BEIJING — Malaysian officials investigating the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines plane Saturday said they were not ruling out terrorism — or any other causes — as reports emerged that two Europeans listed on the passenger manifest were not aboard and may have had their passports stolen.

Vietnamese military aircraft participating in a search-and-rescue operation for the Boeing 777, which was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard, had spotted two oil slicks in the waters off southern Vietnam, the Associated Press reported.

The government said the slicks were each six miles to nine miles long and were consistent with the type that would be left by fuel from a crashed jetliner, the AP said.

PHOTOS: Malaysia Airlines plane missing

Malaysia’s director general of civil aviation told a news conference Saturday night that authorities had reviewed closed-circuit TV footage of passengers and their luggage and hadn’t seen anything of...

BEIJING – As passengers' relatives waited for news on the Malaysian Airlines jet that went missing Saturday en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, reports emerged that military aircraft had spotted two oil slicks off southern Vietnam.

The Associated Press reported that a Vietnamese government statement said the slicks were  each between 6 miles and 9 miles long.  The statement said the slicks were consistent with the kinds that would be left by fuel from a crashed jetliner.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 disappeared from radar screens with 239 people on board.

PHOTOS: Malaysia Airlines plane missing

A delegation of Chinese painters and calligraphers, an American employee of IBM and two vacationing couples from Australia were among those believed to be passengers.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic controllers around 2:40 a.m. local time, two hours after takeoff. More than 14 hours later, airline officials said they had been unable “to establish...

BEIJING -- A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing remained missing hours after it lost contact with air traffic controllers Saturday, and a search-and-rescue effort was underway, officials said.

Flight MH370, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members aboard, was scheduled to land in the Chinese capital at 6:30 a.m. but did not arrive. It departed from the Malaysian capital at 12:41 a.m. Saturday and lost contact with Malaysian air traffic controllers about two hours later, the airline said.

Malaysia Airlines identified the pilot of the Boeing 777-200 as Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, who joined airline in 1981.

Officials said three Americans were on the flight along with passengers from China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, France, New Zealand, Ukraine, Canada, Russia, Taiwan, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria.

Two infants were among the passengers, the airline said.

China’s official New China News Agency said 158 Chinese nationals were on...

BEIJING – A Malaysia Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was missing Saturday, the airline said, and a search and rescue effort was launched to find the plane.

Flight MH370 with 227 passengers and 12 crew members aboard was scheduled to land in the Chinese capital at 6:30 a.m. local time but did not arrive.

It departed from the Malaysian capital at 12:41 a.m. Saturday and lost contact with Malaysian air traffic controllers about two hours later, the airline said.

Two infants were among the passengers on the Boeing 777-200, the airline said.

The airline said the passengers were of 13 nationalities. China’s official New China News Agency said 158 Chinese nationals were on board the flight, which apparently disappeared before entering Chinese airspace.

The agency said the plane’s last known contact was with Vietnamese air traffic control, and the pilots had not been in touch with Chinese air traffic control.

The “focus of the airline is to work with the...

Malaysia Airlines and authorities on Saturday activated a search and rescue team to locate a passenger plane that went missing while on the way to Beijing a few hours earlier.

"The plane left Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 00:55 a.m. and lost contact with the air traffic controller at about 02:40 am," an airline official said.

"We have organized a team to help locate the plane," she said without elaborating.

Malaysia Airlines said in a statement that Flight 370 was carrying a total of 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members.

The Boeing 777-200 aircraft was expected to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m. 

ALSO:

Tension escalates as Russia presses claim for Ukraine's Crimea

Ex-U.S. ambassador: Diplomatic pressure unlikely to sway Russia

International court convicts Congolese warlord Katanga of war crimes

KIEV, Ukraine – The rhetorical contest over Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula escalated Friday with Russian lawmakers pledging to welcome the region into Moscow’s fold after a planned referendum on secession and the government in Kiev declaring any such vote illegitimate.

“No one in the civilized world” will recognize the validity of the referendum initiated by pro-Russian representatives in Crimea’s regional assembly and scheduled March 16, warned Ukraine’s interim Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk. He harshly repudiated those agitating for Crimea to break away from Ukraine and join Russia as “separatists and other traitors.”

