At least 3 dead, 292 missing after ferry sinks off South Korean coast - Fox News

April 16, 2014: South Korean rescue helicopters fly over a passenger ship.AP/Yonhap

South Korean officials said Wednesday that nearly 300 people were still missing several hours after a multi-story passenger ferry sank off that country's southern coast, leaving at least three dead and dozens injured.

The ferry was carrying 459 people, most of them high school students, and was bound for the island of Jeju when it sent a distress call at around 9 a.m. local time Wednesday as it began leaning to one side, according to South Korea's Ministry of Security and Public Administration.  

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Kang Byung-kyu, a government minister, said the two dead are a female crew member and a male believed to be a student. A third body was found in the water but details were sketchy.

He said 164 people were rescued, of whom 55 were injured. He said 292 people were missing, likely either trapped inside the ship or floating in the ocean.

Media photos showed wet students, some without shoes, some wrapped in blankets, tended to by emergency workers. One student, Lim Hyung-min, told broadcaster YTN from a gym on a nearby island that he and other students jumped into the ocean wearing life jackets and then swam to a nearby rescue boat.

"As the ferry was shaking and tilting, we all tripped and bumped into each another," Lim said, adding that some people were bleeding. Once he jumped, the ocean "was so cold. ... I was hurrying, thinking that I wanted to live."

The water temperature in the area was about 12 degrees Celsius, cold enough to cause signs of hypothermia after about 90 minutes or 2 hours, according to an emergency official who spoke on condition of anonymity citing department rules. Officials said mud on the ocean floor made underwater search operations difficult.

Local media photographs showed the ship heavily tilted onto its side, partially submerged, as helicopters flew overhead and rescue vessels and a small boat covered with an orange tarp floated nearby. Photos showed wet students wrapped in blankets as emergency workers tended to them.

Lee Gyeong-og, a vice minister for South Korea's Public Administration and Security Ministry, said 160 coast guard and navy divers were searching for survivors, and 87 vessels and 18 aircraft were mobilized. 

The U.S. Navy said the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard, which was on a routine patrol off South Korea's west coast on Wednesday, would assist in the search and rescue operation. 

Divers were deployed to look for people inside the ship's wreckage, a few miles from the shore of Byeongpung Island, which is not too far from the mainland. The area is about 290 miles from Seoul. 

"We heard a big thumping sound and the boat stopped," a passenger told the YTN news channel by telephone, The Guardian reported. "The boat is tilting and we have to hold on to something to stay seated." 

Park Ji-hee, a first-year student, said she saw about a dozen parents crying at the school entrance and many cars and taxies gathered at the gate as she left in the morning.

She said some students in her classroom began to cry as they saw the news on their handsets. Teachers tried to soothe them, saying that the students on the ship would be fine.

Passenger Kim Seong-mok, speaking from a nearby island after his rescue, told YTN that he was "certain" people were trapped inside the ship as water quickly filled up inside and the severe tilt of the ferry kept them from reaching the exits. Some people yelled at those who couldn't get out, urging them to break windows.

Kim said that after having breakfast he felt the ferry tilt and then heard it crash into something. He said the ferry operator made an announcement asking that passengers wait and not move from their places. Kim said he didn't hear any announcement telling passengers to escape.

The students are from a high school in Ansan city, near Seoul, and they were on their way to Jeju for a four-day trip, according to a relief team set up by Gyeonggi Province, which governs the city. The ship left Incheon port, just west of Seoul, on Tuesday evening, according to the state-run Busan Regional Maritime Affairs & Port Administration.

The Maritime Ministry said the two previous deadliest ferry disasters were in 1970 when 323 people drowned and in 1993 when 292 people died.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Sebelius Resigns After Troubles Over Health Site - New York Times

WASHINGTON — Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, is resigning, ending a stormy five-year tenure marred by the disastrous rollout of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Obama accepted Ms. Sebelius’s resignation this week, and on Friday morning, he will nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace her, officials said.

The departure comes as the Obama administration tries to move beyond its early stumbles in carrying out the law, convince a still-skeptical public of its lasting benefits, and help Democratic incumbents, who face blistering attack ads after supporting the legislation, survive the midterm elections this fall.

