♪ on this edition for sunday, march 16th, crimea moves ahead with a referendum to join russia. what comes next in the ukraine crisis? margaret warner reports from there. the latest on the disappearancy of malaysian airlines flight 370. what's behind the increase in some infectious diseases next on pbs newshour weekend. it's made possible did i --

that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by -- and by -- from new york in new york. good evening. thanks for joining us. defying international protests, calling the process illegitimate, crimea went ahead with a referendum and voted overwhelmingly to join russia. the vote came almost two weeks after russian troops occupied the region, which is also home to the russian black sea fleet. margaret warner joins us from crimea. so what was it like at the polls today? >> the thing that surprised me

today was the high turnout we did observe at the four polling stations he went to. the one exception was at a district that is heavily muslim, they said they would boycott the vote and it was only 10%. the voters seem in a celebratory move. the head of one polls station said all slavic people, this is a very big day for them. what they said, they don't understand that this is calling -- causing a huge east/west confrontation. the concerns were practical. they talked about having more jobs in investment if they joined russia. they also talked about feeling much more at home with russia. you know, this is an area that for 300 years was part of russia and the soviet union, and they almost all complained about being forced to fill out forms in ukrainian, for example. so there seems to be a kind of

yearning and also a feeling that the worst -- is hostile, or at least has people in it hostile to two russian speakers and ethnic russians here. >> speaking of practical matters, how does crimea become a part of russia, how quickly could that happen? >> it could happen quite quickly, hari. tonight the official results are supposed to been announced at this celebratory conference. tomorrow morning at 10:00, the crimean parliament will meet to evaluate the results, but they have already said if the public affirms the idea they are ready to vote. in fact they have voted to ask russia to join. of course, there is a group here, ethnic ukrainancianukrain feel very alienated, we spoke to a group that said they did not vote, they feel ostracized, and they didn't want to participate

in something that seemed legitimate to them. so it's not a wholesale endorsement of this, but i think it's going to move very fast, at least on the crimean side. >> are they ready for this kind of move? it's a big deal. >> it's a huge step. we don't know whether the russians will actually complete this circle, but the prime minister here, aksenov, he's already made -- and today the largest commercial bank put a side on its doors saying at 4:30, dao you to the conversion from the local currency to rubles, the bank will not be open on monday. we apologize for the inconvenience. >> that's a significant shift. so what happens in the next couple days, the next coming weeks. >> well, hari, there are still

huge unknown as. the russian duma has not voted, has made made this official, and there's another unanswered question, which is how quickly will vladimir putin, president putin and the russians follow through on their threat to move into eastern ukraine to protect russian speakers and ethnic russians there. and of course how quickly will the u.s. and the eu move to impose the sanctions they have threatened. today the white house said it could be a matter of days, but secretary kerry and foreign minister lavrov did have a big conversation this morning at this they talked about solving this diplomaticaly through constitutional changes to the ukraine constitution. it's a complicated set of issues, but it would have to do with granting more autonomy to some of these regions in eastern ukraine, where russian speakers are, if not a majority, if they are here, the ethnic russians

are a sizable minority. i would say there are. i suppose there is a possibility, perhaps remove of resolving this diplomatically in some fashion. >> all right. newshour's chief foreign affairs margaret warner joining us. >> pleasure. pro-russia vote is almost certain to have ramifications to the eastern portion of ukraine bordering russia, where there is a large russian-speaking population, as itn's john irvine reports, pro-russian demonstrators were already out in support today. >> reporter: as russians in crimea said good-bye to ukraine in writing, their pro-russian brethren here in donesk showed their desire to follow suit by attacking symbols of eye cranian

authorities. empowered by the presence of the russian army just over the nearby border, besieged the office of the public prosecutor. ukrainian riot police were soon overwhelmed. the officers may have been dressed for a fight, but they wouldn't. this is a difficult situation for these ukrainian police officers. to some extent, they have to tolerate these protests because they are fully aware that the kremlin is watching developments here very closely. . eventually this little piece of ukrainian rule was overwhelmed by russia's influence. they have a taste for it now and another target, the headquarters of the ukrainian security

services. the building appeared to be well defended, but again, these were riot police reduced to using kid gloves. when push came to shove, it was russia's allies who prevailed once more. moscow's men are becoming increase gill stridened and ukraine is on the defensive, soaking it up, and hoping that somehow it can weather this red storm rising. john irvine, i want tv news, danesk, eastern ukraine. for more about the situation on the ground in eastern ukraine, we're joined via skype by james jones, who is in harkarv reporting for front line. the ukrainians call it harkreve. this is the second largest city,yi

