curbs on the judiciary and the Internet and for jailing more reporters than any other country, including serial offenders Iran, China and Eritrea.

Douglas Frantz, assistant secretary of public affairs at the US State Department, described the Twitter ban as “21st-century book burning”.

“A friend like Turkey has nothing to fear in the free-flow of ideas and even criticism represented by Twitter. Its attempt to block its citizens’ access to social media tools should be reversed,” he wrote in an official blog.

Frustrated Turks have been able to access the site by tweeting via text message or tweaking their computers’ Internet settings. Methods include changing their domain name system (DNS) settings or going online via a virtual private network (VPN).

But since Saturday there have been unconfirmed reports that the government is trying to block access to lists of alternative DNS numbers.

Gul, a frequent social media user, took to Twitter on Friday to denounce the ban, becoming the highest level leader to circumvent the block, along with some ministers.

The president, who hails from Erdogan’s AKP, has emerged as a more conciliatory leader than the Turkish premier.

But he also drew criticism last month for signing a controversial AKP-sponsored law to tighten government control over the Internet.

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.