WASHINGTON (AFP) –
A North Korean ship tracked by the US Navy and suspected of transporting weapons or military know-how in violation of UN sanctions has turned around, a Pentagon official said.

The official declined to provide details, including where the Kang Nam 1 ship -- reportedly originally bound for Myanmar -- could now be headed, but news reports out of South Korea suggested the ship may be returning home two weeks after it set sail June 17.

A diplomatic source speaking on condition of anonymity told the Korea Herald that the ship was "near our waters," which could suggest that sanctions were having an effect on reclusive North Korea.

"If the ship is on its way back, it would mean that Resolution 1874 is taking effect and causing the North to retreat," Kim Tae-woo, vice president of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, told the newspaper.

The Kang Nam 1 quickly drew the attention of the US military under new UN sanctions designed to punish Pyongyang over its May 25 underground nuclear test.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, confirmed Sunday that the United States was tracking the cargo ship.

"Obviously we're pursuing and following the progress of that ship very closely," she told the CBS network.

"I'm not going to get into our operational details or what we might actually do on the high seas, if anything, or what allies and partners in the region might do."

UN Security Council Resolution 1874, adopted in response to the May 25 nuclear test, calls for beefed up inspections of air, sea and land shipments going to and from North Korea, and an expanded arms embargo.

But a senior US lawmaker, Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, last week said the resolution had "serious limitations" because it rules out the use of military force to back up the searches.

MORONI, Comoros – A Yemeni jetliner carrying 153 people crashed into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday as it attempted to land amid severe turbulence and howling winds. Officials said a teenage girl was plucked from the sea, the only known survivor.
The crash in waters off this island nation came two years after aviation officials reported equipment faults with the plane, an aging Airbus 310 flying the last leg of a Yemenia airlines flight from Paris and Marseille to Comoros, with a stop in Yemen to change planes.
Most of the passengers were from Comoros, a former French colony. Sixty-six on board were French nationals.
Khaled el-Kaei, the head of Yemenia's public relations office, said a 14-year-old girl survived the crash, and Yemen's embassy in Washington issued a statement saying a young girl was taken to a hospital. It also said five bodies were recovered.
Sgt. Said Abdilai told Europe 1 radio that he rescued the girl after she was found bobbing in the water. She couldn't grasp the life ring rescuers threw to her, so he jumped into the sea, Abdilai said. He said rescuers gave the trembling girl warm water with sugar.
There were earlier statements from officials that a 5-year-old boy survived. El-Kaei said that was not known and the airline had lost contact with its office in Comoros because of bad weather.
Yemeni civil aviation deputy chief Mohammed Abdul Qader said the flight data recorder had not been found and it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash. But he said winds in excess of 40 miles per hour were pummeling the plane as it was landing in darkness in the early morning hours Tuesday.
Turbulence was believed to be a factor in the crash, Yemen's embassy in Washington said.
"The weather was very bad," Qader said, adding the windy conditions were hampering rescue efforts.
The Yemenia plane was the second Airbus to crash into the sea this month. An Air France Airbus A330-200 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, killing all 228 people on board, as it flew from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
Mohammed Moqbel, a Yemeni pilot who has flown to the Comoros, said the route can be difficult because of the geography and weather.
"The airport is also very poor in terms of equipment," said Moqbel. "They don't have advanced radars to guide planes."
The tragedy — and dwindling hopes that anyone else made it out alive — prompted an outcry in the Comoros, where residents complained of a lack of seat belts on Yemenia flights and planes so overcrowded that passengers had to stand in the aisles.
The Comoros, a former French colony of 700,000 people, is an archipelago of three main islands situated 1,800 miles south of Yemen, between Africa's southeastern coast and the island of Madagascar.
Gen. Bruno de Bourdoncle de Saint-Salvy, the senior commander for French forces in the southern Indian Ocean, said the Airbus 310 crashed in deep waters about nine miles north of the Comoran coast and 21 miles from the Moroni airport. Searchers encountered an oil slick at the site, the Yemeni Embassy statement said.
French aviation inspectors found a "number of faults" in the plane's equipment during a 2007 inspection, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said on France's i-Tele television Tuesday. He did not elaborate
In Brussels, European Union Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the airline had previously met EU safety checks and was not on their blacklist. But he said a full investigation was being launched amid questions about why the passengers — who originated in Paris — were transferred on another jet in the Yemeni capital of San'a.
An Airbus statement said the plane that crashed went into service 19 years ago, and had accumulated 51,900 flight hours. It has been operated by Yemenia since 1999. Airbus said it was sending a team of specialists to the Comoros.

