Climate impacts 'overwhelming' - UN

Scientists fear a growing impact of global warming on humans

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The impacts of global warming are likely to be "severe, pervasive and irreversible", a major report by the UN has warned.

Scientists and officials meeting in Japan say the document is the comprehensive assessment to date of the impacts of climate change on the world.
Members of the UN's climate panel say it provides overwhelming evidence of the scale of these effects.
Natural systems now bear the brunt, but a growing impact on humans is feared.
Our health, homes, food and safety are all likely to be threatened by rising temperatures, the summary says.

"Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change”

Rajendra Pachauri Chairman, IPCC

The report was agreed after almost a week of intense discussions here in Yokohama.

This is the second of a series from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) due out this year that outlines the causes, effects and solutions to global warming.
This latest Summary for Policymakers document highlights the fact that the amount of scientific evidence on the impacts of warming has almost doubled since the last report in 2007.
Be it the melting of glaciers or warming of permafrost, the summary highlights the fact that on all continents and across the oceans, changes in the climate have caused impacts on natural and human systems in recent decades.
In the words of the report, "increasing magnitudes of warming increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts". 

IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said the findings in the report were "profound"

"Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,'' IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri told journalists at a news conference in Yokohama.
"Before this we thought we knew this was happening, but now we have overwhelming evidence that it is happening and it is real," said Dr Saleemul Huq, a convening lead author on one of the chapters.
Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said that, previously, people could have damaged the Earth's climate out of "ignorance".
"Now, ignorance is no longer a good excuse," he said.
The report details significant short-term impacts on natural systems in the next 20 to 30 years. It details five reasons for concern that would likely increase as a result of the warming the world is already committed to.
These include threats to unique systems such as Arctic sea ice and coral reefs, where risks are said to increase to "very high" with a 2C rise in temperatures.
The summary document outlines impacts on the seas and on freshwater systems as well. The oceans will become more acidic, threatening coral and the many species that they harbour.
Animals, plants and other species will begin to move towards higher ground or towards the poles as the mercury rises.
Humans, though, are also increasingly affected as the century goes on. 

Food security is highlighted as an area of significant concern. Crop yields for maize, rice and wheat are all hit in the period up to 2050, with around a tenth of projections showing losses over 25%.
After 2050, the risk of more severe yield impacts increases, as boom-and-bust cycles affect many regions. All the while, the demand for food from a population estimated to be around nine billion will rise.
Many fish species, a critical food source for many, will also move because of warmer waters.

What is the IPCC?

In its own words, the IPCC is there "to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts".
The offspring of two UN bodies, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, it has issued four heavyweight assessment reports to date on the state of the climate.
These are commissioned by the governments of 195 countries, essentially the entire world. These reports are critical in informing the climate policies adopted by these governments.
The IPCC itself is a small organisation, run from Geneva with a full time staff of 12. All the scientists who are involved with it do so on a voluntary basis.

In some parts of the tropics and in Antarctica, potential catches could decline by more than 50%.

"This is a sobering assessment," said Prof Neil Adger from the University of Exeter, another IPCC author.
"Going into the future, the risks only increase, and these are about people, the impacts on crops, on the availability of water and particularly, the extreme events on people's lives and livelihoods."
People will be affected by flooding and heat related mortality. The report warns of new risks including the threat to those who work outside, such as farmers and construction workers. There are concerns raised over migration linked to climate change, as well as conflict and national security.
While the poorer countries are likely to suffer more in the short term, the rich won't escape.
"The rich are going to have to think about climate change, we're seeing that in the UK, with the floods we had a few months ago, and the storms we had in the US and the drought in California," said Dr Huq.
"These are multibillion dollar events that the rich are going to have to pay for, and there's a limit to what they can pay."
But it is not all bad news, as the co-chair of the working group that drew up the report points out.

