hello and welcome back to newsline. i'm cary anne. let's get started with the headlines. australia's prime minister say satellite images have captured objects that may be related to the missing malaysia airlines plane. russian president vladimir putin is building bridges between his country and crimea

to redraw boards. and a step forward, they have agreed to resume talks after more than a year. the people searching for the missing malaysian airlines plane may have caught a break. what could be pieces of debris showed in the indian ocean. military air crews are trying to find them. >> new and credible information has come to light in relation to the search for malaysia airlines flight mh-370 in the southern indian ocean. >> the jetliner set out almost two weeks ago, carrying 239 people. it was headed for beijing. 50 minutes after the takeoff, it disappeared. australia's maritime safety authority released photos taken sunday. two floating objects are advise, in the indian ocean. one is about 24 meters long, the

other, about 5 meters. they say they were 2500 kilometers southwest with the city of perth. crews are searching the area. they have warned the objects may have nothing to do with the missing plane. vladimirutin is not hesitating to defy western leaders. the russian president is moving ahead with his plans for crimea. he met with his cabinet a day after signing the agreement to an ex-the autonomous republic. we report. >> reporter: vladimir putin is pushing the boundaries on crimea. russia's president has ordered the building of a bridge linking his country to the crimean peninsula. and he requested that tensions for crimean citizens be doubled to be like the russians. >> translator: all citizens of russian must enjoy the same

conditions. how you do it is your business. there must be no delays. >> reporter: russia's constitutional court as approved the treaty on crimea. lawmakers are expected to ratify it later in the day. pro-russian forces are taking more and more control. hundreds stormed a ukrainian navy base. defense officials say the base commander was detained. ukrainian officials are worried about minority groups. they've announced plans to help move them out of the region. they also announced the country will leave an association made up of former soviet republics. crimeans are seeing other changes in black and white. a russian government newspaper is being distributed for the

first time. >> translator: i'm very happy. president putin is the best. there are no other leaders like him anywhere else in the world. >> reporter: the headline on the paper read "reunification". >> russian and western envoys exchanged harsh words at an emergency meeting of the u.n. security council. >> yesterday, a historic event took place, the reunification of russian crimea, something our people have waited for for six decades. it was in compliance with international law, democratic procedures and went ahead without interference. >> ambassadors from western nations don't accept russia's arguments. >> russia has decided, it seems, to rewrite its borders. but it cannot rewrite the facts.

the united states rejects russia's military intervention and land grab in crimea. >> the russian ambassador said insults are unacceptable, and won't help matters on the security council. officials may not be seeing eye to eye on crimea, but u.s. president barack obama has ruled out the possibility of u.s. military action to counter russian moves. >> we are not going to be getting into a military, you know, excursion in yukraine. we are going to mobilize our diplomatic resources to make sure we have a strong international coalition which sends a strong message. the ukrainians should decide their own destiny. >> obama said his country would impose additional sanctions on russia. the u.s. and its allies will turn up the pressure on russia

in hopes of reaching a diplom diplomatic solution to the crisis. negotiators for the japanese and north korean governments have not held official talks for more than a year. now delegates from the two countries have agreed to resume negotiations. a japanese foreign minister official held informal talks with his north korean counterpart. the last official negotiations were in november, 2012. the follow s month, the north koreans launched what they say was a satellite. the talks were suspended. they will follow up later. and they want to take up abduction by north korean agents. at least 17 japanese were kidnapped in the 1970s and 80s. red cross delegates also met. they discussed returning the

remains of japanese who died around the wednesday of world war ii in what is now north korea. the delegates agreed to hold further discussions. north korean officials will hold their national parliament next month. leader kim jong-un will promote a generational change in the circle. he says that the supreme people's assembly would be held on april 9th in pyongyang. north korea had parliamentary elections this month. among those chosen was the senior of the guidance department of the ruling workers party. he was involved in the execution of the chair of the national defense commission. he was kim's mentor and uncle. some close to him were not elected. leadership posts will be at next

week's assembly to alleviate concerns about the purge. we spoke to a senior research fellow with the korean institute for reunification. we asked about the relations with japan and what kim jong-un hopes to achieve during the supreme people's assembly. >> north korea has been in a situation of diplomatic isolation for nearly 70 years. but clearly since the brutal execution of chang sunk tech december last year, north korea's international image was getting worse. and north korea also has been on the international economic sanctions. and its a relationship with the united states and south korea. not in good situation.