The plebiscite has been dismissed by Western nations as illegal, a political charade backed by the guns of Russian troops that have surrounded Ukrainian military bases on the strategically important peninsula for days.

But the proposed change in status for Crimea has been rapturously welcomed in Moscow. As thousands...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – The International Criminal Court on Friday handed down the second conviction in its 12-year history, finding former Congolese warlord Germain Katanga guilty on four counts of war crimes and one count of crimes against humanity.

Katanga, a leader of the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri, one of the myriad armed militias in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, was found guilty of being an accomplice to murders and pillage during a 2003 attack on the village of Bogoro.

He was acquitted of other charges, including rape and recruiting child soldiers. The court, based in the Hague, found that although child soldiers were present on the day of the attack, it was not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that he was responsible.

The court's only other conviction came in 2012, when another former Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga, was sentenced to 14 years for atrocities and war crimes such as recruiting child soldiers.

Human Rights Watch welcomed Friday's...

WASHINGTON — In a generally downbeat assessment of the Ukraine crisis, the just-departed U.S. ambassador to Russia said Friday he believes chances are “slim” for Western diplomatic efforts to convince Russia to end its seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

Former Ambassador Michael McFaul, who had a major role in shaping U.S. policy until his retirement last month, told a group of journalists that while U.S. sanctions could hurt Russian businesses — especially if they include banking penalties — they aren’t likely to dissuade President Vladimir Putin from annexing Crimea.

“At the end of the day, Putin will be willing to make the economic sacrifice if he wants to go ahead with the annexation strategy,” he said.

McFaul said he believed Russia would not halt its joint efforts with the United States to eliminate Syrian chemical weapons or negotiate limits on Iran’s nuclear weapons because Russia believes both of those endeavors are...

MOSCOW — Russians by the thousands held rallies Friday in support of annexing the Ukrainian region of Crimea, with state and municipal enterprises letting employees off work to take part.

At least 5,000 people were brought by buses to Red Square in Moscow, where they waved Russian flags and held aloft similarly made posters praising President Vladimir Putin, some reading, “We are with Putin,” “We trust Putin” and “Crimea is Russian soil.”

The speaker of the Ukrainian region’s parliament told the rally outside the Kremlin that Crimeans had faith Russia would not abandon them.

“We lost the battle of Kiev,” said speaker Vladimir Konstantinov, referring to Ukraine’s capital. “We understood that we must make a stand in Crimea to the last. We always knew that Russian would never leave us in the lurch and that the Russian people would always be with us!”

The Crimean peninsula, with a predominantly Russian-speaking...

PRETORIA, South Africa -- Minutes after shooting and killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, Oscar Pistorius told a security guard that everything was fine, the guard said Friday in the double-amputee Olympic athlete's murder trial.

Pieter J. Baba, who worked at the gated Pretoria community where Pistorius and Steenkamp lived, testified in Pretoria’s High Court that the incident began for him when several people, including another security guard and some neighbors, reported hearing gunshots in the early hours of Valentine’s Day last year.

Pistorius killed Steenkamp on that day when he shot her through the closed door of the bathroom off the bedroom of their residence. He has pleaded not guilty to murder and contends that he mistook her for an intruder.

Baba told the court he went to investigate the reports and a neighbor, Dr. Johan Stipp, pointed him toward the house Pistorius and Steenkamp shared, where the lights were on. Baba said he then called Pistorius to make sure...

Pistorius stared coldly at his former girlfriend, whom he dropped for model and lawyer Reeva Steenkamp, as she took the witness stand in Pretoria’s High Court, smiling uncertainly.

Pistorius killed Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine’s Day last year when he shot her through the closed door of a toilet off the bathroom of their home. He has pleaded not guilty to murder and contends that he mistook her for an intruder.

Taylor’s testimony portrayed a young man with a short fuse, who would scream when angered, and who cheated on her. She testified there were several times when he screamed with rage -- at her, her sister, her best friend and...