Search for S Korean fishermen ends

Rescuers have abandoned the search for 17 fishermen lost after a South Korean trawler sank in waters off Antarctica, saying there is no hope they survived a tragedy.

Five crew died immediately after the the 614-tonne Number One Insung, with 42 trawlermen aboard, went down in the remote area on Monday in an accident the boat's owners said may have been caused by an iceberg.

Twenty fishermen were rescued by another South Korean vessel.

'Unforgiving environment'

There were initial hopes some of the missing crew may have scrambled onto a lifeboat but they were dashed when three South Korean trawlers searched overnight and found no sign of the men.

The missing could not have endured 30 hours in the Southern Ocean without proper immersion suits, Maritime New Zealand said.

"Survival times for crew members in the water would be very short," Dave Wilson, rescue co-ordinator, said.

"The medical advice is that those who did not suffer cardiac arrest on entering the water would likely be unconscious after one hour, and unable to be resuscitated after two hours."

"Unfortunately, the Southern Ocean is an extremely unforgiving environment ... sadly, it is exceedingly unlikely that anyone not picked up yesterday could have survived," Wilson said.

The trawler sank at 6:30am, local time, on Monday (1730 GMT on Sunday), going down so quickly that Maritime NZ said it did not send an SOS and crew members had no chance to do protective gear in the rush to escape.

A coastguard spokesman in the South Korean port of Busan, where the ship is based, said there were eight Koreans, eight Chinese, 11 Indonesians, 11 Vietnamese, three Filipinos and one Russian on board.

The nationalities of the dead are not known.

Freezing conditions

The accident took place 1,000 nautical miles north of the McMurdo Antarctic base and 1,500 nautical miles from New Zealand's southern tip.

The Number One Insung was built in Japan in 1979, according to the website of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the global body overseeing fishing in Antarctic waters.

The boat was not believed to have been ice strengthened for Antarctic waters, although immediate confirmation of this was unavailable.

Another South Korean trawler, the Oyang 70, sank in the Southern Ocean in August this year, with the loss of six lives. A New Zealand ship picked up 45 survivors.

'White gold'

Inquiries into that accident are continuing and New Zealand's Transport Accident Investigation Commission said it was ready to assist any probe into the latest sinking if requested by the South Korean Maritime Safety Tribunal.

"Because it's a Korean-flagged vessel and it occurred in international waters, it's their lead," commission spokesman Peter Northcote told AFP.

The stricken trawler was fishing for Patagonian toothfish, a rare species that lives in waters so cold that Greenpeace says it has a form of anti-freeze in its blood.

The fish, marketed as Chilean sea bass, is popular in South America, the US and Japan and is often illegally caught.

Greenpeace, which says the Patagonian toothfish is known as "white gold" in the industry for its highly valued flesh, lists it as a species in danger of being unsustainable.
Source:
Agencies

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Rajapaksa 'linked to Tamil deaths'

Another leaked US embassy cable released by whiste-blowing website WikiLeaks has added weight to calls for an independent inquiry into the final days of Sri Lanka's civil war.

US diplomats in Sri Lanka believe the country's president carries much of the responsbility for the mass deaths of ethnic Tamil civilians in the final days of the civil war.

According to the cable written by Patricia Butenis, the US ambassador, Mahinda Rajapaksa, his generals and family members are implicated.

The UN has said that at least 7,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the final months of fighting.

Butenis wrote in January that responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President [Rajapaksa] and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka," she said, according to WikiLeaks.

Gotabaya Rajapakse, the president's brother, is defence secretary.

Former general Sarath Fonseka led the army's defeat of the Tamil Tigers but was arrested shortly after losing a presidential bid this year.

Rajapaksa has resisted external pressure for an international probe into allegations that both the rebel Tamil Tigers and the military committed war crimes during the conflict.

He has instead opted for an internal investigation, a move that was also questioned by Butenis.

According to the cable, Butenis, said that "there are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power."

Further doubts

The document also shows Butenis questioning whether the Tamil Tiger fighters captured by government forces will receive a fair trial.

"The Government of Sri Lanka is holding thousands of mid- and lower-level ex-LTTE [Tamil Tiger] combatants for future rehabilitation and/or criminal prosecution. It is unclear whether any such prosecutions will meet international standards." she said.

