Containment dome lowered at oil leak site

Venice, Louisiana (News Today) - A massive dome began its descent into the Gulf of Mexico to cap a gushing oil leak about 5,000 feet below the surface, a BP official said Friday.

The arduous process of lowering the four-story containment dome and getting it in place is expected to continue into the weekend. The technique has never been attempted at the depth of the leak spewing from the sunken oil rig, officials said.

"If all goes according to plan by early next week, we hope to make it operational," said Doug Suttles, chief operating officer of BP. "As we always do, though, we stress this has never been done before. We'll likely encounter numerous challenges, but we'll remain committed to make it work."

The stakes are high for the beleaguered oil company and the many residents of coastal Louisiana who make their living from fishing in the Gulf.

Oil washed ashore on Louisiana's barrier islands and drifted west past the mouth of the Mississippi River on Thursday. An ominous pinkish-orange foam mixture of seawater and crude oil streaked across large stretches of water in the northern Gulf and turned up on the shores of the Chandeleur Islands, off southeastern Louisiana.

The slick has been spreading across the northern Gulf of Mexico since late April, when BP's drilling rig Deepwater Horizon blew up and sank about 40 miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River. Eleven missing workers who were aboard the rig are presumed dead.

Efforts to shut down the well have failed, leaving it spewing about 210,000 gallons (5,000 barrels) of oil per day into the Gulf, and concern is rising that the oil could kill wildlife and damage livelihoods for thousands in the Gulf states.

BP has conducted more control burns in an effort to destroy "several thousand" barrels of oil on the surface Wednesday, Suttles said.

But the real hope for quelling the massive surge of oil was the containment dome.

The hope is that the container will collect the leaking oil, which would be sucked up to a drill ship on the surface. If the operation is successful, BP plans to deploy a second, smaller dome to deal with a second leak in the ruptured pipe.

Adm. Thad Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard, said he is keeping the faith that the containment dome will work.

"I think we're all hopeful that this will have an impact on this leak," Allen said. "It's been done before, but never at these depths and you think it goes to show the amount of effort that's going in to try everything potential to diminish the oil coming out of the ocean floor but this will be difficult."

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Russian oil tanker crew freed from pirates

(News Today) - A Russian warship has freed the crew of an oil tanker seized by pirates in the Gulf of Aden a day earlier, the European Union naval force said Thursday.

No one was injured in the early morning rescue operation by the Marshal Shaposhnikov.

"The Marshal Shaposhnikov was ... fired upon by the pirates holding the ship. The Russian warship ... returned fire," the naval force reported. "Eventually the pirates surrendered and a boarding team from the Marshal Shaposhnikov arrived onboard the tanker, captured all the pirates and freed the crew."

The Russian-operated tanker Moscow University, which sails under the Liberian flag, has a crew of 23. It was on its way to China when pirates hijacked it Wednesday, the naval force said.

The captured pirates could face charges of group piracy with the use of violence and weapons, an offense carrying a maximum penalty of up to 15 years in prison, according to Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Investigation Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office.

Farther south off the coast of Tanzania, pirates failed in their attempt Wednesday to hijack a South Korean-flagged vessel, the naval force said. All those on board are reported to be well, it said.

EU NAVFOR escorts merchant vessels carrying humanitarian aid in the region and protects other vulnerable vessels in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean.

Pirate attacks are frequent in the Gulf of Aden, which lies between Yemen and Somalia at the northwest corner of the Indian Ocean.

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Women to begin serving on Navy subs in 2011, officials say

(News Terupdate) - The first women to serve on U.S. Navy submarines are expected to be on the job by fall of 2011, Navy officials said Thursday, ushering in a policy change to what has been an elite service open only to men since the start of the modern Navy's submarine program.

While Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the change last month, the Navy had to wait for Congress to review and approve the policy change over a 30-day period which ended at midnight Thursday morning.

The official announcement came later Thursday from the commander of Submarine Group 10, Rear Adm. Barry Bruner, during a news conference at the Navy submarine base at Kings Bay, Georgia.

The first women chosen for the program will be selected by the Navy among upcoming graduates from the Naval Academy, the collegiate Reserves Officer Training Corps -- also known as ROTC -- and officer candidate schools.

