Captain not at helm of capsized Korean ferry

Jindo (South Korea) (AFP) - The captain was not at the helm of the South Korean ferry that capsized two days ago, investigators said Friday, as anger spread over stalled rescue efforts for hundreds of missing passengers trapped by the submerged vessel.
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More than 48 hours after the 6,825-tonne Sewol suddenly listed and then sank, a small of army of more than 500 exhausted divers -- battling powerful currents in almost zero visibility -- have yet to obtain any access to the ferry's interior.

The confirmed death toll rose overnight to 25, but the focus of concern remained the 271 people still unaccounted for -- hundreds of them children on a high school outing to the southern resort island of Jeju.

The newly recovered bodies were all floating in the water, coastguard officials said, as the dive teams worked in shifts to find a way inside the submerged vessel in the increasingly slim hope of finding survivors trapped in air pockets.

Unable to secure an entry point for now, they bored holes in the keel -- a small section of which was still visible above the water -- for oxygen lines.

"Two divers are currently injecting oxygen into the ship," a coastguard official told AFP.
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South Korea ferry accident
Graphic on the South Korean ferry accident, including details of the final course of the ship (AFP P …

The weather conditions were extremely challenging, with rain, fog and strong sea swells

Of the 452 people on board the Sewol when it capsized Wednesday morning, 179 were rescued, but no new survivors have been found since Wednesday.

Three giant, floating cranes had arrived at the disaster site, but coastguard officials said they could not begin lifting the multi-layered ferry until they were sure there were no survivors inside.

Among the relatives of the missing, especially parents of the 352 students who were on board , there was growing resentment over what they see as the inadequacy of the rescue response.

- 'The government lied' -
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South Korean divers prepare to go the location where …
South Korean divers prepare to go the location where a ferry capsized two days ago, at a harbor in J …

In an appeal broadcast live on television Friday morning, a self-appointed spokesman for the relatives accused the authorities of indifference and deception.

"The government lied yesterday," he said, speaking at a podium in a gymnasium on Jindo island where hundreds of blanket-wrapped relatives have been sleeping on the floor since the tragedy unfolded.

Disputing the official figures of hundreds of divers, vessels and aircraft being deployed, he said he and other relatives had visited the rescue site and seen only a dozen ships and helicopters.

"Everyone, is this the reality of South Korea? We plead once more, please save our children," he said.

The initial public backlash has centred on the captain, Lee Joon-Seok, and his 28 crew, most of whom survived the disaster.
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Students at Danwon High School hold a vigil for the …
Students at Danwon High School hold a vigil for the missing passengers of a South Korean capsized fe …

State prosecutors said preliminary investigations showed the third officer was at the helm of the ferry.

"The captain was not in command when the accident took place," prosecutor Park Jae-Eok told a press briefing.

The captain was "in the back" he added, without elaborating.

The captain apologised Thursday to the victims and their relatives, but offered no clear explanation for what caused the Sewol to capsize.

"I feel really sorry for the passengers, victims and families," Lee said. "I feel ashamed."
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Coast Guard and Navy divers search for the missing …
Coast Guard and Navy divers search for the missing passengers from a capsized ferry at sea some 20 k …

Tracking data from the Maritime Ministry showed that the ferry made a sharp turn just before sending its first distress signal.

Some experts believe such a tight turn could have dislodged the heavy cargo manifest -- including more than 150 vehicles -- and destabilised the vessel, causing it to list heavily and then capsize.

But others suggested the turn might have been caused by a collision with a rock or other submerged object.

"Whether or not they took a drastic turnaround ... is under investigation," prosecutor Park said, adding that they were also looking at the possibility of steering or other mechanical failure.

As well the cause of the disaster, investigators will be looking at why passengers were ordered to stay in their cabins and seats for up to 40 minutes after the ferry ran into trouble.

- 'I believe they are alive' -

Furious relatives believe many more people would have escaped if they had reached evacuation points before the ship listed sharply and water started flooding in.

Lee Yong-Gi, whose son Lee Ho-Jin was among the missing students, said he and other parents felt bitterly let down by the rescue operation.

"It's been two days but no one has been brought out alive," Lee told AFP.

"I firmly believe that the kids are alive. We need to rescue them as soon as possible. But officials are dragging their feet," he said.

Newspaper editorials were equally scathing with the Dong-A Ilbo daily calling the rescue response "ludicrous".

"We have the world's finest shipbuilding industry in the 21st century, but our mindset is in the 19th century," the newspaper said.

In a tense meeting with parents in the Jindo gymnasium on Thursday, President Park Geun-Hye was repeatedly interrupted by angry shouts from the crowd.

"What are you doing when people are dying? Time is running out!" one woman screamed.

App Claims It Can Help Couples Conceive Girls

From artificial insemination to in vitro fertilization, there's no shortage of ways that technology is helping couples who want to have children. But a new iPhone and Android app called StorkDiet/Girl claims that it can people have a baby girl for a fee of just $9.99.

Alain Hanash, who created the app, used data from a study conducted by two British universities that tracked the eating habits of 740 women who were pregnant for the first time. The study found that 56 percent of the women who followed a low-sodium, low-calcium diet had baby girls. The app, following that approach, tailors a nine-week diet for women who are hoping to get pregnant with a girl.  “It is a natural and scientific based guide that includes a specific maternal diet and conception timing program," according to the app's description.

More on Yahoo Shine: 7 crazy myths for predicting your baby's gender But Dr. Gilbert Webb, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, is wary of putting too much stock in at-home methods of gender selection. “It may offer some slight edge but not a whole lot,” Webb tells Yahoo Shine.  He warns prospective parents not to think that this app – or anything else – is 100 percent guaranteed. Although the creators of StorkDiet claim that they have an 81 percent success rate, the evidence is inconclusive, according to some medical experts.