Last year, the army killed the top Tamil Tiger leadership, during a nearly four-decade campaign in which they fought for a separate Tamil homeland.

The revelations coincide with Rajapaksa's visit to the United Kingdom. Noisy protests at London's Heathrow Airport greeted the Sri Lankan president when he arrived on Monday.

the Oxford Union, Britain's prestigious debating society,, has cancelled a speech he was due to give, citing security reasons, as Tamil activists were said to be planning a large demonstration outside the venue.
Source:
Agencies

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Amazon pulls plug on WikiLeaks

Amazon, the US internet company, has stopped allowing WikiLeaks to use its servers, forcing the whistle-blowing website to shift its services to Europe.

The move came after congressional staff had questioned Amazon about its relationship with the website, Joe Lieberman, an independent senator from Connecticut, said on Tuesday.

The site was unavailable for several hours before it moved back to its previous Swedish host, Bahnhof.

Just before Wikileaks released some 250,000 US diplomatic cables on Sunday, the website came under an internet-based attack that made it unavailable for hours at a time.

WikiLeaks reacted by moving the website from computers in Sweden to those of Amazon Web Services.

Political pressure

Amazon has vast banks of computers that can be rented on a self-service basis to meet surges in traffic.

But the move also exposed WikiLeaks to legal and political pressure.

"WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech the land of the free--fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe," WikiLeaks said on Wednesday in a posting on the Twitter messaging service.

Amazon would not comment on its relationship with WikiLeaks.

"The company's decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material,'' Lieberman said in a statement.

He added that he would have further questions for Amazon about the affair.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama, the US president, has named an "anti-terrorism" expert to lead US efforts to mitigate the damage of the WikiLeaks breach and prevent future illegal data disclosures.

Russell Travers, deputy director of information sharing at the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, "will lead a comprehensive effort to identify and develop the structural reforms needed in light of the WikiLeaks breach," the White House said in a statement.

Damage control

Washington has been in damage control mode ever since last weekend when WikiLeaks began publicly disclosing about 250,000 US diplomatic cables, many of which revealed embarrassing assessments of foreign leaders.

While the White House was seeking to downplay the impact of the security violations as late as Wednesday, the Travers appointment was among the clearest signs that the Obama administration was taking substantive steps to avoid a repeat.

Among his new duties, Travers will be advising national security staff on "corrective actions, mitigation measures, and policy recommendations related to the breach," said the White House.

He will also co-ordinate inter-agency discussions on developing actions "regarding technological and/or policy changes to limit the likelihood of such a leak reoccurring".

Travers has been tasked with collating the stream of "terrorism-related" information pouring into US agencies since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Washington Post described him as "the maintainer of the government database of terrorist entities and a co-ordinator of terrorism information-sharing initiatives".

The National Counter-Terrorism Centre where he works was among several agencies blamed for failing to uncover an alleged plot to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day last year.
Source:Agencies

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US regrets diplomatic cables leak

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said the United States "deeply regrets" the release by WikiLeaks of confidential US documents, calling it "an attack on the international community".

In her first public comments since the weekend release of the classified State Department cables, Clinton said on Monday that Wikileaks acted illegally in posting the material.

"I will not comment on or confirm what are alleged to be stolen State Department cables," Clinton said.

"But I can say that the United States deeply regrets the disclosure of any information that was intended to be confidential, including private discussions between counterparts or our diplomats' personal assessments and observations.

"I want to make clear that our official foreign policy is not set through these messages, but here in Washington," the top US diplomat added.

She said the Obama administration was "aggressively pursuing" those responsible for the leak.

Despite the damage, Clinton said she was "confident'' that US partnerships would withstand the challenges posed by revelations.

"Our policy is a matter of public record as reflected in our statements and our actions around the world.

"I would also add that to the American people and to our friends and partners, I want you to know that we are taking aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information," she said.

Security tightened

The White House has directed US government agencies to tighten procedures for handling classified information after the mass leak.

The new procedures would ensure "that users do not have broader access than is necessary to do their jobs effectively," a directive from the Office of Management and Budget said on Monday.

