SEOUL, South Korea

Fishing vessel lost at sea while assisting in search

A fishing vessel assisting in the search for 46 crewmen of a sunken naval boat went down Saturday, and all nine on board were presumed dead.

As the South Korean coast guard retrieved the bodies of two of the fishermen, divers found the first body from the 1,200-ton navy ship Cheonan, which sank late last month after an explosion. Fifty-eight crew members, including the captain, were rescued.

The circumstances of the navy ship’s sinking remained a mystery, one that has been compounded by other losses. A military diver died after losing consciousness as he scouted the hull of the boat.

Grieving family members have accused the government of withholding information about the search, and many believe that the vessel had structural problems before the sinking. President Lee Myun-bak has visited with the families and has asked for patience, officials said.

GENEVA

Ex-Guantanamo inmates resettled in Switzerland

An aid agency for migrants says two Chinese Muslim brothers who were resettled in Switzerland after being released from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are studying French and are getting used to daily life.

The agency in Jura said the Uighurs identified as Arkin and Bahtiyar Mahmut share an apartment in the northwestern town of Delemont. It said they buy groceries, cook, meet other Chinese and explore the region.

The brothers arrived in Switzerland 10 days ago after eight years of detention at Guantanamo Bay.

JOHANNESBURG

White supremacist leader killed by two farm workers

South Africa’s white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche was bludgeoned to death by two of his farm workers Saturday in an apparent dispute over wages, police said, amid growing racial tensions in the once white-led country.

Terreblanche, 69, was leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement, better known as the AWB, that wanted to create three all-white republics within South Africa in which blacks would be allowed only as guest workers.

“This happened in a province where racial tension in the rural farming community is increasingly being fueled by irresponsible racist utterances” by two members of the governing African National Council, said the Democratic Alliance legislator for that constituency, Juanita Terblanche, no relative of the far-right leader.

The South African Press Association quoted police spokeswoman Adele Myburgh as saying Terreblanche was attacked by a 21-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy who worked for him on his farm outside Ventersdorp, about 68 miles northwest of Johannesburg.

 

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