Officials said Ms. Sebelius, 65, made the decision to resign and was not forced out. But the frustration at the White House over her performance had become increasingly clear, as administration aides worried that the crippling problems at HealthCare.gov, the website set up to enroll Americans in insurance exchanges, would result in lasting damage to the president’s legacy.

Even last week, as Mr. Obama triumphantly announced that enrollments in the exchanges had exceeded seven million, she did not appear next to him for the news conference in the Rose Garden.

The president is hoping that Ms. Burwell, 48, a Harvard- and Oxford-educated West Virginia native with a background in economic policy, will bring an intense focus and management acumen to the department. The budget office, which she has overseen since April of last year, is deeply involved in developing and carrying out health care policy.

“The president wants to make sure we have a proven manager and relentless implementer in the job over there, which is why he is going to nominate Sylvia,” said Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff.

Last month, Ms. Sebelius approached Mr. Obama and began a series of conversations about her future, Mr. McDonough said. The secretary told the president that the March 31 deadline for sign-ups under the health care law — and rising enrollment numbers — provided an opportunity for change, and that he would be best served by someone who was not the target of so much political ire, Mr. McDonough said.

“What was clear is that she thought that it was time to transition the leadership to somebody else,” he said. “She’s made clear in other comments publicly that she recognizes that she takes a lot of the incoming. She does hope — all of us hope — that we can get beyond the partisan sniping.”

The resignation is a low point in what had been a remarkable career for Ms. Sebelius, who as governor of Kansas was named by Time magazine as one of the five best governors in the country and was even mentioned as a possible running mate for Mr. Obama in 2008. The two had bonded when Ms. Sebelius endorsed his presidential bid early in 2008, becoming one of the highest-profile Democratic women to back him over Hillary Rodham Clinton, and helping him deliver a big win in the Kansas caucus.

White House officials were quick to point out the many successes during Ms. Sebelius’s tenure: the end to pre-existing conditions as a bar to insurance, the ability for young people to stay on their parents’ insurance, and the reduction in the growth of health care costs. In addition, Ms. Sebelius helped push through mental health parity in insurance plans and worked with the Department of Education to promote early childhood education.

Ms. Sebelius said in an interview on Thursday that she had always known that she would not “be here to turn out the lights in 2017.”

“My balance has always been, when do you make that decision?” she added.

The president had been under pressure for months to fire Ms. Sebelius. But he had resisted, in part because he did not want the Department of Health and Human Services to undergo more upheaval amid all the problems plaguing HealthCare.gov, and in part because of his general reluctance to publicly rebuke top officials.

In November, Mr. Obama defended the secretary, saying in an interview with NBC News that she “doesn’t write code; yeah, she wasn’t our I.T. person.” As recently as last week, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, rejected any suggestion that Ms. Sebelius would be fired.

On Thursday, Mr. McDonough praised Ms. Sebelius as “a fierce advocate,” and said she had been “tenacious in her belief” in the president’s health care law. “She’s fearless in her defense of this idea at the heart of the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “The president has commented to me countless times how much he admires that.”

But the Affordable Care Act faces a range of obstacles, political and otherwise, in the months ahead, and Mr. Obama is hoping that Ms. Burwell can smoothly steer the department and bring stability to its operations. In addition to the midterm elections, in which the health care law is the target of a flood of negative ads, the administration is grappling with policy questions: how it will levy the penalty on individuals who lack insurance, how much premiums will increase in the coming year, and how ultimately to administer the requirement that employers provide insurance.

Ms. Sebelius was not Mr. Obama’s first choice to lead the department; he wanted former Senator Tom Daschle in the job, but Mr. Daschle withdrew after acknowledging that he had underpaid his taxes for several years. She was hailed as a gifted political leader in Kansas who could work with legislators of both parties. But those skills were less evident in Washington, and she became a more distant figure within the administration.

In addition to the political battles over the passage and carrying out of the Affordable Care Act, she clashed with conservatives over contraception, and faced frequent calls for her political head by Republicans after the health care website failed to function properly last year.

In hearings on Capitol Hill, Ms. Sebelius sometimes grew rattled under questioning by lawmakers. In one hearing at the end of October, Ms. Sebelius declared that HealthCare.gov “has never crashed.”

“It is functional,” she added, “but at a very slow speed and very low reliability, and has continued to function.”