"The recent irresponsible disclosure by WikiLeaks has resulted in significant damage to our national security," Jacob Lew, the director of the office, said.

"Any failure by agencies to safeguard classified information... is unacceptable and will not be tolerated."

WikiLeaks on Sunday began releasing a quarter of a million confidential US State Department cables, detailing diplomatic activities around the world in what the White House has called a "reckless and dangerous action."

US officials have not confirmed the source, but suspicion has fallen on Bradley Manning, a former army intelligence specialist arrested after the release of a video showing air strikes that killed reporters in Iraq.

Criminal probe

The US also launched a criminal investigation into the release of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic documents by the website WikiLeaks.

Eric Holder, the US Attorney General, said on Monday that there is an "active and ongoing criminal investigation," and that the website's chief would be pursued if he were found to have broken the law.

"We are not in the position, as yet, to announce the result of that investigation," he said, adding that the justice and defence departments were both probing the website.

"This is not saber-rattling," Holder said when pressed by reporters over what action the US could take against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is believed to be based in Europe.

"To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law... they will be held responsible," Holder said.

"To the extent there are gaps in our laws, we will move to close those gaps. It is not the case that anybody at this point, because of their citizenship or their residency, is not a target or the subject of an investigation."

A day after the release of the cables, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, questioned the credibility of the information contained in the diplomatic memos.

According to the memos released on Sunday, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia repeatedly urged the US to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon.

'Psychological war game'

Commenting on the leak, Ahmadinejad accused the US government of pursuing a strategy resembling "an intelligence and psychological war game". He asserted it was aimed at having a "political impact," but would fail.

"Nations are aware. Such a game will have no effect. It's so worthless that it isn't worth someone referring to them or wasting time to refer to them," the president told reporters in Tehran.

He alleged the leaks were an "organised" effort by the US to stir trouble between Iran and its Arab neighbours.

Arab nations just across the Gulf are known to be wary of Iran's rising regional influence, military power and nuclear activity. The leaked documents, however, reveal a much higher degree of alarm in the calls for US military action.

The US has helped several Arab nations in the Gulf increase their anti-missile defences and itself has a naval presence in the region.

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, said the leaked memos provided clear proof that the Arab world agreed with his country's assessment that Iran was the chief danger to the Middle East.

The Saudi king was just one of many Arab voices in the documents calling for tough action against Iran - proof that Israel was not alone in its belief that Tehran was a growing menace to the region, Netanyahu said.

"The chief danger to world peace comes from the Iranian regime's arming and aggression. The important thing is...that more countries, governments and leaders in the Middle East and in the world's wider area understand that this is the fundamental threat," the prime minister added.

He also suggested that a unified front with Arab nations against Iran could bring a "breakthrough" in efforts to bring peace to the region.

Israel has long considered Iran the top danger in the Middle East, citing its development of medium-range missiles capable of striking Israel, its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and most critically, its suspect nuclear programme.

The West, and many Arab countries, believe that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge.

'Alpha dog'

Russian TV ignored mentions about the country in the leaks. That could be because the cables showed US diplomats characterising the country as a "virtual mafia state."

They also said Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, was relatively powerless in the shadow of Vladimir Putin, the prime minister.

The US embassy reportedly referred to Putin as an "alpha dog" who made all the decisions. It vividly added that Medvedev - who one dispatch said often looked indecisive and pale - simply "plays Robin to Putin's Batman."

Italian papers widely reported that the leaked documents included the comments that Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister "appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin" in Europe.

They said the documents noted that the two men had a "extraordinarily close relationship, made up of generous gifts and lucrative contracts".

Elizabeth Dribble, the former number two at the US embassy in Rome, described Berlusconi in internal memos to Washington as "incompetent and vain".

She noted that he was "a leader physically and politically weak, tired from too many parties".

Italians on the streets of Rome shrugged their shoulders and laughed over revelations about Berlusconi and their foreign minister said the prime minister was not offended.

James Walston, a political analyst from the American University of Rome, said that there was nothing in the comments on Berlusconi that would surprise anyone regularly reading Italian newspapers, although he added that it was embarrassing for a diplomat to be seen as un-diplomatic.

