:00:10. > :00:21.This is BBC world News. The top story: The search for the missing
:00:22. > :00:27.Malaysian airliner is over for the day. Nothing of significance has yet
:00:28. > :00:34.been found. The Ukraine crisis is ratcheting up as the Russian
:00:35. > :00:41.parliament votes unanimously to allow the annexation of Crimea. This
:00:42. > :00:45.is live from Moscow, with Vladimir Putin is expected to finish that
:00:46. > :00:50.deal. It comes as the European Union and the Ukrainian interim government
:00:51. > :00:55.signed an agreement on closer ties. In signing this treaty, we will show
:00:56. > :01:01.to the entire world that we are together, that Ukraine shares
:01:02. > :01:06.European values, and we can be successful together. Teenaged
:01:07. > :01:09.Caliban gun men shoot down nine people, including women and
:01:10. > :01:17.children, at a luxury hotel in Afghanistan. Turkey's president
:01:18. > :01:33.challenges the block on twitter by treating himself. -- tweeting.
:01:34. > :01:45.Within the past hour, Australia has called off its search for possible
:01:46. > :01:54.debrief. Three military aeroplanes had been combing a room at location
:01:55. > :02:00.in the Indian Ocean. They are following what has been described as
:02:01. > :02:07.the best lead yet in the hunt for the Malaysia Airlines jet which
:02:08. > :02:13.vanished. This was the day breathe at sparked the search. One is
:02:14. > :02:20.described as -- debris. Being 25 metres long. They seem to be a wash
:02:21. > :02:25.with water. It is possible they have shrunk already. This is the area
:02:26. > :02:30.they have been looking at, the North and South areas. Flying at low level
:02:31. > :02:34.in close formation down through the Indian Ocean. They have been
:02:35. > :02:39.carrying out visual checks. But they are very far from base and they have
:02:40. > :02:40.only been able to spend two hours searching for having to return back
:02:41. > :02:50.to Perth. Another long day of looking across
:02:51. > :02:58.the vast expanse of the Southern Ocean. The crew of this surveillance
:02:59. > :03:02.aircraft searching for signs of wreckage. This is a sophisticated
:03:03. > :03:07.aircraft but crew members spend long hours doing it the old-fashioned
:03:08. > :03:14.way. Conditions are much better than on Thursday. Still no sign of MH
:03:15. > :03:18.370. For two days, these ghostly images have dominated the
:03:19. > :03:25.international effort. Nobody knows what they are. They may already have
:03:26. > :03:31.drifted or sunk. But with dozens of countries clutching at straws, there
:03:32. > :03:37.seems so little else to go on. Even though this is smaller than we
:03:38. > :03:42.started with, it is a big area when you're looking out of the window and
:03:43. > :03:46.trying to see something. We may have to do this a few times to be
:03:47. > :03:53.confident about the coverage of that search area. This plane returned to
:03:54. > :03:58.base empty-handed. Exhausting work for the crew but nobody is giving up
:03:59. > :04:01.yet. I have a lot of hope. If the conditions remain as they are we
:04:02. > :04:09.will hopefully find something soon. I need to debrief my crew now. Good
:04:10. > :04:13.day. The daily briefing brought little news. The Malaysian
:04:14. > :04:18.authorities have been criticised for their handling of the
:04:19. > :04:25.investigation. The man in charge admits he cannot provide the answers
:04:26. > :04:29.families crave. It is very difficult because the one question they really
:04:30. > :04:35.want to know is the answer we do not have, which is, where are their
:04:36. > :04:42.loved ones and where is the aeroplane? It is now almost two
:04:43. > :04:48.weeks since the plane disappeared with 239 people on board. Two weeks
:04:49. > :04:57.of looking and theorising, the hunt goes on, but nobody knows if we are
:04:58. > :05:01.even looking in the right place. Our correspondent is at the search
:05:02. > :05:05.headquarters in Western Australia. We are watching the planes come and
:05:06. > :05:16.go from this base. Not in large numbers. Only a small number of
:05:17. > :05:20.aircraft can cover the distance. They are the ones that have the
:05:21. > :05:28.equipment that can spot it. Mostly it has been the aircraft developed
:05:29. > :05:36.many years ago that still have sophisticated sensing equipment. We
:05:37. > :05:42.have seen them come back here, the Australians have had three of those
:05:43. > :05:46.aircraft out there. The crew look pretty tired when they come back,
:05:47. > :05:50.the last up to ten hours. They have a long-range jet with a different
:05:51. > :05:56.kind of surveillance equipment. The Americans have sent out their most
:05:57. > :05:59.sophisticated plane, it is an up-to-date version. They cannot do
:06:00. > :06:09.much more than that. The journey is so long out of this area, and each
:06:10. > :06:13.time they go and scan the water, if they don't find it then they mark
:06:14. > :06:20.that off and move onto another. We are the match gradually expand. --
:06:21. > :06:24.the map. They are covering the currents in the hope that they find
:06:25. > :06:31.whatever it was that those satellite pictures have in them. Australian
:06:32. > :06:36.officials are stressing that you must be cautious, and they do
:06:37. > :06:44.believe it is enough information to suggest the plane ended up somewhere
:06:45. > :06:48.down here, those pictures could be from it. They still think there is a
:06:49. > :06:52.good chance they will find something because the visibility has improved.