 

"I think the really big breakthrough in this report is the new idea of thinking about managing climate change as a problem in managing risks," said Dr Chris Field.
"Climate change is really important but we have a lot of the tools for dealing effectively with it - we just need to be smart about it."
There is far greater emphasis to adapting to the impacts of climate in this new summary. The problem, as ever, is who foots the bill?
"It is not up to IPCC to define that," said Dr Jose Morengo, a Brazilian government official who attended the talks.
"It provides the scientific basis to say this is the bill, somebody has to pay, and with the scientific grounds it is relatively easier now to go to the climate negotiations in the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and start making deals about who will pay for adaptation."
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Missing Malaysian Jet - 4 : Malaysia flight MH370: No time limit on search, says Tony Abbott

Rescue crews have put no time limit on the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said.

Mr Abbott told reporters near Perth, where the operation is being co-ordinated, that the hunt for flight MH370 was still being stepped up.
Ten aircraft and 10 ships are scouring the sea south-west of Perth for debris from the airliner.
The Beijing-bound plane disappeared on 8 March with 239 people on board.
The signal from its flight-data recorder lasts about 30 days.
The search teams are deploying a special tool known as a "towed ping locator" to find the recorder, which will be used once debris from the plane has been found.

The BBC's Jon Donnison explains how a "towed pinger locator" is used

Several floating objects have been found during the search in recent days, but none is believed to belong to the missing plane.
"We can keep searching for quite some time to come," said Mr Abbott.
"The intensity of our search and the magnitude of our search is increasing, not decreasing."
Some 153 of the passengers were Chinese, and dozens of their relatives arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.
They have become increasingly upset with the perceived lack of information from the Malaysian authorities.

MH370 - Facts at a glance

• 8 March - Malaysia Airlines Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight carrying 239 people disappears
• Plane's transponder, which gives out location data, was switched off as it left Malaysian airspace
• Satellite 'pings' indicate plane was still flying seven hours after satellite contact was lost
• 24 March - Based on new calculations, Malaysian PM says "beyond reasonable doubt" that plane crashed in southern Indian Ocean with no survivors

Chanting "Tell us the truth", they said they wanted Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to apologise for what they regard as misleading statements.

Many were outraged when Mr Najib stated earlier that he believed the plane had come down in the Indian Ocean with no survivors.
But Mr Abbott gave his backing to that assessment, saying: "The accumulation of evidence is that the aircraft has been lost and it has been lost somewhere in the south of the Indian Ocean.
"That's the absolutely overwhelming wave of evidence and I think that Prime Minister Najib Razak was perfectly entitled to come to that conclusion."
Various theories about what went wrong have been suggested - including the captain hijacking his own plane.
The speculation was fuelled by reports that files had been deleted on the pilot's home flight simulator.
However, on Saturday Malaysia's transport minister said investigators had found "nothing sinister" from the simulator.
Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.
The airliner diverted off course and lost contact with air traffic controllers between Malaysian and Vietnamese air-traffic control areas.

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In Apple and Samsung's new war, Google is a wide-awake giant

San Francisco:  Officially, it's Apple versus Samsung Electronics in another tech patent faceoff in a San Jose, Calif., courtroom this week. But there is one unnamed party in the case - Google.

In a lawsuit, Apple is seeking about $2 billion in damages from Samsung for selling phones and tablets that Apple says violate five of its mobile software patents. Samsung, meanwhile, says Apple violated two of its patents.

Some features in Samsung devices that Apple objects to are part of Google's Android operating system, by far the most popular mobile operating system worldwide, running on more than a billion devices made by many manufacturers. That means that if Apple wins, Google could have to make changes to critical Android features, and Samsung and other Android phone makers might have to modify the software on their phones.

"Google's been lurking in the background of all these cases because of the Android system," said Mark P. McKenna, a professor who teaches intellectual property law at Notre Dame. "Several people have described the initial battle between Samsung and Apple as really one between Apple and Google."

Representatives for Apple, Samsung and Google declined to comment.

The current case, which begins Monday with jury selection, is the second major court battle over patents between Apple and Samsung, which rode the success of Android to become the biggest handset maker in the world. Samsung lost the first case in 2012, and it was ordered to pay $930 million in damages.

That amount is pocket change for Apple, one of the richest companies in the world. And it hardly interfered with Samsung's ability to sell phones; the company, which is based in South Korea, shipped 314 million handsets last year, according to the research firm IDC.