Walston said that although Berlusconi may be taking the leaks lightly it "undermines his position on the world stage".
Source:
Agencies

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'15,000 rapes in war-torn DR Congo' More than 15,000 rapes were committed last year in the strife-torn region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where peacekeepers are unable to fully protect civilians, a senior United Nations official has said.

UN extends Haiti force mandate The United Nations will keep it's peacekeeping force in Haiti for another year, following a unanimous vote in the Security Council on Thursday. The resolution approving the continued presence of nearly 9,000 soldiers and around 4,300 police officers called for "credible and legitimate" presidential and legislative elections, scheduled for November 28.

'15,000 rapes in war-torn DR Congo'

More than 15,000 rapes were committed last year in the strife-torn region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where peacekeepers are unable to fully protect civilians, a senior United Nations official has said.

With accusations now being made against DRC government troops over new cases of rape and killing in the volatile east of the country, Roger Meece, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo (Monusco), said "the scale of the problem is enormous".

Meece appeared before the UN security council on Friday, and despite being unable to give details of the new attacks, he said: "The best data available, for example, suggests that over 15,000 rapes were committed last year in eastern DRC."

'Horrific' mass rapes

Meece told the council that the "horrific'' mass rapes in late July and early August by rebel groups in eastern Congo's mineral-rich Walikale region underscored the importance of protecting civilians.

But he said after the briefing that it is impossible for 18,000 UN peacekeepers to protect all civilians in the area where armed groups are operating in an area larger than Afghanistan.

The UN force "cannot serve as the complete answer to the security problems of the east,'' Meece said.

Armed groups operate over a wide area and often mix with the civilian population, he added.

"In this vast area...it is not possible for Monusco to ensure full protection for all civilians. To approach this goal would require vastly greater force levels and resources," Meece said.

'Men in uniform'

Margot Wallstrom, the UN special envoy on sexual violence against women in conflict, told the council on Thursday that government troops are raping and killing women in remote villages in the Walikale region where hundreds of women were assaulted in July and August.

She said Monusco had reported new attacks by troops who are conducting an operation to enforce a government moratorium on illegal mining and in a bid to take control of the region from rebels.

"The possibility that the same communities that were brutalised in July and August by Rwandan Hutu rebels and Mai-Mai elements are now also suffering at the hands of the Congolese army is unimaginable and unacceptable," Wallstrom said.

She has already blamed the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and Mai-Mai rebels for the mass rapes in July and August.

Meece said Congolese army operations are under way in the Walikale region, primarily directed against the Mai-Mai and the FDLR. But he said he did not know if government troops were involved in rapes.

The United Nations said 303 civilians - 235 women, 13 men, 52 girls and three boys were raped in 13 villages in the Walikale area from July 30 till August 2.

In response to the mass rapes, Meece said UN peacekeepers are establishing some new temporary operating bases in the Walikale region and are instituting other measures to improve communications with remote villages and respond more quickly to sexual attacks.

According to the UN Population Fund, there were 17,507 sexual violence attacks throughout Congo in 2009 - including more than 9,000 in North and South Kivu, which have been at the centre of the conflict in the east.

The scale of rapes and sexual violence has not diminished much this year, according to the fund, known as UNFPA, which collects data in Congo.

It said there were 7,685 attacks in Congo between January and June, including more than 4,500 in the Kivus.

Abubakar Dungus, a UNFPA spokesman, said 5,427 of the sexual attacks this year - about 70 per cent - were perpetrated "by men in uniform''. It was unclear if he was referring to soldiers or rebels.

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UN extends Haiti force mandate

The United Nations will keep it's peacekeeping force in Haiti for another year, following a unanimous vote in the Security Council on Thursday.

The resolution approving the continued presence of nearly 9,000 soldiers and around 4,300 police officers called for "credible and legitimate" presidential and legislative elections, scheduled for November 28.

Rene Preval, who has served as Haiti's president for 10 of the past 15 years, cannot by law run for re-election, and the country remains in a perilous position nine months after a devestating earthquake killed around 300,000 people and left millions more homeless.

An investigation by the Associated Press news agency has determined that none of the $1.15bn in rebuilding funding promised by the United States has arrived. There have also been reports of a rise in drug trafficking and criminal gang activities.