She made that statement even as large screens in the hearing room showed a live shot of the website with a page that said: “The system is down at the moment. We are experiencing technical difficulties and hope to have them resolved soon.”

An appearance on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” last October went even worse. Mr. Stewart challenged her to “sign up for Obamacare” before he could download every movie ever made. “We’ll see which happens first,” he joked. She struggled to defend the website and the health care law.

The television appearance prompted headlines like “Kathleen Sebelius’s ‘Daily Show’ Disaster” and accusations from Republicans that she was being misleading. Democrats squirmed at her stiff and halting performance, which did little to inspire confidence in the website’s performance — or her own.

But Ms. Sebelius has not been at the center of public attention in recent weeks. Her national television exposure has been limited after the poor public performances, but she has continued to make small appearances and has been active on Twitter to press for people to sign up for insurance. She submitted to another questioning before a Senate committee on Thursday and later acknowledged that the idea of not doing “a hearing every three weeks sounds pretty good to me.”

The president’s choice of Ms. Burwell to lead the Department of Health and Human Services places a relative outsider at the helm of one of the government’s largest bureaucracies. Ms. Burwell has led the president’s budget office since taking over for Jacob J. Lew, who is now the Treasury secretary.

Ms. Sebelius said she hoped — but did not expect — that her departure would represent the beginning of a more cooperative period in Washington to make health care better.

“If I could take something along with me,” she said, it would be “all the animosity. If that could just leave with me, and we could get to a new chapter, that would be terrific.”

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Passwords vulnerable after security flaw found - Washington Post

By Associated Press,

NEW YORK — Passwords, credit cards and other sensitive data are at risk after security researchers discovered a problem with an encryption technology used to securely transmit email, e-commerce transactions, social networking posts and other Web traffic.

Security researchers say the threat, known as Heartbleed, is serious, partly because it remained undiscovered for more two years. Attackers can exploit the vulnerability without leaving any trace, so anything sent during that time has potentially been compromised. It’s not known, though, whether anyone has actually used it to conduct an attack.

Researchers are advising people to change all of their passwords.

The flaw was discovered independently in recent days by researchers at Google Inc. and the Finnish security firm Codenomicon.

The breach involves SSL/TLS, an encryption technology marked by the small, closed padlock and “https:” on Web browsers to signify that traffic is secure. With the Heartbleed flaw, traffic was subject to snooping even if the padlock had been closed.

The problem affects only the variant of SSL/TLS known as OpenSSL, but that happens to be one of the most common on the Internet.

Researchers at Codenomicon say that OpenSSL is used by two of the most widely used Web server software, Apache and nginx. That means many websites potentially have this security flaw. OpenSSL is also used to secure email, chats and virtual private networks, which are used by employees to connect securely with corporate networks.

Despite the worries, Codenomicon said many large consumer sites don’t have the problem because of their “conservative choice” of equipment and software. “Ironically smaller and more progressive services or those who have upgraded to (the) latest and best encryption will be affected most,” the security firm added.

A fix came out Monday, but affected websites and service providers must install the update.

Yahoo’s Tumblr blogging service uses OpenSSL. In a blog post Tuesday, officials at the service said they had no evidence of any breach and had immediately implemented the fix.

“But this still means that the little lock icon (HTTPS) we all trusted to keep our passwords, personal emails, and credit cards safe, was actually making all that private information accessible to anyone who knew about the exploit,” Tumblr’s blog post read. “This might be a good day to call in sick and take some time to change your passwords everywhere — especially your high-security services like email, file storage, and banking, which may have been compromised by this bug.”

Yahoo Inc. said its other services, including email, Flickr and search, also have the vulnerability. The company said some of the systems have already been fixed, while work is being done on the rest of Yahoo’s websites.

The company reiterated its standard recommendation for people to change passwords regularly and to add a backup mobile number to the account. That number can be used to verify a user’s identity if there are problems accessing the account because of hacking.

___

AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://heartbleed.com

http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/720951

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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PM defends MPs after Miller quits

David Cameron says the anger over expenses was "very raw and needs to be acted on"

David Cameron has defended the reputation of Parliament after Maria Miller's resignation, saying it is full of "good and honest" MPs.

The prime minister said expenses rules had been improved since 2010, although more could be done to put Parliament's integrity "beyond doubt".

