South Korea said yesterday it wanted US experts to help investigate the mysterious blast that tore a warship in two near the tense North Korean border with the apparent loss of 46 sailors.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said, however, that Seoul would not rush its probe into the March 26 sinking of the corvette because the world was watching the outcome.
“Given the examples of disasters in various advanced nations, accuracy is more important than speed in determining the cause of this kind of big incident,” he said in a radio address.
The US Joint Chiefs of Staff said a phone request had already been made for US help and that the issue would be officially discussed later in the day.
There has been intense speculation about the cause of an explosion which sank the 1,200-tonne corvette near the disputed Yellow Sea border, the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999 and 2002 and of a firefight in November.
Fifty-eight people were initially rescued, but 46 sailors are still missing.
Defense minister Kim Tae-young said last Friday a torpedo attack might have caused the sinking, although this was only one of several possibilities.
Civilian and military experts are preparing an operation to lift the hull sections from the treacherous seas but say the salvage could take weeks.
US ships and personnel took part in efforts last week to rescue sailors believed to be trapped in the rear section of the hull.
After finding one body on Saturday, the South Korean navy officially called off the risky rescue bid at the request of families of the missing. One navy diver has already died.
In a separate incident, a South Korean and an Indonesian have been confirmed dead and seven others remain missing after a trawler taking part in the search hit a Cambodian-registered freighter on Friday.
US President Barack Obama telephoned Lee on Thursday to offer sympathy and support. The US, a close ally, stations 28,500 troops in the South.
Lee yesterday urged people to “wait patiently, although it will be painful” for the outcome of the investigation. “We will have to find the cause in a way that satisfies not only our people but also the international community.”
A 2,000-tonne sea crane to be used to recover the wreck arrived on Saturday near the scene of the sinking and a 3,600-tonne crane is on the way. A total of four giant cranes and three barges will be used to lift the front and rear sections of the sunken corvette from the seabed, navy officials said.
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
RSS