KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Air traffic controllers did not realize that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was missing until 17 minutes after it disappeared from civilian radar, according to a preliminary report on the plane's disappearance released Thursday by Malaysia's government.
The government also released other information from the investigation into the flight, including audio recordings of conversations between the cockpit and air traffic control, the plane's cargo manifest and its seating plan.
It provided a map showing the Boeing 777's deduced flight path and a document detailing actions taken by authorities during the hours of confusion that followed the jet's disappearance near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace. Many of the details have previously been disclosed.
The head of the search effort has predicted that the search could drag on for as long as a year.
Kerry wants peacekeepers
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- Ethnic violence in South Sudan is spiraling toward all-out genocide, Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday in the strongest American warning yet that the African nation the United States helped to establish three years ago is at risk of collapse.
International peacekeepers with a U.N. mandate must get on the ground fast to separate the warring factions, Mr. Kerry said. He warned of "widespread famine" among the roughly 1 million people displaced by fighting, and he threatened U.S. and other economic sanctions, as well as possible war crimes prosecutions, if the killing of civilians goes on.
Bombs kill 40 in Syria
BEIRUT -- At least 40 people were killed in the Syrian city of Aleppo on Thursday when government forces dropped barrel bombs on a busy market, according to opposition activists.
The bombs, dropped in quick succession from several military helicopters, tore through the market at a time of day when residents of the war-torn city crowd the remaining commercial areas. Dozens of people were wounded.
Barrel bombs, oil drums filled with TNT, are crude and highly destructive weapons that have been used extensively against opposition-held parts of Aleppo for more than four months.
Turkey May Day protests
ISTANBUL -- Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets Thursday in May Day rallies, lashing out against a government mired in a corruption scandal and accused of imposing a creeping authoritarianism in Turkey.
Police fired tear gas, used water cannons and shut down main streets to disperse hundreds of protesters seeking to challenge a government ban on May Day celebrations in Taksim Square, also the scene of anti-government protests last summer against the administration of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
More than 140 people were detained and 90 people, including 19 police officers, were injured in clashes.
May Day demonstrations also took place in parts of Asia, including Hong Kong and Seoul, where anger followed the recent ferry sinking in South Korea. Thousands of Russian workers gathered in Red Square in Moscow in a show of the patriotism that has surged following events in Ukraine.
Also in the world ...
A bomb near Nigeria's capital, Abuja, left at least nine people dead and 11 others injured Thursday, the country's emergency agencies said. ... A woman died and 14 people were injured after two bombs exploded in a passenger train that had just entered Chennai city's main station in southern India on Thursday.
First Published: May 2, 2014, 3:43 a.m.
