Crimea 'votes' to join Russia; Drones take off around the world; Asia eclipsing Aussie financial hubs; In India, eat, drink and vote

1 Crimea 'votes' to join Russian (BBC) Some 95.5% of voters in Crimea have supported joining Russia, officials say, after half the votes have been counted in a disputed referendum. Crimea's leader says he will apply to join Russia on Monday. Russia's Vladimir Putin has said he will respect the Crimean people's wishes. Many Crimeans loyal to Kiev boycotted the referendum, and the EU and US condemned it as illegal. Pro-Russian forces took control of Crimea in February.

They moved in after Ukraine's pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted after street protests. Mr Putin and US President Barack Obama spoke over the phone earlier, with the Kremlin and the White House later releasing contrasting accounts of the conversation. The Kremlin said both men agreed to seek a way to stabilise Ukraine, and that Mr Putin had stressed that the Kiev government had failed to curb "rampant violence by ultra-nationalists".

The White House said Mr Obama had insisted that the referendum was illegal and would never be accepted, and called for Moscow to support an international monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine. The EU said the vote was "illegal and illegitimate and its outcome will not be recognised". Some 58% of people in Crimea are ethnic Russian, with the rest made up of Ukrainians and Tatars. Most of the Tatars that the BBC spoke to said they had boycotted the vote, and felt that life under the Kremlin would be worse.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26606097

2 Drones take off around the world (Joan Lowy in San Francisco Chronicle) Federal Aviation Administration officials say rules to address the special safety challenges associated with unmanned aircraft need to be in place before they can share the sky with manned aircraft. The agency has worked on those regulations for the past decade and is still months and possibly years away from issuing final rules for small drones, which are defined as those weighing less than 55 pounds. Rules for larger drones are even further off.

But tempting technology and an eager marketplace are outrunning the aviation agency's best intentions. Photographers, real estate agents, moviemakers and others are hurrying to embrace the technology. The use of commercial drones, most of them small, is starting to spread to countries where authorities have decided the aircraft presents little threat if operators follow a few safety rules. The drone industry and some members of Congress are worried the US will be one of the last countries, rather than one of the first, to gain the economic benefits of the technology.

In Japan, the Yamaha Motor Company's RMAX helicopter drones have been spraying crops for 20 years. The helicopters went into use five years ago in South Korea and last year in Australia. Television networks use drones to cover cricket matches in Australia. The United Arab Emirates has a project underway to see whether government documents like driver's licenses, identity cards and permits can be delivered using small drones. In the UK, energy companies use drones to check the undersides of oil platforms for corrosion and repairs, and real estate agents use them to shoot videos of pricey properties.

Andreas Raptopoulos, CEO of Matternet in Menlo Park, Calif., predicts that in the near term, there will be more extensive use of drones in impoverished countries than in wealthier nations such as the US. He sees a market for drones to deliver medicines and other critical, small packaged goods to the 1 billion people around the globe who don't have year-round access to roads. Worldwide sales of military and civilian drones will reach an estimated $89 billion over the next decade, according to the Teal Group, an aerospace research company.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/US-lags-as-commercial-drones-take-off-around-globe-5321851.php#page-2

3 Asia eclipsing Aussie financial hubs (Max Mason in Sydney Morning Herald) Sydney and Melbourne have both dropped in the rankings of the world's leading financial centres, falling further behind Asia's business hubs. In the latest Global Financial Centres Index, Sydney has been overtaken by Chinese cities Shenzhen and Shanghai, sliding from 15th to 23rd in the rankings. Melbourne has slipped from 33rd to 37th, falling behind Osaka and Abu Dhabi.

This year's rankings saw New York eclipse London as the top ranked city for the first time since the survey began in 2007. The GFCI ranks the competitiveness of 83 world financial centres. Despite the change at the top, the top four cities remain the same: New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore.

In the Asia-Pacific, the region's powerhouse economies are creating an even larger gap between themselves and their weaker counterparts. Sydney ranks 7th in the Asia-Pacific region, while Melbourne just falls out of the top 10, ranking 11th. ''There is a 'shakeout' in Asia with the leading centres - such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul and Shenzhen - doing significantly better than the weaker centres. For example, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Jakarta and Mumbai,'' the report said.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/sydney-melbourne-slip-in-financial-centre-rankings-as-asias-hubs-climb-20140317-34wvx.html

4 In India, eat, drink and vote (Neeta Lal in Khaleej Times) Have food freebies dethroned the ballot box? It would seem so, at least in India. Key political parties headed for elections in the world’s largest democracy are scrambling to swing votes in their favour by offering toothsome food and drinks to the electorate. The new recipe for political success, it seems, is food diplomacy. 

Small wonder, politicians are giving voters plenty of food for thought. While Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of the country’s largest opposition outfit — the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party — is offering hot tea over sizzling discussions to his followers at street corners, the country’s Grand Old party, the 127-year-old Congress, is ladling out Rahul milk and Priyanka khichdi (porridge). 

Joining the food fray is Jayalalitha, chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Amma (or mother as she’s referred to), has launched a chain of restaurants across the capital city of Chennai to serve fluffy idlis, flavour-charged sambar rice, piquant curd rice and more to hungry masses at rock-bottom prices. The way to a voter’s heart is through his stomach? Absolutely! 

Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar indeed left a bitter taste in many a tea-drinker’s mouth by raking up Modi’s humble tea vendor past. But the spunky stalwart quickly mapped out a tea route to the PMO. He launched a mass contact programme called Chai pe Charcha — Talk over Tea — which is finding an enormous resonance amongst the youth. Whether Modi makes it to prime ministerial chair or not, his chai-chat for the chair will go down in electoral history as a masterstroke. Pretty much like legendary leftist leader AK Gopalan who got out-of-work employees from Kerala’s cooperatives to run coffee-houses in the 50s. 

http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2014/March/opinion_March28.xml&section=opinion