So this second fight has to be about more than money, said James Bessen, a law lecturer at Boston University. He said that if Apple just wanted money, it would have already agreed to settle.

Still, going after Google by attacking Samsung is difficult, Bessen said. Both Google and Samsung could alter features to avoid infringing on patents. And by the time the trial and appeals are finished, newer devices will have supplanted the products in question.

"To kill Android with a half-dozen patents," Bessen said, "just seems like a long shot."

Long shot or not, combating Google's Android system was a cherished goal of Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder and chief executive, who died in 2011. He called Android a knockoff of the iPhone and told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, that he was willing to go to "thermonuclear war" just to kill Android.

He also told Isaacson that Apple's past patent lawsuit against HTC, another Android handset maker, was about Google all along.

"I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product," Jobs was quoted as saying in Isaacson's book "Steve Jobs."

In the case set to open this week, Apple's legal complaint aims at some of the features that Google, not Samsung, put in Android, like the ability to tap on a phone number inside a text message to dial the number. And although Google is not a defendant in this case, some of its executives are expected to testify as witnesses.

Apple has a long history of choosing battles against what it views as copycats. In 1988, the company sued Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, claiming that software programs sold by the two companies, including Windows, infringed on Apple's copyrights on how information was presented on the Macintosh operating system. After a four-year legal struggle, Apple lost on nearly all its claims.

Apple filed its latest complaint against Samsung more than two years ago in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, accusing Samsung of infringing on software patents involving both the iPhone and iPad, including the "slide-to-unlock" feature for logging in, and universal search, the ability to look up items across the device and on the Internet at the same time.

For those patents, Apple wants $40 per infringing Samsung device sold in the United States. Apple lists several Samsung products that it says violated its patents, including the popular Galaxy S III, which at one point surpassed the iPhone in sales, and the Galaxy Note II.

"Instead of pursuing independent product development, Samsung slavishly copied Apple's innovative technology," Apple said in its complaint.

Samsung says Apple has infringed on patents covering how a photo album is organized, as well as a method for transmitting video over a wireless network. It bought these patents from Hitachi and a group of American inventors.

The case will be tried by a jury of four and is expected to last a month.

Apple's lawyers plan to argue that by copying the features of Apple's devices and then selling millions of phones, Samsung harmed Apple, because people who bought Samsung phones presumably would have otherwise bought iPhones. Apple will probably try to illustrate that Samsung is a copy machine, not an innovator, by pointing out that the two patents Samsung says were infringed on are not based on Samsung's own ideas because they were acquired from other inventors.

Samsung's lawyers will try to argue that Apple's patents are invalid by demonstrating that similar software features were being developed by Google and others before the iPhone was released. They will also probably argue that Apple's complaint poses a threat to competition because the patents Apple says were infringed on broadly cover Android, meaning other phone manufacturers could be dragged in to the dispute.

Expected witnesses include Philip W. Schiller, Apple's senior vice president for worldwide marketing; Todd Pendleton, chief marketing officer of Samsung's American division; and Hiroshi Lockheimer, a vice president for engineering in Google's Android division.

Apple has some advantages entering the trial. It won the last fight with Samsung, which might carry weight with jurors trying to decide if Samsung again infringed on patents. And the judge, Lucy H. Koh, who also oversaw the last trial, has already decided that Samsung infringed on one of Apple's patents covering a method for automatically correcting incomplete or misspelled words while a person is typing. So Samsung is already down one.

That does not necessarily make this an easy fight. To streamline the trial, Koh limited the number of patents that each company could assert were infringed on. Apple must argue that just a few patented features are worth a great deal of money, when there are thousands of other patented inventions that make a smartphone tick.

"When you have a case where a party comes in with a handful of patents and says, these are the really important ones, these are the patents that are worth several dollars apiece per phone - from a simple economic standpoint, that doesn't make a lot of sense," said Brian J. Love, a law professor at Santa Clara University who teaches courses on patent law.

In January, the companies' top executives met with a mediator to discuss a possible settlement, but to no avail. Settling would be difficult for either company, in any case, given their clashing business strategies.

Apple's approach is to develop software that runs exclusively on its hardware, and the company generally does not license its patents because it hopes that may prevent others from reproducing its products.

