AUSTRALIA   –  Two pieces of debris found on beaches in South Africa and Mauritius on March 22 and 30, respectively, are “almost certainly” from missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, a report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has found.

The flight disappeared in March 2014, seemingly without a trace. A search in the southern Indian Ocean, thousands of kilometers off the west coast of Australia, is ongoing. MH370, two years later: ‘Where are our family members?’ Since then one piece of debris has conclusively been linked to the plane.  The update to the ongoing report, published May 12, states that the two items determined to be a segment from an aircraft engine cowling and an interior panel from the main cabin were from a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777, and “almost certainly” from the aircraft registered 9M-MRO, the registration number of the missing plane.(CNN.COM)…[+]

NIGERIA   –  Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari has defended David Cameron’s comments, caught on video this week, about Nigeria being “fantastically corrupt.”

Buhari insisted that Cameron had nothing to apologize for, as he was merely talking about what he knows. “I think he’s being honest about it” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “I don’t think you can fault him.” Speaking at an anti-corruption conference on Wednesday, Buhari said: “I am not demanding an apology from anybody, I am demanding a return of assets.” During a conversation with the Queen that was captured on camera on Tuesday, Cameron declared Nigeria and Afghanistan “possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world.” The comment came as world leaders gathered in London for an anti-corruption summit, which has been largely overshadowed by Cameron’s gaffe.(CNN.COM)…[+]

JAPAN – When it comes to electric vehicles, Japan is speeding ahead of the rest of the world, blissfully free of the range anxiety that afflicts plug-in drivers elsewhere.

The country now has more electric car charging stops than petrol stations, according to a recent survey by Nissan. The Japanese automaker, whose fully battery-powered Leaf can travel up to 172km on a single charge, said there were more than 40,000 places nationwide where electric car owners could recharge their vehicles, compared with fewer than 35,000 petrol stations. While the US – where there are currently only 9,000 public charging stations but 114,500 filling stations – and other countries have been slow to develop the infrastructure to encourage electric vehicle take-up, Japanese government subsidies for people buying electric, hybrid and other low-emission cars have spawned a network of public and private power points.(theguardian)…[+]