VOA NEWS

March 10, 2014

From Washington, this is VOA news. Coming up, the latest on the situation in Ukraine, and the search for a missing Malaysian Airlines plane. Hello everyone, I'm Steve Norman.



Russian forces have tightened their grip on Crimea as authorities in the breakaway territory pushed their plan to join Moscow.

Ukraine's interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk spoke Sunday in Kyiv at a rally to celebrate the 200th birthday of Ukrainian poet and national hero Taras Shevchenko.

"This is our land. Our parents and grandparents spilled their blood for this land. We will not give up a single centimeter of Ukrainian land. Let Russia and the Russian president know this."

Mr. Yatsenyuk is to meet Wednesday with President Obama here in Washington to discuss the standoff in Crimea, a strategic peninsula in southern Ukraine where most of the people speak Russian.

Russian lawmakers said the Kremlin had set aside $1.1 billion to rebuild Crimea's industrial and infrastructure there if the disputed region votes on March [6th] 16th in a referendum to join Russia.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Sunday the planned Moscow-backed referendum is illegal and violates Ukraine's constitution.



Other news, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton says there is "no guarantee" that nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West will lead to a comprehensive deal when talks resume later this month.

She spoke Sunday alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in the Iranian capital. She said meetings with Iranian officials will target bilateral ties, regional conflicts, human rights and the resumption of nuclear talks on March 18th.

Under an interim deal reached in November, Iran agreed to limit uranium enrichment for six months in return for an easing of Western sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy. The deal took effect on January the 20th.

Western powers accuse Iran of efforts to develop nuclear weapons and its ongoing research, while Tehran has repeatedly insisted its nuclear work is for peaceful objectives.



Police in southern Iraq say a suicide bomber killed at least 42 people and wounded 157 others when he detonated an explosive-filled minibus at a crowded security checkpoint.

The Sunday attack set 50 cars afire, killing those trapped inside as they waited for their vehicles to be searched.

The bombing was at the northern entrance to the Shiite-dominated city of Hillah, about 100 kilometers south of Baghdad.

There has been no claim of responsibility.



Libyan navy and pro-government militias have dispatched boats to a port held by a rival militia to stop a North Korean flagged tanker from exporting oil sold without government permission.

The government has banned militias from selling crude oil directly to the world market.

The Libyan prime minister, Ali Zeidan, has threatened to bomb the tanker if it does not comply with Libyan government orders. He said the bombing could result in an "environmental disaster."



Vietnamese searchers have spotted possible aircraft debris after combing the sea for nearly 48 hours in the hunt for a Malaysian passenger jet that vanished with 239 people aboard.

Earlier on Sunday, officials investigating the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane said radar images show the missing jet may have inexplicably turned back before vanishing.

At a Sunday news conference, Malaysia's director of civil aviation Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said as asked about whether the plane could have been hijacked: "On the possibility of hijack, we are not ruling (out) any possibility. However, it's important to state that our main concern is to focus our efforts on finding the missing aircraft. So, if we are able to find the aircraft, it will definitely help us to establish what exactly has happened."

The Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared from radar screens about an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur in good weather. Air traffic controllers say they [never reached a distress call] never received one from the jet before it disappeared.



William Clay Ford [Jr.] the Sr., that is, the last surviving grandchild of Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford, has died.

He was the father of William Clay Ford Jr., currently the executive chairman of Ford. The elder Ford died of pneumonia at his suburban Detroit, Michigan, home on Sunday. He was 88.



Get more news at voanews.com.