The A310-300 is a twin-engine widebody jet that can seat up to 220 passengers. There are 214 A310s in service worldwide, with 41 operators.

A crisis center was set up at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Many passengers were from the French city of Marseille, home to around 80,000 immigrant Comorans, more even than Comoros' capital of Moroni.

Yemenia has long been a target of criticism for the poor condition of its passenger cabins, with recent passenger complaints about missing or faulty seat belts.

Still, analysts have cautioned against equating the condition of the passenger cabin on any airline with the aircraft's maintenance records.

Yemenia airways has a solid safety record. In 2008 it passed the International Airline Transport Association's operational safety audit, a rigorous set of inspections considered an indication of high quality for any airline.

One problem that does crop up with older aircraft, particularly when a certain model has been discontinued, is the issue of fake replacement parts, experts said.

Airline companies sometimes unwittingly purchase fake parts, which are then put into aircraft by their maintenance crews. Despite rigorous international efforts to root out counterfeit spares in the past decade, they are still believed to be in circulation.

"Pirate spare parts remain a big maintenance problem in aviation," said Capt. Harry Eggerschwiler, chief of operations for the African Civil Aviation Authority. "This is true everywhere in the world and not just in (developing) countries."

Some French Comorans insisted their complaints about the airline's safety weren't heeded by authorities.

Zalifa Youssouf, a member of SOS Voyages, which seeks to improve passenger conditions and safety, told France's i-Tele television that the Comoran community had complained about the flight from San'a to Comoros.

She said the planes were dirty, frequently did not have safety belts and that flight attendants often did not speak French, just Arabic which passengers did not understand. "We felt we were in danger," Youssouf said.

Mohamed Ali, a Comoran who went to Yemenia's headquarters in Paris to try to get more information about the doomed flight, said complaints about safety went unheeded. "Some people stand the whole way to Moroni," he said.

In France, school vacations began this week and many on the plane were heading home to visit.

Christophe Prazuck, French military spokesman, said a patrol boat and reconnaissance ship were sent to the crash site as well as a military transport plane. The French were sending divers as well as medical personnel, he said.

Yemenia airline officials said the 11-member crew was made up of six Yemenis, including the pilot, two Moroccans, an Indonesian, an Ethiopian and a Filipino.

___

Al-Haj contributed to this report from San'a, Yemen. Associated Press writers Deborah Seward, Angela Charlton and Greg Keller in Paris, Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Yoann Guilloux in Saint-Denis de la Reunion, Reunion Island, contributed to this report.