city,y yanukovych ran for support. >> here it is tense, as a way of showing solidarity and their own desire to perhaps gain independence and joan russia, they had it kind of unofficial and actually illegal referendum on the square today. it seemed like about 10,000 people came and they were chanting russia, putin save us, you know slacking off s and so then they had this big vote, which frankly is meaningless, has for consequences, but is just to show a strength, and then just outside, about 30 meters from where i'm sitting now, they are currently trying to storm the government building. and it's very hard to tell what proportion of the population here support what they're doing, but certainly this minority is incredibly vocal. >> so this is a city where

neighbor is fighting neighbor on this particular issue? >> that's right. i mean, on the streets there are constant arguments breaking out between people, some of whom know each other, but simply they're miles apart. some of these people are desperate to become part of russia, even going back to the soviet union. there's flags hammer and sickles on the square, people chanting about the soviet union. it's kind of a weird time warm we are in, yet the other half of the city is incredibly supportive. so, you know, it feels very, very tense here, and on friday night, a couple people were killed by the ukrainian nationalists, and that potentially is provocation that gives putin legitimate reasons, or at least the pretext. >> james jones reporting from eastern ukraine. thanks so much. >> thanks for having me. and now the latest investigation into the disappearance of that malaysian

777 jetliner that went missing l.a. weekend with 239 people on board. a senior malaysian official said the pilot of the plane signed off the flight controllers without indicating any trouble on board, even though the plane's communication systems had already been shut down. that might indicate the pilot was actively misleading controllers, or that he was being coerced to do so. investigators in malaysia said today background checks of the passengers on flight 370 so far had turned up nothing, but they said they were awaiting additional information, and they appealed to other countries for help solving the mystery. >> the four areas of our focus on the investigations. and number two is saeb stage, hijacking, three personal problems, and four problems, and that includes the ground staff, everything. >> police have searched the homes of the pilot and copilot and are examination data collected from a flight simulator in the pilot's home.

india today put on hold its search for the plane, which apparently headed west instead of continuing north on the intended flight path from kuala lumpur to beijing. the prime minister yesterday said the plane was deliberately tiered off-course after someone on board shut down its communication systems. for more about the disappearance of the malaysian jetliner, we're joined from washington by mike at schmidt of "new york times" who has been covering the story for them. we've heard that they have looked through the homes of the pilots and tried to find any connection to terrorism there. >> they have access now to a flight simulator that one of the pilots had in his house. they're going through that, and they're also going through some computers they found there, and are also talking to his family members. as of today, as we've seen the story has changed so much, the focus is now on the pilot. >> how much access to american investigators or u.s. agencies

have to the fruits of these investigations? >> well, they actually don't have a lot. in terms of raw data and in terms of where the plane may have been and satellite imagery and sort of pings that have gone off the plane, the u.s. has a fair amount of access to that information, but they don't know a lot about the malaysian investigation, they not asked for formal help from the americans, and the fbi has less than a handful of guys on the ground there, so in terms of the actual investigation of who these people were and what their motivations may have been, the u.s. has far less visibility. that's something that's frustrated officials here in washington. >> in some of your reporting, you pointed out that malaysian radar essential picked up this -- military radar did, but nobody sent up a warning flare, there were jets ready to scramble, but nobody did. >> correct, and there's a lot of questions that have come out

about the ma laze, but why they haven't been sharing more information sooner and why it took them over a week to come out and make the declaration they did the other day about the transponde esers and how they thought it was foul play. as the americans look at this, they say, well, we have a lot of expertise and could help, but the malaysians don't want to look like they can't do it on their own and they don't want us to do it for them. so the u.s. stands on the outside like many of us and looks in and theoryizes, but don't know much more than any of us do. >> how costly has that time been? in the amount of time that all these planes and ships have been looking, really in the wrong area? >> look, the problem is the ocean there is just so big and so fast, and there's so much area that can be covered, because the transponders went off, they have very little clue of where it could be. if the plane had hypothetically

blown up as it was going on its route, then they would have a clear idea of where to look. there would be sort of a narrow, sort of area that they could look through on the water, but they essentially have an entire ocean to look at. that's really, really difficult. there's even some folks who they think may never even find it. that's probably the issue here. >> based on all your reporting, what do you think is the most likely scenario? >> unfortunately i think the plane is at the bottom of the ocean. it seems far-fetched to think the plane was taken somewhere, landed and no one has detected it. if you talk to aviation experts, they sayi difficult to sort of hide a plane of this size and for it to just sort of land up somewhere on land without in this finding it. >> thank you so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. nato says a cyberattack

