South Korean army chief resigns

(CNN) -- The South Korean presidential office accepted the resignation of the chief of the Army Tuesday, the Yonhap news agency reported.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Hwang Eui-don had received criticism about a property investment before submitting his letter of resignation, Yonhap reported.

Hwang was named to the position in June and was quickly accused of using insider information to make money off of a property investment, Yonhap reported.

This resignation comes weeks after the country's defense minister resigned.

Kim Tae-young, a former general, came under heavy criticism after the March sinking of the South Korean war ship Cheonan and again after North Korea struck Yeonpyeong Island in November.

Kim resigned in late November and was replaced.

Search called off for 17 missing from sunken South Korean trawler

Rescuers on Tuesday called off the search for 17 crew members missing from a South Korean trawler that sank off Antarctica, bringing the death toll from the tragedy to 22.

There was no reasonable hope the missing men from the No. 1 Insung were still alive after 30 hours in the icy Southern Ocean without proper immersion suits, Maritime New Zealand said.

"Survival times for crew members in the water would be very short," rescue coordinator Dave Wilson 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."

Three South Korean trawlers searched overnight but found no crewmen in the remote area 1,000 nautical miles north of the McMurdo Antarctic base and 1,500 nautical miles from New Zealand's southern tip.

"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 suddenly at 6:30 am Monday (1730 Sunday GMT), with its owners saying it may have collided with an iceberg.

Maritime NZ said the vessel went down so fast it did not send an SOS and crew members had no chance to don protective gear as they scrambled to escape.

Another South Korean trawler, the No. 707 Hongjin, plucked 20 fishermen from the ocean shortly after the boat sank. Maritime NZ said none required medical treatment.

A coastguard spokesman in the South Korean port of Busan, where the ship is based, told AFP Monday 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.

The freezing conditions and remote location meant the prospect of finding anyone alive was always slim.

It would have taken days for ships from New Zealand to steam to the area. and Maritime NZ said sending a plane was also "not viable" because it was an eight-hour flight

In addition, Maritime New Zealand said it was not told about the accident until Monday afternoon, more than six hours after it occurred.

The No. 1 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.

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.

New Zealand's Transport Accident Investigation Commission said it was ready to assist any investigation 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.

Rescuers may call off search for SKorean trawler's crew

Rescuers said Tuesday they were considering calling off their search for 17 missing crew members from a South Korean trawler that sank without warning off Antarctica, claiming up to 22 lives.

Five fishermen were confirmed dead and 17 listed as missing after the No. 1 Insung sank in calm conditions Monday, with rescue coordinators in New Zealand saying there was little chance the crew members survived the icy waters.

Maritime New Zealand said three South Korean trawlers searched overnight but found no crewmen in the remote area 1,000 nautical miles north of the McMurdo Antarctic base and 1,500 nautical miles from New Zealand's southern tip.

"(Rescue coordinators) will evaluate the situation this morning and make a decision on whether the search should continue," it said in a statement.

The trawler sank suddenly at 6:30 am Monday (1730 Sunday GMT), with its owners saying it may have collided with an iceberg.

Maritime NZ said the vessel went down so fast it did not send an SOS and crew members had no chance to don protective gear as they scrambled to escape, giving them only 10 minutes' survival time in the freezing waters.

Another South Korean trawler, the No. 707 Hongjin, plucked 20 fishermen from the Southern Ocean shortly after the boat sank. Maritime NZ said none required medical treatment.

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

The boat 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.

North Korea campaigned for Eric Clapton performance, cable reveals

One of the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks reveals that North Korean officials suggested the U.S. government make arrangements for rock icon Eric Clapton to perform in Pyongyang as a way of building "good will" between the countries.

The suggestion was relayed to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, through an intermediary whose name was redacted from the document.

"Arranging an Eric Clapton concert in Pyongyang could also be useful, [the intermediary] said, given Kim Jong-Il's second son's devotion to the rock legend," the cable begins. "As Kim Jong-Il's second son, Kim Jong-chol, is reported to be a great fan, the performance could be an opportunity to build good will."

Representatives for Clapton did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

But one analyst cautioned Sunday that the 2007 cable's contents could say more about an intermediary's interest in trying to promote himself by arranging a high-profile performance than North Korea's leadership.
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"At that point, given the generally positive diplomatic atmosphere, I doubt the U.S. government would have objected. But this may be more the fantasy of a self-promoting intermediary than a reflection of the desire of the Dear Leader and his sons to rock 'n' roll in Pyongyang," said Mike Chinoy, author of "Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis."

However, Chinoy -- formerly CNN's Senior Asia Correspondent -- noted that the cable is not the first time a story has surfaced about the Kim family's admiration for the British rock legend.

"One of the stories about Kim Jong Chol and his brother Kim Jong Un is that one, or both, supposedly went to a Clapton concert somewhere in Europe while they were attending boarding school in Switzerland," he said.

The cable, titled "[Redacted] Shares Ideas on DPRK Interaction," deals with North Korean relations with South Korea, the United States, and Korean-Americans wishing to meet with their relatives still in the country. It makes no reference to the North Korean nuclear program.

The intermediary advocated for greater U.S. government involvement in "facilitating the reunification of Korean-American families divided by the Korean War."

The cable mentions two groups -- Compatriots United and the Los Angeles-based Pyongtong -- that arrange such reunions but often have difficulties dealing with the North Korean bureaucracy.

The document says Compatriots United has arranged "thousands of reunions," but it is under the control of North Korea's Overseas Compatriots Committee. That committee, the cable claims, "extorts a tremendous amount of money from desperate families to arrange the visits."

According to the cable, the intermediary told U.S. diplomats that "North Korea would not run such an exploitative system if the United States government were involved in the process. There is a reluctance, he said, for Korean-Americans to pursue family reunions because they do not want to divulge their personal information to the DPRK and they do not want the North Koreans to milk them for money before, during and after the reunion."

"The [United States government] could at least volunteer to serve as a conduit for correspondence between these families and North Korea to prevent the DPRK from learning the home addresses and bank accounts of participants. The DPRK might be willing to accept this structure because it badly wants a relationship with Washington," the cable reads.

The intermediary also described the frustrating process for any outsiders to get things done in North Korea.

"It is necessary to get the DPRK's various institutions to cooperate. Each institution seems to have veto power, but none has the power to push anything forward. ... The only organizations that can really deliver are the military, which does not talk to anybody, or the Red Cross."

South Korea to conduct naval drills

A new round of naval firing drills in South Korea is scheduled to steer clear of border islands, defense officials told the Yonhap News Agency on Sunday.

The exercises, which will start Monday and end Friday, will take place off coasts on all sides of the country, the South Korean agency reported. None are scheduled near the Yellow Sea islands south of the maritime border with North Korea, defense officials said, but more locations could be added to the list.

They come after similar live-fire drills conducted by South Korea last week.

Tensions mounted between the Koreas on November 23, when North Korea shelled South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island. The attacked killed two marines and two civilians and injured 18 people.

The North Korea has accused the South of provoking the attack because shells from a South Korean military drill landed in the North's waters