March 17, 2014
Paula Munteanu
News Writer
News by Numbers
95.5% of voters in Crimea have supported joining Russia, the referendum on Sunday March 17 revealed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he will respect Crimean people’s will, despite that neither the EU nor the US recognized the votes as legitimate and legal. Even though many Crimeans boycotted the referendum, the turnout was higher than 70 percent.
Crimean leader, Sergei Aksyonov, said he will apply to join Russia on Monday, after the pro-Russian forces took over the control of Ukrainian region Crimea in early February.
EU foreign ministers will meet to discuss the possibility of imposing sanctions on Russian officials, BBC reports.
25 countries are involved now in the search operation for the missing airliner MH370 that disappeared a week ago, according to Malaysian officials.
In the previous week, the search was primarily focused on shallow seas. The search area is now extended from central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean, covering both the water and the land.
Malaysian officials contacted countries such as India, China, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, Australia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and France for help.
Pakistani civil aviation officials declared that according to their radar recordings, the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, with its 239 crew and passengers, did not trespass its territory.
The Malaysian prime minister declared on Saturday that the plane’s communication systems had been cut on purpose before it was diverted from its route.
303 deaths are linked to faulty airbags in General Motors cars.
Two of the six models that GM recalled, a total of 1.6 million vehicles, have been identified as having faulty ignition switches that could disable the airbags by turning off the engine.
According to the same source, GM declared that there are 12 deaths linked to the faulty switch in the models analyzed: the 2005-7 Chevrolet Cobalts and 2003-7 Saturn Ions.
Friedman Research, a consumer advocacy group, elaborated on the study, analyzing only the vehicle safety data, but did not examine the causes of the car accidents.
6.7 is the magnitude of the earthquake that affected Chile’s Pacific coast on Sunday, March 17, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake’s epicenter, with a depth of 12.4 miles, was located 37 miles west-northwest of Iquique, Chile.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or severe damages, even though a precautionary tsunami warning was activated along the coast and the residents were advised to move to a higher altitude.
In 2010, off the shore of Bio-Bio, Chile, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake killed 547 victims, according to the USGS archives.
10 short-range rockets have been fired by North Korea toward the Sea of Japan.
Two South Korean officials who preferred to remain anonymous for security reasons declared on March 17 that the rockets were fired from the North Korean coast.
One of the officials said that the distance the rockets traveled is about 70 kilometers (43 miles).
Both South Korean and the West criticized these actions and the US State Department said it will monitor closely the circumstances.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that US urges North Korean to refrain from provocative actions. However, according to North Korean media, their government said it is justifiable self-defense behavior to conduct such military exercises in order to preserve peace in the region.