so north korea needs to break out the current difficulties. red cross talks with japan on the part of pyongyang gives a good opportunity to get out of the current difficulties. almost 55% or more of delegates of the people assembly had to be changed. their first and foremost issue is to deal with how to fill the new post in north korea's high post in north korea's government. second one is to -- they deal

with the -- what's north korea's future direction? in terms of north korea's economic policy. what should it do on kim jung's regime if they want to show to the north korean people, the north korean population a good picture, they needaudiences everywhere. these are the faces of south korea. nhk updates you wednesday and thursday here on "newsline." >> delegates for the united nations council has been pouring over china's record on human rights. they will have a report with more than 250 recommendations for chinese leaders. they are responding to concerns raised by officials from the u.s. and other western countries. they demanded action last october after investigates released their latest assessment of the situation in china. the members of the council are asking them to end harassment

and arbitrary detention of human rights activists and asking them to guarantee freedom of expressi expression. they must protect the rights of ethnic minorities including tibetans. china's leaders have rejected 48 of the council's recommendations. six world powers and iran have locked horns again over the iranian nuclear program. they met over two days in vienna from tuesday. but they have differences on issues. they fear the iranians could use a heavy water reactor to make plutonium for nuclear weapons. >> translator: we had very useful and serious talks about a variety of issues. we spoke about uranium enrichment, the reactor,

peaceful nuclear cooperation and sanctions. >> iranian foreign minister muhammad zarif and his colleagues are facing increasing pressure from hardliners at home. they don't want to bow to any pressure from the west. most members of the u.s. congress are nervous too. they sent president obama letters earlier this week urging caution in dealing with iran. the negotiators will meet again next month. let's now get the latest business stories from ron madison. >> thanks. japan's diet passed the largest budget ever. it will be $936 billion during the fiscal year starting in april. it cleared the upper house on thursday. the ruling democratic party and the coalition party hold a majority in the chamber. it's the first time in three years that the government has

succeeded in getting a budget through the diet before the start of the new fiscal year. they hope to enact 30 other bills with the economic growth. they aim to ease the negative economic impact after the sales tax rise in april to ensure the economy stays on track. the new chair of the u.s. federal reserve is following in the footsteps of her predecessor. janet yellen said they will continue to scale back the programs. and keep interest rates at record lows. but they could raise them after winding down the bond buying program. >> the language that we used in the statement is considerable period. so i -- i, you know, this is the kind of term, it's hard to define, but, you know, probably means something on the order of around six months or that type of thing. >> policy makers decided to

further reduce monthly purchases of the treasury bonds and other assets to $55 billion. they said heavy snow caused economic activity to slow down in the winter, but the economy has sufficient underlying strength to support improvement in the job market. the unemployment fell to 6.7%. they promised to keep rates low until 6.5%. now they will look at the labor market as a whole, inflation as well as a number of other things that making their decision. people have been looking for any change under yellen. we have more on the first policy meeting. >> yellen wanted to make it clear that despite the change in leadership, the fed's policies remain the same. she changed some of the wording about keeping rates low, but she stressed that the people on the

board were updating guidance and not changing policy. they will continue with the easy money policy even after the job market recovers and the inflation rate meets their target. she did surprise investors with the things she said, she suggested that interest rates could go up in the first half of next year, much earlier than anticipated. going forward, the policy makers may be divided on how they see the face of recovery. some members to want stay the course. they say 6% is improvement, but it's still higher than the 5% level they saw before the financial crisis. and they point out inflation is still low. those who want to start raising the interest rates maintain the economy is expected to expand this year by 3% or more. and they say wages are on the rise. so they're trying to convince others on the board to change course. yellen and her deputy, stanley

fischer will need to weigh the opinions of those of these groups. and with weakness in other economies and political tensions, she may face bumpy roads ahead. >> all right. on to the markets now. the announcement affected asian equities. they feared they may raise the interest rates earlier than expected. the index posted the lowest close since early july. tokyo, seoul and sydney sank to the lowest in a month. shanghai dropped to a low after reversing gains. the ne cay finished at 14,224. market entitlement was dampened by showing that overseas investors were net sellers of japanese shares last week. and there were steep declines of 17. %, and then the shares fell

after the people's bank of china decided to drain cash at the regular operation on thursday. and indonesia shares lower. more than 2.5%. 4698. it's mostly due to profit-taking, as the index is one of the few asian markets showing a solid gain since the beginning of the year. the head of the japanese leading business organization met with the prime minister of australia. they agreed to a bilateral trade pact. the chairman of the japan business organization met with prime minister tony abbott. the two countries have been working on an economic partnership agreement, or epa. abbott expressed his hopes for an early conclusion of the deal. it would strengthen ties. he said they will lobby the japanese government to complete, as he put it, a comprehensive and high-quality epa.