Samsung has found success in making all kinds of products, like washing machines and refrigerators, or smartphones and television sets. It is unlikely it would tear features out of its best-selling smartphones without putting up a fight.

© 2014, The New York Times News Service

 

 

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Missing Malaysian Jet - 3 : Flight MH370 : Memories of the stories left from the last day

Kuala Lumpur:  One morning, many stories.

The three women woke before sunrise that day, leaving their hotel while it was still dark and boarding a small plane in Katmandu, Nepal, for a look at Mount Everest. They were Chinese retirees, avid photographers ending a two-week tour of the Himalayan nation. Late that night, after a stopover in Kuala Lumpur, they would head home to Beijing.


The Indonesian couple woke up at home, a tidy two-story concrete-walled house down a small alley in the city of Medan. A taxi arrived a few hours later to take them to the airport, starting them on a journey to a long-anticipated vacation without their children, a trip to China to see the Great Wall and Beijing's Forbidden City.

In Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown, the artists and calligraphers headed down to breakfast about 8 a.m. Some had been celebrating the night before, downing shots of the powerful Chinese liquor called Xifengjiu at the end of almost a week exhibiting their work. But they gathered early in the hotel restaurant, ready for a day of sightseeing and shopping before the late-night flight back to Beijing.

And in Perth, in western Australia, the 39-year-old mechanical engineer woke up early in his red-roofed bungalow, leaving his wife and their two young boys for a 28-day mining job in Mongolia. Just before he headed to the airport, on his way to connecting flights in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, Paul Weeks gave his wife his wedding ring and watch for safekeeping. If anything happened to him, he said, he wanted the boys to have them someday. "Don't be stupid!" she told him.

It was Friday morning, March 7.

By that evening, they would all be together in a departure lounge in Kuala Lumpur's airport, with its granite floors and soaring ceilings and tiny plot of transplanted, living rainforest. And a little after midnight on March 8, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took off for Beijing, carrying 239 people inside its meticulously engineered metal shell.

We know only the broadest outlines of what happened next.

Soon after takeoff, Flight 370 disappeared. Its transponders had been switched off. Soon, the blip was gone from radars. This past week, after more than two weeks of searches across tens of thousands of square miles, Malaysia's prime minister announced that satellite data showed the plane's last known position to be in a remote corner of the Indian Ocean, far from its destination and far from any possible landing sites.

How it happened, and why, remains unclear. Perhaps it was a hijacking, perhaps pilot suicide, perhaps a catastrophic malfunction.

It had been a heavily Asian passenger list, reflecting both the locale of the flight and the changing face of the continent, home to a new generation of 21st-century people who form an emerging tourist and traveling class. Some of those aboard were heading home, others just making a quick stopover. Some were returning from their first trip abroad. For others, foot soldiers in Asia's growing economies, it was just one more connecting flight in a lifetime of connecting flights.

The people at airports, those who get dropped off, proceed through security and make their way to their gates, are usually right in the middle of the business of their lives. Much of what happens is not even memorable. But now, for many who knew the people aboard Flight 370, that last full day looms so large. Everyday details, now loaded with the ballast of hindsight, take on fresh weight.

But does it mean anything that Liu Rusheng, at 76 one of the oldest of the 19 Chinese artists and calligraphers, argued with his wife shortly before their plane took off? Does it mean anything that Zhao Zhaofang, known for her delicate paintings of peonies, bought Malaysian chocolates that afternoon to take home as a present?

Is it important that Paul Weeks told his wife that his wedding ring should go to the first of his sons to get married, or that Chandrika Sharma, an Indian social activist on her way to a conference in Mongolia, called her elderly mother just before the plane took off?

It's only in retrospect that what happened that Friday now seems anything more than prosaic, more than just another passing day.

"By the time we arrived at the (Katmandu) airport, the sun had already risen, so we flew over the mountains as we embraced the rising sun," said Wang Dongcheng, 65, a retired professor of Chinese literature who was on the Everest flight with the three women who would disappear with Flight 370. Most of those on the tour were retired Chinese academics. Only some had chosen to take the Everest tour. Many had been put off by the small plane or the $230 price tag. The three women, though, had carefully prepared, putting on bright clothing and scarves, ready for when the plane landed with Mount Everest in the background.