:06:53. > :06:58.Is there not a possibility of sending aircraft carriers to that
:06:59. > :07:03.region so the planes can search for longer? We keep hearing about the
:07:04. > :07:12.limitations of the search because of fuel. It is only certain aircraft
:07:13. > :07:16.that are good for that, the kind of aircraft they are using here do not
:07:17. > :07:20.take off from aircraft carriers. There are very large planes. There
:07:21. > :07:30.are the ones with the best chance of finding the debris. They are
:07:31. > :07:35.challenged by the sheer remoteness of where they think the plane went
:07:36. > :07:44.down. There is very few aircraft suited to this task. The New Zealand
:07:45. > :07:47.government have got one, the Australians have got three. The
:07:48. > :07:51.American one has been serviced because of the number of flights it
:07:52. > :07:58.has been making. They have very limited resources.
:07:59. > :08:03.Several developments this morning in the fast-moving crisis in Crimea.
:08:04. > :08:08.The Russian Houses of Parliament have now ratified the agreement
:08:09. > :08:16.annexing Crimea. It has been signed into law by Vladimir Putin. These
:08:17. > :08:29.are the pictures we had in. Signing this bill on the access and -- on
:08:30. > :08:35.the movement. We saw a speech setting out Russia's historic claim
:08:36. > :08:41.on Crimea and Sevastopol and saying they would put the legal process
:08:42. > :08:44.through to bring Crimea back into the motherland. That was what
:08:45. > :08:56.Vladimir Putin said a couple of days ago. Let me go now to Moscow because
:08:57. > :09:00.we have a guest, the BBC's correspondent in Moscow. What has
:09:01. > :09:12.happened this morning? This is just the signing off of the deal that was
:09:13. > :09:17.set in train a couple of weeks ago. Yes, and everybody speaks about
:09:18. > :09:23.sanctions in Moscow now. The Foreign Minister said it is really difficult
:09:24. > :09:27.and wrong about sanctions, he said there should be a dialogue instead
:09:28. > :09:32.of sanctions, and Russia is waiting for a dialogue with the United
:09:33. > :09:40.States. However, these sanctions have already threatened a couple of
:09:41. > :09:46.Russian banks, one of them was in the sanctions list yesterday, from
:09:47. > :09:58.the United States. This bank and one more bank, led by brothers who were
:09:59. > :10:06.on the list, they were blocked by MasterCard and Visa. Now there are
:10:07. > :10:13.lots of who cannot use their cards, and it is already one of the steps.
:10:14. > :10:21.Vladimir Putin saying he was going to protect the bank and the United
:10:22. > :10:27.States has singled out because it was the senior bank for a Russian
:10:28. > :10:33.officials and is controlled by an associate of Vladimir Putin. If
:10:34. > :10:39.people cannot use their cards, that will affect people quite badly. Yes,
:10:40. > :10:50.they are already writing about it on social networks, Vladimir Putin said
:10:51. > :11:00.he is going to move to another bank. He said they should defend their
:11:01. > :11:13.banks, and the banks should not be in the centre of this crisis between
:11:14. > :11:17.countries and the West. Thank you. Stay with us, much more to come. We
:11:18. > :11:20.have a special report from Chicago, as police tackle the cheap heroin
:11:21. > :11:34.flooding the streets of America. The Nile is not only the longest
:11:35. > :11:38.river in the world but also Egypt's's main source of water. But
:11:39. > :11:44.the agriculture market is suffering because of increased competition for
:11:45. > :11:46.that water. Up the road, the largest hydroelectric dam is being built to
:11:47. > :12:05.boost electricity ties. The Nile start to carve its way
:12:06. > :12:13.through you jet, and this strategic city saw water retained in this huge
:12:14. > :12:18.reservoir. It acts as a safety net. If the water levels go down further,
:12:19. > :12:21.because of the Ethiopian band, the rest of the country might suffer.
