News and Society

South Korean policemen rescue a Chinese fisherman after two ships hit rocks in stormy seas off Jeju island, south of Seoul. Photograph: Newsis/Reuters

A powerful typhoon has struck South Korea, killing at least eight people, including five fishermen. Strong winds and heavy rain churned up rough seas and smashed two fishing ships on to rocks, forcing the coastguard to perform a daring rescue of the survivors.

Twelve fishermen were saved and rescuers were still searching for 10 missing from the Chinese ships, which hit rocks off South Korea's southern Jeju island.

At least three other people died as Typhoon Bolaven knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of South Koreans, cancelled flights and temporarily halted joint war games by US and South Korean military forces.

State media in North Korea, which is still struggling to rebuild from recent floods and a devastating drought, reported on Tuesday that the country was being lashed by heavy rain and strong winds.

Off Jeju island, dangerous waves prevented rescue boats from approaching the Chinese fishing ships. The coastguard used a special gun to shoot rope to one ship so officers could pull themselves over and bring the fishermen back to shore, coastguard spokesman Ko Chang-keon said.

Of the 18 fishermen who survived, six swam or were washed ashore.

South Korea issued a storm warning for the capital, Seoul, as Bolaven battered the country's south and west, knocking over street lights and church spires and ripping down shop signs. A large container box crushed the caretaker of an apartment building to death, a woman fell to her death from a rooftop and a third person died after bricks hit a house, according to disaster and fire officials.

Strong winds left Seoul's streets covered with leaves, branches and rubbish. More than 15,000 schools cancelled classes, and businesses and homes boarded up windows.

More than 330,000 households had lost power, the government said, and more than 70 people were left homeless because of floods or storm damage. Nearly 200 flights were cancelled.

In North Korea, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency reported gale-force winds and heavy rain in many parts of the country. Rainstorms often mean catastrophe in North Korea because of poor drainage, deforestation and decrepit infrastructure.

The country is still trying to help people with food, shelter, healthcare and clean water after heavy flooding in July, according to a recent United Nations report. More than 170 died nationwide, and tens of thousands of homes were destroyed in the floods, according to official North Korean accounts.

Many flood victims still lived in tents with limited access to water and other basic facilities, the UN report said, and there was concern about malnutrition. Seoul's unification ministry approved a trip on Wednesday by two South Korean aid groups to visit the North Korean city of Kaesong for talks on aid.

Weather officials had warned that Bolaven would be the strongest typhoon to hit the region in several years, but its winds turned out not to be as powerful as expected.

The typhoon hit the southern Japanese island of Okinawa on Monday, injuring four people but doing less damage than feared before moving out to sea. More than 75,000 households lost power.

Further south, another typhoon, Tembin, doubled back and hit Taiwan three days after drenching the same region before blowing out to sea. Fierce winds and rain toppled coconut trees in the beach resort town of Hengchun.

In Manila, the Philippine weather agency reissued typhoon warnings to residents and fishermen for Tembin, which blew out of the archipelago over the weekend. Fishing boats in the north were urged not to venture out to sea while larger ships were warned of possible big waves and heavy rains.

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KABUL, Afghanistan - A newly recruited Afghan village policeman opened fire on his American allies on Friday, killing two U.S. service members minutes after they handed him his official weapon in an inauguration ceremony. It was the latest in a disturbing string of attacks by Afghan security forces on the international troops training them.

Later Friday, an Afghan soldier turned his gun on foreign troops in another part of the country and wounded two of them, a spokesman for the NATO coalition said.

The attacks in the country's far west and south brought to seven the number of times that a member of the Afghan security forces - or someone wearing their uniform - has opened fire on international forces in the past two weeks.

Such assaults by allies, virtually unheard of just a few years ago, have recently escalated, killing at least 36 foreign troops so far this year. They also raise questions about the strategy to train Afghan national police and soldiers to take over security and fight insurgents after most foreign troops leave the country by the end of 2014.

The NATO-led coalition has said such attacks are anomalies stemming from personal disputes, but the supreme leader of the Taliban boasted on Thursday night that the insurgents are infiltrating the quickly expanding Afghan forces.

The top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, said in response: "The pride of the Afghan people has been smeared by killers who pose as soldiers and police."

Friday's deadly attacker in the far western province of Farah was identified as Mohammad Ismail, a man in his 30s who had joined the Afghan Local Police just five days ago.

He opened fire during an inauguration ceremony attended by American and Afghan forces in the Kinisk village, the Farah provincial police chief Agha Noor Kemtoz said.

"As soon as they gave the weapon to Ismail to begin training, suddenly he took the gun and opened fire toward the U.S. soldiers," Kemtoz said.

Ismail was shot and killed as the coalition and Afghan forces returned fire, the police chief said.

A spokesman for the international coalition force, Jamie Graybeal, confirmed that two American service members were killed Friday by a member of the Afghan Local Police.

The ALP is different from the national police and represents a village defense force under the Ministry of Interior that is being trained by international forces, including U.S. special forces.

Graybeal gave no other details on the Farah attack other than confirming the shooter had been killed.

Kemtoz, the police chief, said the attack took place about 8 a.m., after the U.S. forces arrived in the village to train the local police. He said one Afghan National Police officer was also seriously wounded in the shooting.

Later Friday, an Afghan army soldier fired on coalition troops in the southern province of Kandahar. Two of the international troops were wounded but none was killed in that shooting, Graybeal said. He added that the soldier was shot and died later Friday of his wounds.

So far in 2012, there have been 29 attacks reported on foreign troops by Afghans they are training, compared to 11 attacks in 2011, according to an Associated Press count, and five attacks in each of the previous two years.

Seven such attacks have come in the past two weeks alone, with six American troops killed last Friday in two separate shootings in Helmand province in the south and another American killed a few days previously on a U.S. base in Paktia province in the east.

The trend raises questions about potential resentment by Afghans after more than a decade of international presence following the American-led intervention to oust the Taliban from power for harboring al-Qaida's leadership after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The insider attacks also renew concern that insurgents may be infiltrating the Afghan army and police, despite intensified screening.

Insurgent infiltration or recruitment was behind only about 10 percent of this year's reported attacks on coalition forces by Afghan allies, Graybeal said earlier this week, citing investigations into attacks before those of the past week.

Graybeal insisted the deadly violence is relatively small scale compared to the nearly 340,000 Afghan security forces now being trained.

The international coalition has said that Afghan forces are increasingly able to lead operations and already have started to assume responsibility for security in areas of the country that are home to 75 percent of the Afghan population.

However, the Taliban have been quick to seize on the increasing number of attacks as a sign of Afghan rejection of foreign forces and the insurgents' own successful recruitment.

The group's supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said Thursday night that the insurgents "have cleverly infiltrated in the ranks of the enemy" and were successfully killing a rising number of U.S.-led coalition forces.

"The Afghan army and national police are trying to build a better future for the Afghan people, yet Omar wants to stop these efforts," NATO's Allen said in his statement.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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