"They loved to be photographed, and they were dressed for photos," Wang said. "They were very beautiful."

Wang declined to reveal the full names of the women, but The Associated Press confirmed their identities independently.

One, 62-year-old Ding Ying, had been a happy, talkative presence throughout the tour, always telling jokes. Another, Chen Yun, said one of her Everest photos might be the best she had ever taken. Yang Xiaoming spoke about how much she'd learned in Nepal, and how she was thinking of going on an upcoming tour to England, Ireland and Iceland.

Plans for future trips, though, suddenly seem almost disrespectful. "I don't think anyone is in the mood to think about it now," Wang says.

Of the 23 people on the tour, he said nine walked onto the Malaysia Airlines flight when boarding was announced.

In Medan, on the east coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island, Sugianto Lo had dreamed for years of a vacation alone with his wife, Vinny Chynthya Tio. But the couple - he was an electrical contractor, she a mechanical engineer - had had little time for vacations. They had worked their way onto the lower rungs of Indonesia's new middle class, and they had three children to send to college.

So when a friend gave them the gift of a trip to China, they were thrilled to accept.

"It was like a dream come true," said Santi Lo, Sugianto's younger sister, who with her mother is now caring for the children left behind. "They were so happy and excited to go."

Leaving turned out to be difficult. The couple, both 47, worried about their children, from whom they had never been separated, and called repeatedly from the airports in Medan and Kuala Lumpur. They worried their oldest, 17-year-old Antonio, might not come home before dark while they were gone, and they called and sent him text messages, reminding him of his responsibility to his younger brother and sister.

"They asked Antonio to be a good example to his siblings, and take care of them," Santi said, weeping.

For the 19 artists and calligraphers, the visit to Kuala Lumpur was their first trip to Malaysia. While the exhibition had gone well, many had suffered badly with the city's heat. So that Friday - a day spent largely in air-conditioned malls and the Petronas Twin Towers - was in many ways a respite. In the afternoon there was a stop at the Oz-like royal palace, where many took photos with the scarlet-clad cavalry guards.

They left early for the airport, since many had delicate artwork to pack, and they stopped at a Chinese restaurant not far away for a last meal in Malaysia. They chose a restaurant that served halal food to make things easier on the group's lone Muslim, who had rarely been able to eat with the larger contingent.

Liu, the elderly calligrapher, sang for the bus as they headed to the airport. Many clapped along. The mood was spirited. At the airport, though, Liu complained to his wife that she had done a poor job packing his paintings, said Xu Lipu, an artist on the trip who took a separate flight back to China.

"They were a little bit angry with each other," he said.

Xu, who had gone to the airport to drop off the travelers, said there were no heartfelt partings. And as with so many planes leaving so many airports on an increasingly connected planet, Flight 370 went on its way - another routine departure beginning a trip that would be anything but.

"We and the other artists did not really say goodbye," Xu said. "I went to the toilet and came back, and I didn't see the artists again."

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Missing Malaysian Jet - 2 : Flight MH370: Search shifted after 'Credible Lead'

    The new area is closer to Western Australia and should allow for longer search periods

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has moved to a new part of the Indian Ocean due to a "credible lead", Australia says.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) said the search would now focus on an area 1,100km north-east of the previous zone.
The move was based on more analysis of radar data that showed the plane was going faster, thus using more fuel.
The Beijing-bound airliner disappeared on 8 March with 239 people on board.
Malaysian officials have concluded that, based on satellite data, it flew into the sea somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. So far no trace of it has been found.
Search efforts had until Friday morning focused on an area some 2,500km (1,550 miles) to the south-west of the Australian city of Perth.
But John Young, general manager of Amsa's emergency response division, said that teams had "moved on" from that area based on the new information.

      Teams are now searching a new area, in yellow, north-east of the previous zone, in grey 

'Reduced distance'
A statement from Amsa - which is co-ordinating the search - said the new information had come from the international investigation team in Malaysia.
This was based on "continuing analysis of radar data between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca before radar contact was lost", Amsa said.

