Jindo (South Korea), April 16
More than 280 persons, many of them students from the same high school, were missing after a ferry capsized off South Korea on Wednesday, in what could be the country's biggest maritime disaster in over 20 years.

The ferry was carrying 462 persons, of whom 174 have been rescued, coastguard officials said. Four persons were confirmed dead, but as frantic rescue operations continued late into the night under light from flares, hopes were fading for the 284 unaccounted for.

The high number of people unaccounted for likely trapped in the ship or floating in the ocean led to fears of a drastic rise in the death toll, making it one of South Korea's biggest ferry mishaps since 1993, when 292 people died.

It was not immediately clear why the Sewol ferry listed heavily on to its side and capsized in apparently calm conditions off South Korea's southwest coast, but some survivors spoke of a loud noise prior to the disaster. "It was fine. Then the ship went 'boom' and there was a noise of cargo falling," said Cha Eun-ok, who was on the deck of the ferry taking photographs at the time.

"The on-board announcement told people to stay put ... people who stayed are trapped," she said in Jindo, the nearest town to the scene of the accident.

The families of those still missing faced agonising uncertainty as divers searching for those trapped in the largely submerged ship were forced to suspend their work until daybreak on Thursday.

Survivors in Jindo huddled on the floor of a gymnasium, wrapped in blankets and receiving medical aid. One woman lay on a bed shaking uncontrollably. A man across the room wailed loudly as he spoke on his mobile phone. Furious relatives of the missing threw water at journalists trying to speak to survivors and at a local politician who had arrived at the makeshift clinic.

Most of the passengers on board the ferry appeared to have been teenagers and their teachers from a high school near Seoul who were on a field trip to Jeju island, about 100 km (60 miles) south of the Korean peninsula.

An official from the Danwon High School in Ansan, a Seoul suburb, said earlier that all of its 338 students and teachers had been rescued. But that could not be confirmed by the coastguard or other officials involved in the rescue, and did not appear to tally with more up-to-date assessments of survivor numbers. The school official asked not to be identified.

According to a coastguard official in Jindo, the waters where the ferry capsized have some of the strongest tides of any off South Korea's coast, meaning divers were prevented from entering the mostly submerged ship for several hours. The area of the accident was clear of fog, unlike further north up the coast, which had been shrouded in heavy fog.

The ship had a capacity of about 900, an overall length of 146 metre and weighed 6,586 gross tonnes. Shipping records show it was built in Japan in 1994. — Agencies

Vessel malfunction? The ferry left the port of Incheon, about 30 km west of Seoul, late Tuesday It sent a distress signal early on Wednesday triggering a rescue operation that involved 100 boats and 18 copters A member of the rescue team said the area was free of reefs or rocks and the cause was likely to be some sort of malfunction on the vessel There were reports of the ferry having veered off course

Kramatorsk/Slaviansk, April 16
Separatists flew the Russian flag on armoured vehicles taken from the Ukrainian army on Wednesday, humiliating a Kiev government operation to recapture eastern towns controlled by pro-Moscow partisans.

The armoured personnel carriers were driven into the rebel-held town of Slaviansk to waves and shouts of "Russia! Russia!". It was not immediately clear whether they had been captured by rebels or handed to them by Ukrainian deserters. The military setback leaves Kiev looking impotent before a peace conference in Geneva on Thursday, when its foreign minister will meet his Russian counterpart for the first time since Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich was toppled in February.

Moscow has responded by declaring the Kiev government an illegitimate gang of fascists and announcing its right to intervene militarily across the former Soviet Union to protect Russian speakers, a new doctrine that has overturned decades of post-Cold War diplomacy.

The Ukrainian government confirmed six of its armoured vehicles were in the hands of separatists. Photos of their number markings showed they were among vehicles taken earlier in the government's attempted "anti-terrorist" operation to secure control of the town of Kramatorsk.

"A column was blocked by a crowd of local people in Kramatorsk with members of a Russian diversionary-terrorist group among them," the defence ministry said. "As a result, extremists seized the equipment."

Overhead, a Ukrainian jet fighter carried out several minutes of aerobatics above the town's main square. A government official said Ukraine's defence minister was travelling to Kramatorsk to try to clarify the situation.