:12:22. > :12:30.Shortage of water is already a problem in areas around Egypt's. We
:12:31. > :12:38.are here in the Delta, the people here are constantly suffering from a
:12:39. > :12:42.shortage of water, especially in the dry season. This canal carries water
:12:43. > :12:48.from the Nile to the farmland is all around us however the water levels
:12:49. > :12:57.are quite low and the fears RFA go further down after the completion,
:12:58. > :13:08.conditions might get worse. The people say it is a matter of life or
:13:09. > :13:12.death to them. The constitutional court in Thailand has ruled that
:13:13. > :13:17.last month's general election is invalid, deepening political
:13:18. > :13:26.stalemate. The court decided the constitution had been violated in
:13:27. > :13:27.the early elections, and voting did not take place on the same day
:13:28. > :13:43.across the country. The latest headlines: The hunt for
:13:44. > :13:46.the missing Malaysian airliner is over for the day as all the planes
:13:47. > :13:52.have returned from the southern Indian Ocean. The Australian prime
:13:53. > :13:56.minister says nothing of significance has been found yet. The
:13:57. > :14:03.east and West move further apart over the Ukraine crisis as Vladimir
:14:04. > :14:06.Putin signs the annexation into law. It comes as Ukraine and the European
:14:07. > :14:13.Union sign a deal on closer cooperation. More on the crisis in
:14:14. > :14:19.Ukraine as Russia consolidates control over Crimea and sanctions
:14:20. > :14:23.intensify. It is getting easy to forget the events that took place in
:14:24. > :14:25.Ukraine a month ago. The new government is asking for justice for
:14:26. > :14:35.the murder of 80 people killed by gunmen. A month after its darkest
:14:36. > :14:41.day, and Independence Square is still full of tents and flags, and
:14:42. > :14:46.flowers, and people. Many of them have camped and cooked here for
:14:47. > :14:52.months. They have no plans to leave. They won't dare try to kick us out,
:14:53. > :14:56.this man says. Glory to the Ukraine. Also determined to camp out behind
:14:57. > :14:59.the barricades for as long as it takes, this group from western
:15:00. > :15:10.Ukraine. Still now we're not sure that
:15:11. > :15:16.democracy will work. Until we are sure, until the system changes,
:15:17. > :15:21.until that time, we will be here. Events have moved with extraordinary
:15:22. > :15:25.speed over the last few weeks, and attention has shifted away from
:15:26. > :15:29.Independence Square towards Crimea, and eastern Ukraine. Emotions are
:15:30. > :15:37.still running pretty high here, and plenty of questions remain
:15:38. > :15:42.unanswered. One month ago, it was a massacre. More than 80 people were
:15:43. > :15:49.killed, many by sniper fire, in the last days of the former president's
:15:50. > :15:52.role. The dead are now known as the heavenly Hundred, their faces are
:15:53. > :15:57.everywhere. There is frustration nobody has been brought to justice.
:15:58. > :16:01.The new government is asking for a little more time.
:16:02. > :16:07.TRANSLATION: We're working in different -- difficult
:16:08. > :16:10.circumstances. We have given all the video evidence to the
:16:11. > :16:16.investigators. I can't say much more, we want to be able to punish
:16:17. > :16:24.the guilty. Early last month, this video was posted on YouTube. It has
:16:25. > :16:32.been viewed more than 10 million times. It was ordinary, normal
:16:33. > :16:36.people, the best people of my country. But the young woman who
:16:37. > :16:41.made the video is still trying to come to terms with what happened
:16:42. > :16:48.here. Of course, I have this guilt and anger, why didn't we stop them?