VIAREGGIO, Italy – A freight train derailed and plowed into houses in a small Italian town, setting off an explosion and fire that killed at least 12 people — many as they slept in their homes — and injured at least 50, officials said Tuesday.
The 14-car train was traveling from the northern city of La Spezia to Pisa when a rear car derailed and crashed into a residential neighborhood beside the train station in the Tuscan seaside town of Viareggio just before midnight Monday.
A train car filled with liquefied natural gas exploded, collapsing five buildings and setting fire to a vast area. Homes crumbled or burned, killing residents as they slept.
The exact death toll was unclear as hundreds of rescuers searched through the rubble for survivors.
Guido Bertolaso, the chief of the Civil Protection Department, told reporters at the scene that 12 people had been killed, the ANSA and Apcom news agencies said. He said four people were missing.
Gennaro Tornatore, a spokesman for the firefighters, said 15 people had died, while an official with the hospital in Viareggio, Stefano Pasquinucci, said the death toll stood at 16.
Many of the injured suffered severe burns.
"We saw a ball of fire rising up to the sky," said witness Gianfranco Bini, who lives in a building overlooking the station. "We heard three big rumbles, like bombs. It looked like war had broken out."
His son, Gianni Bini, said he saw a truck driver running away on fire.
"This truck was passing by ... when it was hit by the heat wave and I saw the driver ablaze, getting off and walking away," he said.
Videos uploaded onto YouTube showed a huge plume of fire and smoke towering above Viareggio's low houses. An inferno raged through the night, consuming buildings and cars, while the sound of sirens and explosions pierced the air. TV images showed residents, their bodies blackened by the smoke, being carried away on stretchers.
Bertolaso called the accident one of Italy's worst railway tragedies. Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who was in Naples for a businessmen meeting, said he would go to Viareggio later Tuesday to take control of the situation.
It was the deadliest train accident since January 2005, when 17 people were killed in a head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train. The collision occurred in thick fog on a single track line near Bologna in northern Italy, and led to calls for improved train safety.
In Monday's overnight derailment, 10 buildings and dozens of cars were at least partially burned, firefighters said.
Officials said the death toll might increase as 300 firefighters and other rescue teams searched through the rubble.
The city of Lucca's top government official, Prefect Carmelo Aronica, told Italy's RAI state TV that at least 50 people were injured, with 35 hospitalized with severe burns. The ANSA news agency reported that three children were pulled alive from the rubble of their collapsed home shortly before daybreak Tuesday.
About 1,000 people were evacuated from their homes as a precaution, said Viareggio Mayor Luca Lunardini. Tents were set up around the town hall for about 200 people.
As the firefighters worked to contain the blaze, teams specialized in dealing with nuclear, biological and chemical threats were being brought in to prevent the other gas tanks from exploding. Officials said the fire was contained after several hours, but a smell of burning hung in the air.

"There are dozens and dozens of cars hit by the shock wave and collapsed houses," said firefighters' spokesman Luca Cari.

Some of the victims, including a child, were killed in their homes, said Raffaele Gargiulo, a police spokesman for the nearby city of Lucca, which is in charge of the smaller town of Viareggio. Two drivers on the road alongside the tracks when the train derailed were also killed.

Others suffered severe burns and died at the hospital.

"The condition of the bodies is such that it will be very difficult to identify them," Gargiulo said.

A statement by Italy's state-run railways company said the first rail car was registered with the Polish company PKP, while the other 13 cars were registered with the Deutsche Bahn, the German railways. The cars were driven by a locomotive of the Italian railways Trenitalia.

The statement said the first car appeared to derail and explode, pulling another four cars with it. The cause was not immediately clear.

The train's two engineers were only lightly injured. While being questioned in the hospital, they said they felt an impact some 650 feet (200 meters) outside the station, shortly before the rear of the train flew off the tracks, Gargiulo said.

He told The Associated Press by telephone that the derailing may have been caused by damage to the tracks or by a problem with the train's braking system.

This
story was updated at 1:10 p.m. EDT.

NASA on
Monday unveiled the nine Americans making up its newest class of astronaut
candidates, a group that will never fly on the space shuttle.

The six-man,
three-woman astronaut
class of 2009 is NASA's first batch of new spaceflying recruits in five
years. The candidates are expected to report to NASA's Johnson Space Center in
Houston, Texas, in August to begin two years of training.

"This is a
very talented and diverse group we've selected," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's
space operations chief, in a statement. "They will join our current astronauts
and play very important roles for NASA in the future."

NASA's
three aging space shuttles are due
to retire in 2010 after completing construction of the International Space Station.
The new astronaut candidates, therefore, will likely only train to fly aboard
the space station, Russian Soyuz vehicles, and NASA's shuttle replacement - the
Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and its Ares rockets tapped to ferry spaceflyers
to orbit and back
to the moon by 2020. The 11 astronauts of NASA's 2004 class are all
expected to have flown once on a shuttle by the fleet's retirement next year,
NASA officials have said.

"In
addition to flying in space, astronauts participate in every aspect of human
spaceflight, sharing their expertise with engineers and managers across the
country," Gerstenmaier said.

The 2009
astronaut class is a relatively young group, with ages ranging from 30 to 43.
NASA selected the nine from a field of 3,500 applicants to make up the new
class, its 20th group since the original seven Mercury astronauts were unveiled
in 1959.