apparently linked to the conflict in ukraine brought down several of its web sites last night. a pro-russian group claiming respond set it targeted nato because of the what it called the western alliances' interference. nato said it did not bead its ability to command and the classified networks were not affected. elsewhere in western europe, paris and other cities in northern france are suffering through severe smog. in response, parisian officials have made all travels on subway and buses free. starting tomorrow they will place travel restrictions on drivers and motorcycles to stop, with odd-numbered license plates being a laed to drive one day, and those with even-numbered license plates the next. they issued a health advisory for the elderly, small children and those with respiratory conditions. north korea today launched 25 short-range rockets into the sea off its east coast. this in apparent retaliation for

ongoing military exercises between the united states and south korea. the north says the military drills are a pretext for an invasion. the u.s. and south korea say the drills are purely defensive. back in this country, an army general being prosecuted for sexual assault has reportedly agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges, this according to "new york times," brigadier general jeffrey sinclair is expected to enter the plea at ft. bragg at north carolina, possibly tomorrow morning. honda is recalling nearly 900,000 odyssey minivans made between 2005 and 2010. the company says the advance could catch on fire because of a faulty part that can leak fuel. honda says it knows of no fires and injuries to day. and david brenner has died of cancer. according to his family. brenner's final request was to be buried with $100 in small bills in his left sock, just in case, he said, tipping is recommended where i'm going. david brenner was 78.

we want to turn to another store that's gotten a lot less attention, outbreaks of mealsles. it's part of a larger story that infectious diseases that all but disappeared in the u.s. are now reappears. the cdc says the number of mealsle cases was three times normal and more than 20 cases have been reported in new york this year. yesterday i spoke with steven morse at the mellman school of public health at columbia university. i began by asking him what he thought was behind is the trend >> mealsles is vaccine preventable, so to a large extent it's because of the people who are not being immunized or too young to be immunized. normally we start recommending immunization at about one year.

but, for example, we had an outbreak last summer in brooklyn, largely because the decision in those communities cause to wait before immunizing the children, and vaccinate them later. so some of the younger children got infected. >> so how much of this is related to people coming in from other parts of the world? and then combining with those populations here that aren't immunized? >> in most cases, that's what's happening. there are a number of places in the netherlands, for example, where for various reasons there are communities, various religious communities, for example, that refused immunization. they just don't want to be immunized. occasionally a case will break out there in that population, someone will come over here and introduce it, and most of the population is immunized and protected, but not everybody. >> what are some of the other infectious diseases that keep you up at night? when i was looking this up,

scarlet fever cases are up at a 24-year highs in the uk. obviously in this global and connected world, people are carrying diseases, along with their luggage as they carry to and from >> the one that wore me z worry me the most is the one we don't know about. scarlet fever has been with us for a long time. my mother was hospitalized with it 60 or 70 years ago, and it was very common then. we don't understand why it waxes and wanes, and the strep toe coke us bacterium of which it is a member, is with us all the sometime. strep throat, for example, but some of the different forms seem to have their own variable patterns, and then of course we have meningitis, which is also bacterial, but an unusual time for which we do not have an effective vaccine yet in this

country, although we will be licensing that soon. >> how much of this is kind of our own success leading to a certain type of complacency. you said your mother had scarlet fever. you had firsthand knowledge of it. you knew what to be fearful of it. most of us have not seen polio or mealsles in our lifetime. >> i think that's absolutely true. for the diseases that are vaccine preventable, and more and more are, i had mealsles when i was a child and then in fact a vaccine was developed a few years later. it's possible to be immunized and not have to experience what so many of us went through earlier, but for the vaccine preventable diseases, very often it's just those people who are afraid to be immunized, afraid to have their children immunized for whatever reason, and depends on their neighbors to protect them. mealsles is extremely transmiscible, so you need a high level of immunization to protect people. so the complacency i think is the fact that we don't see the

threat quite the way we did 50 years ago, or perhaps even 25ier. steven morse from columbia university, thanks so much. >> thank you. seem what infectious diseases are breaking out around the corner and around the world? versus newshour.pbs.world. margaret warner will have the latest on the crisis in ukraine assist she continues her reporting. that's it for this edition. thanks for watching. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

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steves: for a more lively way to enjoy paris and cap an exciting day, steve and i have hired a car and a driver for a blitz of the city's best nighttime views. and this isn't just any car and driver. this company employs a fleet of historic deux chevaux cars, and they're driven by local students. man: the different districts are like a snail, going around the island, the city.

steves: the french raise flood lighting to an art form. and with a city as beautiful as paris, it's no wonder. les invalides, with its golden dome marking napoleon's tomb, is magnifique. the naughty blades of the moulin rouge keep turning, and its red lights tempt lost souls in pigalle. just to be out and about at this hour, the energy of the city is palpable. notre dame is particularly stately after dark. sightseeing boats enliven the river and its sparkling bridges. the pyramid at the louvre glows from within. and the eiffel tower provides a fitting finale for this victory lap through the city of light.

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