:16:49. > :16:57.Why did we do anything to stop them? It is very hard. We have a harder
:16:58. > :17:06.situation. The problem was bigger than anyone could imagine. No one
:17:07. > :17:11.expected Putin to take these steps. The terrible events here have not
:17:12. > :17:16.been forgotten. But, with Crimea all but gone, and Russia flexing its
:17:17. > :17:17.muscles, Ukraine's bitter internal battle has been overshadowed by an
:17:18. > :17:25.external threat. Chancellor Angela Merkel's
:17:26. > :17:27.government has criticised the Turkish government for blocking
:17:28. > :17:30.access to the social media platform Twitter. Earlier on Friday, the
:17:31. > :17:38.Turkish President Abdullah Gul took to the twitter to challenge his own
:17:39. > :17:42.Prime Minister's ban. Earlier, the EU expressed its own misgivings
:17:43. > :17:45.about the shut-down. It comes as Twitter users have largely ignored a
:17:46. > :17:47.court order to block links to websites alleging high level
:17:48. > :17:51.corruption in Turkey. The BBC's Selin Girit is in
:17:52. > :17:56.Istanbul. On most people able still to access
:17:57. > :18:01.Twitter? Yes, they are. But through the back
:18:02. > :18:09.door if I may put it that way. Are changing their settings, or if they
:18:10. > :18:16.are accessing by mobile, they are downloading applications in order to
:18:17. > :18:19.get by and still be able to send messages on these social websites.
:18:20. > :18:27.The ban came into force yesterday at midnight. And people started using
:18:28. > :18:36.Twitter, are you able to send messages? And, gradually, the band
:18:37. > :18:42.took over all the other platforms. But millions of people are within
:18:43. > :18:48.three hours of the ban, 2.5 million messages were posted in Turkish from
:18:49. > :18:55.Turkey. So, the ban actually did not work in that sense. Many people took
:18:56. > :19:01.to Twitter finding other ways. Including the president, Abdullah
:19:02. > :19:09.Gul. Even the president, he posted six stages one after the other
:19:10. > :19:15.today. Apparently showing his disapproval -- six tweets. And he
:19:16. > :19:19.said that he hoped that this would be over soon. Not only the
:19:20. > :19:25.president, although he is the highest figure to have posted on
:19:26. > :19:35.Twitter. There have been figures like the Deputy Prime Minister,
:19:36. > :19:42.influential mayors. So, this is becoming a saga. One after the
:19:43. > :19:46.other, something is happening. People do not seem able to take
:19:47. > :19:51.their eyes from Twitter in case they miss anything. The Prime Minister
:19:52. > :19:59.has been facing these corruption allegations. Is he afraid of news
:20:00. > :20:05.spreading on that or something deeper. The Arab Spring was fuelled
:20:06. > :20:09.by social media. There is speculation that there would be
:20:10. > :20:16.further leaks on the social website Twitter and on YouTube or similar
:20:17. > :20:20.websites, about further corruption allegations, or allegations which
:20:21. > :20:24.would harm the reputation of the Prime Minister. But this is only
:20:25. > :20:31.speculation and we can't comment on what might happen. If something like
:20:32. > :20:33.that happens, we can probably safely say that maybe this was the cause of
:20:34. > :20:44.the ban on Twitter. Nine people, including four
:20:45. > :20:48.foreigners, have been killed in an attack on a luxury hotel in Kabul.
:20:49. > :20:51.The attack was carried out by four teenagers, who posed as diners,
:20:52. > :20:55.before opening fire. In the last hour, we've heard a journalist for
:20:56. > :20:58.the AFP News Agency, and his wife and two children were among those
:20:59. > :21:03.killed. The BBC's David Loyn reports from Kabul.
:21:04. > :21:13.It is ironic that Sardar Ahmad, a distinguished journalist working for
:21:14. > :21:17.the AFP news agency, a very well-known figure in deed in the
:21:18. > :21:22.journalistic community, and a number of my colleagues had been paying
:21:23. > :21:29.respects to his family, visiting the hospital. A real sense of shock.
:21:30. > :21:34.Such an irony, with his family on new years eve last night,
:21:35. > :21:38.celebrating. They happened to be the people sitting closest to the door
:21:39. > :21:44.when these four young men came in, aren't we understand now with small
:21:45. > :21:49.pistols, which is one reason why they had to go close to people to
:21:50. > :21:55.kill them. These pistols were smuggled into the hotel, in
:21:56. > :22:01.overlarge shoes they were wearing, or strapped to their ankles, in blue
:22:02. > :22:07.fabric, which concealed them from the hotel security. Last night, with
:22:08. > :22:10.lots of guests, functions going on, many international diplomats and
:22:11. > :22:15.observers, staying in that hotel ahead of the election in a couple of
:22:16. > :22:20.weeks. So, although there was very tight security for this hotel
:22:21. > :22:24.because it is the number-1 Taliban target, they have hit it before,
:22:25. > :22:29.these attackers appeared to got through.