But Labour leader Ed Miliband said the PM did not "get" public anger over the former culture secretary's conduct.

He accused Mr Cameron of being "an apologist for unacceptable behaviour".

Mrs Miller quit the government after a week of negative headlines about her expenses claims between 2005 and 2009, her lack of co-operation with an independent inquiry and her brief apology to Parliament last week.

She has been replaced as culture secretary by financial secretary to the Treasury Sajid Javid, reducing the number of women in the cabinet from four to three.

In other developments:

• Mrs Miller is donating the £17,000 pay-off she is entitled to on leaving the cabinet to charity


• In a mini-reshuffle, Treasury minister Nicky Morgan has been promoted and also made minister for women


• UKIP leader Nigel Farage called for residents of Basingstoke to hold a "recall" vote on Mrs Miller's future as their MP


• Tory MP Michael Fabricant tweeted that he had been sacked as Conservative Party vice-chairman for his comments about Mrs Miller and his opposition to the HS2 rail link

'Step forward'

Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Cameron said it had been right for him to stand by Mrs Miller, as she had been cleared of the main charge against her and had apologised for her behaviour to MPs.

To get rid of someone "at the first sign of trouble" would have been a sign of weakness, not leadership, he insisted.

"I hope the one lesson that won't be learnt is that the right thing to do as soon as someone has to answer allegations is to instantly remove them rather than give them a chance to clear their name and get on with job," he told MPs.

But the prime minister acknowledged the row showed public feeling about MPs' expenses was still "raw" and "needed to be acted on".

All complaints about current expenses claims were now dealt with by an independent body, he said, while "legacy" cases, which related to claims made before 2010 - such as Mrs Miller's - were ruled on by a committee of MPs which had non-MP "lay members" on it, he argued.

He said he was willing to meet other party leaders and the Commons authorities to discuss further steps.

"We should do everything we can to show this is a good and honest Parliament, with good and hard-working people in it. That is the assumption I start (with) and I make no apology for that," he said.

'Bandwagon'

But Mr Miliband said the prime minister had made a "terrible error of judgement" in supporting Mrs Miller and had been the "last person in the country to realise her position was untenable".

Ed Miliband accused the prime minister of a "terrible error of judgment"

"This is about him, the fact he still does not understand what she [Mrs Miller] did wrong.

"This is about the members of this country absolutely appalled about the conduct of his government over the last week. It is about members of the public who cannot understand why he did not act".

The affair had undermined public trust in the government and in politics in general, Mr Miliband added.

He said he would hold talks with the prime minister about reforming the system, but claimed Mr Cameron needed "to learn profound lessons about how he runs his government".

"In opposition, he (David Cameron) was an apostle for better standards but he has spent the last week being an apologist for unacceptable behaviour," he told MPs.

Mr Cameron accused Mr Miliband of "jumping on this bandwagon after the whole circus has left town," asking the Labour leader why he had not called for Mrs Miller's resignation when she still had her job.

'Distraction'

Maria Miller: "I wish I could have stayed"

The former culture secretary insisted she took "full responsibility" for her decision to quit amid speculation that she had been forced out by No 10.

Conservative chairman Grant Shapps insisted it had been culture secretary's decision to leave office.

The BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson said he understood "someone senior" had talked to Mrs Miller on Tuesday about the row and its wider ramifications before she informed PM of her decision to quit.

However, he said it may never be known whether she took the decision herself or told to go.

Mrs Miller was cleared of funding a home for her parents at taxpayers' expense following a 16-month inquiry, but was told to repay £5,800 of the expenses she claimed by the Commons Standards Committee.

The independent parliamentary commissioner for standards had previously recommended she repay £45,000, a discrepancy that has led to calls for change to the way investigations are conducted.

Reshuffle

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg told the BBC that all expenses investigations should be carried out using Parliament's current rules.

He said: "There is a legitimate issue to ask whether we could accelerate that change for those cases which are still hanging around from the past."

Amid the fallout from Mrs Miller's resignation, Labour claimed that Mr Cameron had put a man in overall charge of women's policy.

Nicky Morgan's new role as minister for women does not come with a seat in cabinet - but she will attend cabinet meetings where necessary.

Downing Street said that she will have a brief to monitor women's issues across government and report directly to David Cameron - rather than Mr Javid.

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