Six In The Morning Sunday March 9

9 March 2014 Last updated at 08:14

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane 'may have turned back'

Radar signals show a Malaysia Airlines plane that has been missing for more than 24 hours may have turned back, Malaysian officials have said.

Rescue teams looking for the plane have now widened their search area.

Investigators are also checking CCTV footage of two passengers who are believed to have boarded the plane using stolen passports.

Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared south of Vietnam with 239 people on board.

Air and sea rescue teams have been searching an area of the South China Sea south of Vietnam for more than 24 hours.

But Malaysia's civil aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur the search area had been expanded, to include the west coast of Malaysia.

Five passengers booked on the flight did not board, he added. Their luggage was consequently removed.

Twenty-two aircraft and 40 ships are now involved in the search, armed forces chief Gen Zulkefli Zin said.

Venezuela divisions deepen as protest over food shortages is halted

National Guardsmen prevent ‘empty pots’ march from reaching food ministry as Maduro government denounces US

• Associated Press in Caracas
• theguardian.com, Sunday 9 March 2014 04.38 GMT

Hundreds of National Guardsmen in riot gear and armoured vehicles prevented an “empty pots march” from reaching Venezuela’s food ministry on Saturday to protest against chronic food shortages.

President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government, meanwhile, celebrated an Organisation of American States (OAS) declaration supporting its efforts to bring a solution to the country’s worst political violence in years, calling it a diplomatic victory. The United States, Canada and Panama were the only nations to oppose the declaration.

“The meddling minority against Venezuela in the OAS, Panama, Canada and the US, is defeated in a historic decision that respects our sovereignty,” government spokeswoman Delcy Rodriguez tweeted.

Easy prey: The sexual exploitation of Syria's female refugees

Girls whose families have lost everything are being 'married' and dumped by wealthy Saudis

FERNANDO VAN TETS

 

AMMAN, JORDAN

 

Sunday 09 March 2014

Nawar is a shy 17-year-old with very pale skin, just like her sister Souza, who is 16. Four months ago, both were married off to much older Saudi Arabian men. But after 20 days, the men disappeared.

Their parents were paid a dowry of 5,000 Jordanian dinar (£4,200) for the two girls. Their father was asked at a local mosque whether he had any daughters. The matchmaker, a fellow Syrian, then proposed that they marry two Saudi friends. Nawar's husband was 55, Souza's 45.

The men promised to relocate the entire family to Saudi Arabia. But now the family live in a single mouldy room in Amman, their dreams dashed. Luckily neither of the girls is pregnant.

"There's just regret, regret about what happened," says Nawar.

Kiev snipers: Who was behind them?

Ukraine is sparring with Russia over the identity of snipers who killed scores of people, police as well as protesters, last last month in Kiev. Solving the mystery could bolster or delegitimize Ukraine's leaders.

By Mike Eckel, Associated Press

KIEV, UKRAINE

One of the biggest mysteries hanging over the protest mayhem that drove Ukraine's president from power: Who was behind the snipers who sowed death and terror in Kiev?

That riddle has become the latest flashpoint of feuding over Ukraine — with the nation's fledgling government and the Kremlin giving starkly different interpretations of events that could either undermine or bolster the legitimacy of the new rulers.

Ukrainian authorities are investigating the Feb. 18-20 bloodbath, and they have shifted their focus from ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's government to Vladimir Putin's Russia — pursuing the theory that the Kremlin was intent on sowing mayhem as a pretext for military incursion. Russia suggests that the snipers were organized by opposition leaders trying to whip up local and international outrage against the government.

Iraqi PM Maliki says Saudi, Qatar openly funding violence in Anbar

 Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of openly funding the Sunni Muslim insurgents his troops are battling in western Anbar province, in his strongest such statement since fighting started there early this year.

Security forces have been fighting insurgents from the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Anbar's two main cities - Fallujah and Ramadi - since January after the arrest of a Sunni lawmaker and the clearing of an anti-government protest camp prompted a tribal revolt and allowed ISIL to set up fighting positions in the cities.

Maliki's remarks play to Iraqi fears of the Sunni Arab states as he tries to burnish his standing as a defender of the mainly Shi'ite country before elections at the end of April.

Rio’s Race to Future Intersects Slave Past

By SIMON ROMERO

RIO DE JANEIRO — Sailing from the Angolan coast across the Atlantic, the slave ships docked here in the 19th century at the huge stone wharf, delivering their human cargo to the “fattening houses” on Valongo Street. Foreign chroniclers described the depravity in the teeming slave market, including so-called boutiques selling emaciated and diseased African children.

The newly arrived slaves who died before they even started toiling in Brazil’s mines were hauled to a mass grave nearby, their corpses left to decay amid piles of garbage. As imperial plantations flourished, diggers at the Cemitério dos Pretos Novos — Cemetery of New Blacks — crushed the bones of the dead, making way for thousands of new cadavers.

Now, with construction crews tearing apart areas of Rio de Janeiro in the building spree ahead of this year’s World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, stunning archaeological discoveries around the work sites are providing new insight into the city’s brutal distinction as a nerve center for the Atlantic slave trade.