:22:30. > :22:32.We are getting details of an extraordinary story from France.
:22:33. > :22:39.Four children have apparently been found in a locked flat that they
:22:40. > :22:43.appear not to have left since birth. Let us go over to our correspondent
:22:44. > :22:50.in Paris. As you say, it seems there was a
:22:51. > :22:54.family originally from India, living in the northern Paris suburbs, a
:22:55. > :22:59.very poor neighbourhood. Three boys, and a baby girl. The authorities
:23:00. > :23:04.became aware of their existence for the first time when the baby girl
:23:05. > :23:09.was born a couple of months ago. They were suspicious because the
:23:10. > :23:12.mother did not seem particularly interested in the baby. They felt
:23:13. > :23:18.there was probably a story there. So, they sent social services to the
:23:19. > :23:25.apartment where they found this terrible scene of three boys, aged
:23:26. > :23:27.two, five and six, living in apparently appalling circumstances.
:23:28. > :23:33.It looked like they had never left the flat, on the seventh floor of a
:23:34. > :23:39.high-rise. The boys could barely speak. The two elder boys could
:23:40. > :23:44.barely speak, could barely walk. They were undernourished. It seems
:23:45. > :23:50.they had never left the flat in all their lives. So, it is one of these
:23:51. > :23:54.terrible stories, linked no doubt to social deprivation, the fact the
:23:55. > :24:00.parents were from India with presumably little grasp of French.
:24:01. > :24:03.And now the social services and authorities and the children's
:24:04. > :24:08.ombudsman are trying to find out why this happened, and how they passed
:24:09. > :24:12.through the net of social services. Where rather children and parents
:24:13. > :24:17.now? The parents have been charged and
:24:18. > :24:24.are in jail, waiting to face trial, for deprivation of care to
:24:25. > :24:29.relatives, that is a French charge in French law. The children, the two
:24:30. > :24:34.older with foster parents, the younger, the baby girl, is in
:24:35. > :24:39.another kind of home. That is presumably where they will now be
:24:40. > :24:42.brought up. We will have to wait and see whether the charges stick
:24:43. > :24:47.against the parents. Difficult to imagine how you keep a
:24:48. > :24:52.young family locked up, it sounds horrific. We can see this is a built
:24:53. > :24:57.up area, lots of families in and around. Have any neighbours been
:24:58. > :25:02.questioned? I am sure they will have been. This all happened several
:25:03. > :25:07.weeks ago, it has come out now because newspapers have got hold of
:25:08. > :25:13.it. The children's ombudsman has gone public and is looking into this
:25:14. > :25:19.affair to find out how it could have happened. There are two aspects.
:25:20. > :25:25.These social services side. The elder children were born in France
:25:26. > :25:29.and so should have had followed up care under the French system.
:25:30. > :25:33.Children who are born in a hospital need to be checked up at least once
:25:34. > :25:38.or twice in the first couple of years of their lives. That doesn't
:25:39. > :25:43.seem to have happened. Why didn't that happen? And the other question,
:25:44. > :25:50.why the neighbours, why in the social setting, there was no alert
:25:51. > :25:54.given. If this couple were they be extremely secretive and reclusive,
:25:55. > :25:58.never went out, and had no contact with neighbours, and if they kept
:25:59. > :26:02.the children locked up, maybe there were no immediate neighbours in a
:26:03. > :26:08.block of flats where many were empty, which is quite possible. I do
:26:09. > :26:13.not know the precise circumstances, but that can be the case in these
:26:14. > :26:17.blocks of flats. Then you can build up a picture of complete isolation
:26:18. > :26:27.for this family, being Indian, may be totally lost in the world of
:26:28. > :26:33.modern Paris. A reminder of our top story. Within
:26:34. > :26:37.the last half-hour, Australia has called off its search for the day
:26:38. > :26:41.for possible debris from the missing an Asian airlines plane.
:26:42. > :26:45.Three military planes and a long-range civilian aircraft had
:26:46. > :26:49.been searching a remote area of the Southern Indian Ocean. They have
:26:50. > :26:54.been flying in close formation at low levels to carry out visual
:26:55. > :26:56.checks but, so far, the Australian Deputy Prime Minister has said they
:26:57. > :26:58.have found nothing of significance.