abbott is scheduled to visit japan early next month. the two sides are hoping to complete the agreement by then. japan's agriculture minister says if the talks go smoothly, it could help talks with the united states over the trans-pacific free trade deal. >> translator: concluding the economic partnership agreement with australia would set a successful example of compromise. this might lead to progress in the tpp negotiations. >> he said avoiding major tariff cuts in talks, australia would make it easier for japan to win similar concessions from the united states. the u.s. negotiators are urging them to remove tariffs on all farm products. and officials hit another japanese company with a significant fine. this was over a bribery case in indonesia. they have pleaded guilty and

agreed to pay $88 million. they have accused marubeni of giving them to indonesian officials and helped them to win a $22 million power plant act. it violates the u.s. foreign relations corrupt act. marubeni was part of a consortium that won the contract and included an american company. u.s. officials say the design of the boeing 787 dreamliner is sound. that's after a year long review after battery problems surfaced last year. investigates at the federal aviation administration and boeing announced the findings of their joint review. they said the aircraft met safety levels and boeing and the faa have procedures in place to identify and correct any issues. they did not specify the cause of the problems.

they only said that other agencies are continuing to examine the battery trouble as well as other issues. the planes were grounded for four months after a series of incidents that involved overheating batteries. boeing engineers modified the battery system allowing the planes to get back into the air. in january, a battery was emitting smoke during a predeparture check at an airport near tokyo. that'll do it for business hour. here's a check of the markets.

let's now bring in our meteorologist robert. robert, tomorrow is supposed to be the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. but it's cold and raining here in japan. can we expect it to warm up? >> yes. going through the weekend, tokyo is going to be seeing much warmer temperatures out here. for the time being, it's very blustery and cloudy with that little bit of rain across much of japan. actually a little bit more than rain. over here, you saw about 100 millimeters of rainfall and winds of up to 70 kilometers per hour. the winds continue to kick up in the northeast.

and video out of the tokyo area. this is near sky tree, and the rain showers coming down. the winds blowing out there, right near the coastline we saw about 6 meter-high waves, and winds up to 60 kilometers per hour. it's going to shift off to the north through northern japan in the next 24 hours. it will be clearing along the pacific coast of japan. don't worry about friday. but if you're near hokkaido, you will see 60 kilt kimometer hours and tomorrow is the first day of spring. you'll see a warming trend up to about 18 degrees on sunday. the key thing i want to keep in mind, i want to explain this. we keep saying the equinox and the astronomical first day of

spring. what does that mean here? what it means, remember that the earth is rotating on a tilted axes i. if it wasn't, every day of the year we would see exactly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. only twice a year, though, does that happen. and that is the first day of spring. basically, you have 12 hours up and down, for example, into tokyo at 35 degrees north, about 12 hours, and 35 degrees south. and even at the tropic of cancer and the tropic of capricorn. the days are going to get longer than the days in the southern hemisphere. so this number will get bigger. that's the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. in the south, south america towards africa, you have your days getting shorter and winter is starting to set in. let's get back to the weather, though, and see what's going on across northern parts of america. we have snow showers pushing

through. hitting southern parts of canada, over towards quebec. making for foul weather conditions. on the western sea boards, snow, 10 to 20 centimeters as this system pushes through. across the deep south, mild weather in place. houston with a high of 23 here. the big thing they're going to be expecting is some rain showers through the week. that could develop into a rather severe storm system by next week. we want to continue to keep a close eye on that. and washington, d.c., a high of 14. melting off the snow. most of it has melted off that accumulated last monday. i think the big thing in washington, d.c. that you're looking forward to is the cherry blossom festival. this is what it feels like. it's going to start a little bit late because we have seen an abnormally strong winter. and not until april 8th should those be in full bloom. that's a look at your weather.

here's the extended forecast.

and before that, our top story once again, the people searching for the missing malaysia airlines plane may have caught a break. australian officials say what could be pieces of debris have showed up in satellite images. they are trying to find them. >> new and credible information has come to light in relation to the search for malaysian airlines flight mh-370 in the indian ocean.

>> the plane set out from coup what la lamb purr carrying 239 people. it disappeared 50 minutes after takeoff. and they released satellite photos sunday, two floating objects are in the indian ocean. officials say one is about 24 meters long, the other about 5 meters. they say they were 2500 kilometers southwest of the australian city of perth. they are searching the area. the prime minister has warned the objects may have nothing to do with the missing plane. and that's all for this hour on "newsline." thank you for watching.gg99ññw

>> a potential breakthrough in the search for the missing malaysian airlines plane. australia says two objects have been detected in the remote south indian ocean. search teams are now on the way, but there is no confirmation yet that those objects are indeed linked to the wreckage of the flight that went missing 13 days ago. union's meeting today could slap more sanctions on russia over what has been called it's landgrab of crimea. earlier this week, russian president vladimir putin signe