The group
is a mix of military and civilians that includes: a technical intelligence
officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), two NASA flight surgeons, a
space station flight controller, a sprint-running molecular biologist, as well
as two Navy test pilots, a U.S. Air Force test pilot and the special assistant
to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

"I
think this is a thrilling time to be part of the space program, and I feel very
fortunate to be starting as an astronaut candidate at this particular
time," said Kathleen Rubins, 30, the molecular biologist, in a NASA
interview.

 Here's
a brief look at NASA's new astronaut class:

Serena M. Aunon, 33, of League City, Texas; University
of Texas Medical Branch-Wyle flight surgeon for NASA's space shuttle,
International Space Station and Constellation programs; born in
Indianapolis, Ind. Aunon holds degrees from George Washington University,
the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, and UTMB.
Jeanette J. Epps, 38, of Fairfax, Va.; technical
intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency; born in
Syracuse, N.Y. Epps holds degrees from LeMoyne College and the University
of Maryland.
Jack D. Fischer, Major U.S. Air Force, 35, of Reston,
Va.; test pilot; U.S. Air Force Strategic Policy intern (Joint Chiefs of
Staff) at the Pentagon; born in Boulder, Colo. Fischer is a graduate of
the U.S. Air Force Academy and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Michael S. Hopkins, Lt. Colonel U.S. Air Force, 40, of
Alexandria, Va.; special assistant to the Vice Chairman (Joint Chiefs of
Staff) at the Pentagon; born in Lebanon, Mo. Hopkins holds degrees from
the University of Illinois and Stanford University.
Kjell N. Lindgren, 36, of League City, Texas;
University of Texas Medical Branch-Wyle flight surgeon for NASA's Space
Shuttle, International Space Station and Constellation Programs; born in
Taipei, Taiwan. Lindgren has degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy,
Colorado State University, University of Colorado, the University of
Minnesota, and UTMB.
Kathleen (Kate) Rubins, 30, of Cambridge, Mass.; born
in Farmington, Conn.; principal investigator and fellow, Whitehead
Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT and conducts research trips to
the Congo. Rubins has degrees from the University of California-San Diego
and Stanford University.
Rubins is not the youngest person to
be selected for NASA's astronaut corps. Astronauts Sally Ride and Tammy
Jernigan were both 26 at the time of their selections in 1978 and 1985,
respectively.

Scott D. Tingle, Commander U.S. Navy, 43, of Hollywood,
Md.; born in Attleboro, Mass.; test pilot and Assistant Program Manager-Systems
Engineering at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. Tingle holds degrees from
Southeastern Massachusetts University (now University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth) and Purdue University.
Mark T. Vande Hei, Lt. Colonel U.S. Army, 42, of El
Lago, Texas; born in Falls Church, Va.; flight controller for the
International Space Station at NASA's Johnson Space Center, as part of
U.S. Army NASA Detachment. Vande Hei is a graduate of Saint John's
University and Stanford University.
Gregory
R. (Reid) Wiseman, Lt. Commander U.S. Navy, 33, of Virginia Beach, Va.;
born in Baltimore; test pilot; Department Head, Strike Fighter Squadron
103, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, based out of Oceana, Va. Wiseman is a
graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Johns Hopkins University.
Currently,
there are about 85 active astronauts in NASA's
spaceflying ranks. The nine members of the 2009 class will join the
astronaut corps after their two-year training regime.

NASA
spokesperson Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters told SPACE.com that the nine NASA
recruits will be joined by new astronauts from Japan, Canada and Europe, who
will also train with them. In May, the Japanese and Canadian space agencies each
added two new astronauts to their small cadre of spaceflyers, while the
European Space Agency unveiled six new astronauts representing Denmark, France,
Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

The new
astronauts are all expected to report for training duty in late August,
Cloutier-Lemasters said.

"We look
forward to working with them as we transcend from the shuttle to our future
exploration of space, and continue the important engineering and scientific
discoveries aboard the International Space Station," Gerstenmaier said.

Video
- The Original Seven: Mercury Astronauts Revealed
Video
- 50 Years of NASA: Part 1, Part
2
Video
- NASA's Constellation Journey Begins: Part 1, Part
2
 

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