More on Yahoo: Couple keeps baby's gender under wraps A Maastricht University study had participants eat plenty of spinach, tofu, and nuts like almonds and cashews, while strictly avoiding high-sodium foods like olives, cured meats, and potatoes in order to produce female offspring. The study boasted a 77 percent success rate in producing girls, but once that number was broken down to account for women who didn’t follow the diet closely enough or who didn’t follow the strategic rules for when to have sex, the data began to fall apart.

Dr. Webb adds that there’s nothing wrong with hoping for a baby of a particular sex, but he cautions against being too attached to one or the other. “If someone is realistic about these techniques, and says 'we'd prefer a girl, but we'd be OK with a boy,' that’s fine. But if they have a strong feeling and latch on to these things with strong wording, they can become neurotic,” he says

When ‘Liking’ a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue

Might downloading a 50-cent coupon for Cheerios cost you legal rights?

General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, “join” it in online communities like Facebook, enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest or interact with it in a variety of other ways.Instead,
anyone who has received anything that could be construed as a benefit and who then has a dispute with the company over its products will have to use informal negotiation via email or go through arbitration to seek relief, according to the new terms posted on its site.In language added on Tuesday after The New York Times contacted it about the changes, General Mills seemed to go even further, suggesting that buying its products would bind consumers to those terms.“We’ve updated our Privacy Policy,” the company wrote in a thin, gray bar across the top of its home page. “Please note we also have new Legal Terms which require all disputes related to the purchase or use of any General Mills product or service to be resolved through binding arbitration.”

The change in legal terms, which occurred shortly after a judge refused to dismiss a case brought against the company by consumers in California, made General Mills one of the first, if not the first, major food companies to seek to impose what legal experts call “forced arbitration” on consumers.

“Although this is the first case I’ve seen of a food company moving in this direction, others will follow — why wouldn’t you?” said Julia Duncan, director of federal programs and an arbitration expert at the American Association for Justice, a trade group representing plaintiff trial lawyers. “It’s essentially trying to protect the company from all accountability, even when it lies, or say, an employee deliberately adds broken glass to a product.”

General Mills declined to make anyone available for an interview about the changes. “While it rarely happens, arbitration is an efficient way to resolve disputes — and many companies take a similar approach,” the company said in a statement. “We even cover the cost of arbitration in most cases. So this is just a policy update, and we’ve tried to communicate it in a clear and visible way.”

A growing number of companies have adopted similar policies over the years, especially after a 2011 Supreme Court decision, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, that paved the way for businesses to bar consumers claiming fraud from joining together in a single arbitration. The decision allowed companies to forbid class-action lawsuits with the use of a standard-form contract requiring that disputes be resolved through the informal mechanism of one-on-one arbitration.

Credit card and mobile phone companies have included such limitations on consumers in their contracts, and in 2008, the magazine Mother Jones published an article about a Whataburger fast-food restaurant that hung a sign on its door warning customers that simply by entering the premises, they agreed to settle disputes through arbitration.

Companies have continued to push for expanded protection against litigation, but legal experts said that a food company trying to limit its customers’ ability to litigate against it raised the stakes in a new way.

What if a child allergic to peanuts ate a product that contained trace amounts of nuts but mistakenly did not include that information on its packaging? Food recalls for mislabeling, including failures to identify nuts in products, are not uncommon.

“When you’re talking about food, you’re also talking about things that can kill people,” said Scott L. Nelson, a lawyer at Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group. “There is a huge difference in the stakes, between the benefit you’re getting from this supposed contract you’re entering into by, say, using the company’s website to download a coupon, and the rights they’re saying you’re giving up. That makes this agreement a lot broader than others out there.”

Big food companies are concerned about the growing number of consumers filing class-action lawsuits against them over labeling, ingredients and claims of health threats. Almost every major gathering of industry executives has at least one session on fighting litigation.

Last year, General Mills paid $8.5 million to settle lawsuits over positive health claims made on the packaging of its Yoplait Yoplus yogurt, saying it did not agree with the plaintiff’s accusations but wanted to end the litigation. In December 2012, it agreed to settle another suit by taking the word “strawberry” off the packaging label for Strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups, which did not contain strawberries.

General Mills amended its legal terms after a judge in California on March 26 ruled against its motion to dismiss a case brought by two mothers who contended that the company deceptively marketed its Nature Valley products as “natural” when they contained processed and genetically engineered ingredients.

“The front of the Nature Valley products’ packaging prominently displays the term ‘100% Natural’ that could lead a reasonable consumer to believe the products contain only natural ingredients,” wrote the district judge, William H. Orrick.

He wrote that the packaging claim “appears to be false” because the products contain processed ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup and maltodextrin.

Arbitration experts said courts would probably require General Mills to prove that a customer was aware of its new policy before issuing decisions denying legal action against the company.

The policy is so broadly written, lawyers say, that it is likely to raise interesting legal questions.

For instance, on Tuesday an order was placed through the company’s online store for a Cheerios bowl, before General Mills posted the notice about the change to its legal terms on its home page.

At no point did the order system suggest changes had been made to the legal terms governing the buyer. It offered a link to the company’s privacy policy, and two opt-out boxes for receiving promotional materials through email.

Whether a court would rule that, under the new policy, the buyer of the bowl could not sue General Mills was unclear, since the General Mills home page now included a message about the changes it had made to its legal terms.

“A transaction has taken place that, according to General Mills, includes an agreement to submit to informal negotiation or arbitration in the event of a dispute,” Mr. Nelson said.

He said he did not think a court would agree to enforce the policy if a consumer merely visited a General Mills website, “but we really don’t know.”

“You can bet,” he said, “there will be some subpoenas for computer hard drives in the future.”

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