Pro-Russian separatists began the uprising in the east by seizing government buildings in three cities on April 6, and have tightened their grip. — Reuters

Perth, April 16
In the second setback to the search for the crashed Malaysian airliner, an unmanned mini-submarine deployed to search for the plane’s debris today aborted its underwater mission due to technical problems without making any “significant” detections.

Bluefin 21, a US Navy probe equipped with side-scan sonar, was redeployed after the issues were rectified and it is currently continuing its underwater search, Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) coordinating the multinational hunt said on the 40th day of the search for the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

“The Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, Bluefin-21, was forced to resurface this morning to rectify a technical issue. While on deck, its data was downloaded. Initial analysis of the data indicates no significant detections,” the JACC said.

This was the second time the search for wreckage of the Boeing 777-200 by the underwater vehicle suffered a setback in as many days.

The mini-submarine was deployed from Australian Navy ship Ocean Shield last night after its first mission was aborted prematurely yesterday as it encountered water deeper than its operating limits of 4.5 km in the Indian Ocean.

US Navy Captain Mark Mathews of the Bluefin search team said the initial launch on Monday night took place “in the very far corner of the area it is searching, so they are just shifting the search box a little bit away from that deep water and proceeding with the search”.

The search for the missing plane could take up to two months as the robotic mini-submarine takes six times longer to cover the same area compared to the towed pinger locater, officials said.

“It is estimated that it will take the AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) anywhere from six weeks to two months to scan the entire search area,” Lt J G Daniel S Marciniak, a spokesman for the US Seventh Fleet, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the aerial and sea search for the plane continued with up to 11 military aircraft, three civil aircraft and 11 ships taking part in today’s operations in a search area of nearly 55,151 sq kms, with its centre lying approximately 2,087 kms north west of here.

Finding the black box and the wreckage are crucial to know why the Beijing-bound plane, carrying 239 people on board, including five Indians, veered off from its route and mysteriously vanished on March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.

Meanwhile, over 100 angry relatives of the 154 Chinese passengers on the plane stormed out of a teleconference meeting in Beijing today to protest the Malaysian government for not addressing them in person and for taking so long to respond to their demands, reports said. — PTI

Washington, April 16
It would be detrimental for the US to look to punish India for policymaking decisions at a time when the world’s largest democracy is electing a new government, a top American think-tank has said.

“Judging by the anti-India sentiments prevalent inside the Beltway, the US is on the verge of making a distinctly bad first impression to the new Indian government,” Richard Rossow, who holds the Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said.

“Policymakers in some instances have less flexibility in initiating reviews or guiding outcomes. But in instances where we have flexibility, it is not in the US interest to continue looking to punish India for policymaking decisions at a time those policymakers are leaving office,” he cautioned the Obama Administration.

Rossow called on the USA to be prepared to engage with India on some “forward-looking” economic issues so that the bilateral agenda is not completely saturated with complaints.

Irrespective of who wins, there will be a dramatic leadership change, he said.

“Clearly with a BJP-led coalition, we will deal with an entirely new set of leaders. Even if the Congress manages to surprise pundits and pull out a win, Prime Minister (Manmohan) Singh and Finance Minister (P) Chidambaram will not figure in the Cabinet. Economic policymaking will be left to a new team,” he noted. — PTI

Peshawar, April 16
In a major setback to peace talks, the Pakistani Taliban today refused to extend the 40-day "gift of ceasefire", but said they were committed to the process the government initiated to find a solution to the decade-long insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), at the beginning of March, announced a month-long ceasefire and later extended it by another 10 days to give the fledgling peace talks a chance.

"TTP's central shura or council has unanimously agreed not to extend the ceasefire," the banned outfit said in a statement. “However, the talks process will continue with complete sincerity and seriousness, and whenever a clear development comes from the government side, the TTP will not hesitate to respond with a serious move,” it said.

The statement released by the TTP said its leadership, despite differences within its ranks over the ceasefire, convinced all the groups and factions and gave a "gift of ceasefire" to the nation in the name of Islam and the country. But no progress was made by the government side, it said.

"We deem it necessary to present the true situation before the media so that the nation could decide who was at fault and hampered the peace process," it said. — PTI

What went wrong The TTP said the Taliban shura decided not to extend the ceasefire because over 50 of their activists were killed in custody in the past 40 days and its justifiable demands were not met TTP Mohmand Agency chief Umer Khalid Khurrsani also issued a statement, saying the government was not serious about peace and the only way to implement true Shariah was jihad