The UN resolution passed on Thursday expressed concern with "the rise in the number of weapons in circulation" and condemned "grave violations against children affected by armed violence, as well as widespread rape and other sexual abuse of women and girls".

The post-election transition to a new government won't happen until next year, and the UN peacekeeping force's mandate was extended to October 15, 2011.

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Hungary sludge wall 'to collapse'

The Hungarian prime minister has said the weakened northern wall of an aluminium sludge reservoir which caused a devastating toxic spill, is likely to collapse within hours.

Viktor Orban's comments on Saturday came as the village of Kolontar, which lies close to the deadly sludge spill in the country's west, was evacuated for fear of a new leak of the dangerous heavy metal waste.

"Last night the interior minister informed us that cracks have appeared on the northern wall of the reservoir, whose corner collapsed, which make it likely that the entire wall will collapse," Orban said in the western town of Ajka, the site of an alumina plant.

During his visit to the affected area, he also acknowledged that "human error" had caused the spill.

Authorities ordered the evacuation of Kolontar on Saturday morning at 7am local time after further damage was discovered at the reservoir that spilled toxic sludge on Monday, according to the national news agency, MTI.

Fears of new leak

Kolontar and Devecser were the towns hardest hit when up to 700,000 cubic metres of red sludge poured out of the reservoir at the alumina plant in Ajka.

Orban said about 500,000 cubic metres of red sludge could spill out of the reservoir, but this substance was thicker than the roughly one million cubic metres which swept through nearby villages this week, killing seven people and injuring around 150 others.

Reporting from Ajke on Saturday, said "authorities are measuring the density of the sludge, by dropping steel rods into the reservoir, in the hopes that it will give the disaster unit an idea of how much of this material is going to come pouring out".

On Saturday "all 800 residents of Kolontar were taken to a sports hall and two schools in Ajka, eight kilometres away, over fears of new leaks", she said.

"Officials insist that the decision was taken as a precautionary measure."

Many residents have suffered from burns and eye irritations caused by corrosive elements in the mud.

MAL Zrt, the company that owns the metals plant, said the waste was not considered hazardous under EU standards and recommended people clean off the sludge with water.

Tibor Dobson, the disaster unit chief, said no new waste has escaped from the huge container "so far".

Experts have been pouring large quantities of clay and acid into affected waterways in an effort to neutralise the alkaline pollutants.

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N Korea marks Communist founding

North Korea has begun three days of celebrations to mark 65 years since the founding of the country's Communist Workers' Party.

For the first time, international media outlets, including Al Jazeera, are getting a rare glimpse inside the communist state - where the celebrations are to be broadcast live from the capital, Pyongyang, on Saturday.

But the festivities, which culminate in a large military parade in the capital on Sunday, are more than an event to mark the anniversary of communist rule.

North Korean officials are also expected to use the celebrations to confirm the historic handover of power from ailing leader Kim Jong-il to his son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-un.

Koreans 'honoured'

Yang Hyong Sop, a senior official in the country's ruling party, told the APTN broadcaster on Friday that North Koreans will be honoured to follow Kim Jong-un.

"Our people take pride in the fact that they are blessed with great leaders from generation to generation," Yang said.

"Our people are honoured to be led by the great president Kim Il Sung and the great general Kim Jong-il. Now we also have the honour of being led by General Kim Jong-un."

Kim Jong-il announced his youngest known son's appointment to two important political posts late last month, according to state media, in what was regarded as the first step in his succession plan.

The senior Kim came to power when his father died of heart failure in 1994, setting in motion the communist world's first hereditary transfer of power.

He was officially chosen as successor in 1972, when he was elected to the party's central committee, and the same scenario could hold true for his son.

Regional dynamics

The question of who will take over from the senior Kim, believed to suffer from a host of ailments, is important to regional dynamics as well as security, because of North Korea's active nuclear and missile programmes, and regular threats it makes against rival South Korea.

Kim Tae-young, South Korea's defence chief, said on Friday that the US and South Korea should be prepared for a crisis in North Korea when the senior Kim leaves power.

The expected transfer of power could have unpredictable consequences in the nation, he warned, during a news conference with his US counterpart, Robert Gates, at the Pentagon.

Gates, the US defence secretary, said it remains to be seen whether a change of leadership will lead to change in the country.

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