Amsa's John Young: "The search has moved from the 'roaring forties'

"It indicated that the aircraft was travelling faster than previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel usage and reducing the possible distance the aircraft travelled south into the Indian Ocean."
It said that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) had determined that this was "the most credible lead to where debris may be located".
The new search area is about 1,850km west of Perth and covers some 319,000 sq km (123,000 sq miles).
Mr Young, of Amsa, said it represented the "best estimate of the area in which the aircraft is likely to have entered the ocean" and took account of possible drift. 

The new search area was outside the "roaring forties" bad weather zone, meaning conditions were likely to be better. Aircraft would also be able to spend more time in the area because it was closer to land, he said.
The potential flight path could be the subject of further refinement as investigations continued, Amsa said, adding that satellites would now focus on the new area.
Amsa said nine military aircraft would be scouring the area on Friday, with a civilian aircraft acting as a communications relay.

MH370 - Facts at a glance

• 8 March - Malaysia Airlines Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight carrying 239 people disappears
• Plane's transponder, which gives out location data, was switched off as it left Malaysian airspace
• Satellite 'pings' indicate plane was still flying seven hours after satellite contact was lost
• 24 March - Based on new calculations, Malaysian PM says "beyond reasonable doubt" that plane crashed in southern Indian Ocean with no survivors

Five ships from China and one from Australia were also relocating to that area. One Chinese patrol ship was already at the scene, Amsa said. 

Major challenge Mystery still surrounds the fate of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 which vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.
The reason why the airliner veered off course and lost contact with air traffic controllers continues to baffle experts.
The remote and vast expanse of ocean has turned the search into a major challenge.
Using satellite images, several nations have identified objects floating in the sea in the previous search area, but these have not been located and there is no evidence that they are related to the plane.
Some relatives of the flight's 153 Chinese passengers have refused to accept the Malaysian account of events and accused officials of withholding information.
Earlier, China's state news agency Xinhua said that Chinese insurance firms had begun to offer payouts to the relatives.
On Thursday, Malaysia Airlines took out a full-page condolence advertisement in the New Straits Times, saying: "Our sincerest condolences go out to the loved ones of the 239 passengers, friends and colleagues. Words alone cannot express our enormous sorrow and pain."

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Missing Malaysian Jet - 1

Update :Video: Malaysian Jet Missing Through 'Deliberate Action'

Saturday, 15 March 2014 - 10:21

Investigators have concluded that at least one person with considerable flying experience flew the missing Malaysia Airlines jet off course for seven hours after turning off its communication systems.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced at a press conference today that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared a week ago with 239 people aboard, appeared to be intentionally steered off-course by at least one person with considerable flying experience.

Satellite data confirms that the plane turned to fly in a westerly direction soon after reaching the South China Sea. Two “corridors” have been identified where the plane may have flown: a northern sector around the borders of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and northern Thailand; and a southern sector stretching from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

Search efforts will now be concentrated in these vast expanses.

Update : Saturday, 15 March 2014 - 05:14 PM
-------------------------------------
Missing Malaysia Airlines flight: investigator denies claim plane was hijacked


The head of the investigation into the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has denied any conclusive evidence of hijacking and said it was just one of a number of lines they're looking at.

His comments came after a Malaysian government official said investigators had concluded that one of the pilots or someone else with flying experience hijacked the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

The official, who was not named but is involved in the investigation, told no motive has been established, and it is not yet clear where the plane was taken.

The official said that hijacking was no longer a theory. "It is conclusive."

Update : Saturday, 15 March 2014 - 10:53
-----------------------------------
Malaysia Airlines flight hijacked, conclude investigators: official

A Malaysian government official says investigators have concluded that one of the pilots or someone else with flying experience hijacked the missing Malaysia Airlines jet.

The official, who is involved in the investigation, says no motive has been established, and it is not yet clear where the plane was taken. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

The official said that hijacking was no longer a theory. “It is conclusive.”

The Boeing 777′s communication with the ground was severed under one hour into a flight March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysian officials have said radar data suggest it may have turned back and crossed back over the Malaysian peninsula westward, after setting out toward the Chinese capital.

NDTV

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