Those women will go through the intensive 15-month submarine officer training program, which includes nuclear power school, submarine training, and the Submarine Officer Basic Course.

The Navy will implement the policy change by assigning three female officers to eight different crews of guided-missile attack and ballistic-missile submarines. The assignments involve two submarines on the East Coast and two on the West Coast, according to Navy officials.

Smaller, fast-attack submarines are considered to be too small to accommodate the necessary infrastructure change in living quarters that is possible on the larger subs, Navy officials explained.

Integrating female officers into the submarine squadrons is the first phase of the policy change. Including female enlisted sailors into the crews will take place in a second phase in the coming years, the officials said.

Women joined the crews of the Navy's surface ships in 1994, but officials had previously cited limited privacy and the cost of reconfiguring the vessels in arguing against their joining sub crews.

The change in policy was recommended by the top naval officer, Adm. Gary Roughead; the secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus; and Gates. No Navy leaders opposed the plan, officials said.

"The young women that have come up to me since we announced our intention to change the policy have such great enthusiasm," Roughead said in a statement Thursday.

"There are extremely capable women in the Navy who have the talent and desire to succeed in the submarine force," Mabus added in the same statement.

Women make up 15 percent of the active duty Navy: 52,446 of 330,700 sailors in the service, according to Navy statistics.

Female sailors still cannot serve in the elite SEAL program, because those are considered frontline combat unit positions. Similar regulations in the other branches of the military also prevent women from serving in combat positions.

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U.S.: N. Korean torpedo likely sunk warship

Seoul, South Korea (News Terupdate) - A North Korean torpedo attack was the most likely cause for the sinking of a South Korean warship last month, according to a US military official.

The US believes the ship was sunk by the blast of an underwater explosion, but that the explosive device itself did not come in contact with the hull of the South Korean ship, the official said.

This is the same conclusion expressed by South Korean military officials.

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Efforts to stop leak under way after oil rig explosion

(News Terupdate) - Efforts were under way Sunday to contain and stop oil leaking from a well after a rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

Officials found oil was leaking Saturday from the well. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig was drilling when it exploded Tuesday night, the Coast Guard said. Rescuers on Friday suspended the search for 11 people missing after the blast and subsequent sinking of the rig.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said Saturday that fresh oil was leaking from two places at the well, which is about 5,000 feet deep, at the preliminary estimate of about 1,000 barrels or 42,000 gallons a day.

Poor weather conditions offshore hampered cleanup efforts on Saturday. Authorities have approved a plan to use submersible remote-operated vehicles in an effort to activate a "blowout preventer" on the sea floor, Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry said in a statement Sunday.

A blowout preventer is a large valve at the top of a well. Activating it will stop the flow of oil, O'Berry said.

In addition, BP, which was leasing the rig, is mobilizing a drilling rig, expected to arrive Monday, to prepare for the drilling of a relief well, O'Berry said. A relief well is drilled to intersect the leaking well and isolate or kill it.

As of Sunday, about 1,143 barrels, or 48,000 gallons, of oily water have been collected, officials said.

"The oil recovery and cleanup operations are expected to resume once adverse weather has passed," O'Berry said. "These efforts are part of the federally approved oil spill contingency plan that is in place to respond to environmental incidents."

Authorities expect the spill to remain 30 miles offshore for the next three days, Landry told reporters Sunday. A 72-hour period is used because of the availability of offshore forecasts.

A thorough investigation is under way, she said.

"We are committed to determining how and why this accident occurred," Landry said.

The remote-operated vehicles began working at about 8 a.m. CT (9 a.m. ET) Sunday. The task is expected to take 24 to 36 hours to complete, and the highly complex operation may not be successful, said Doug Suttles, chief operating officer of BP's global exploration and production business.

"The amount of resources being focused on this effort are huge," he said.

More than 30 spill-response vessels, four aircraft, thousands of gallons of dispersants and a large amount of skimming resources have been deployed to help contain the spill, BP said Saturday.

The Deepwater Horizon, a mobile unit that moved to different locations in the Gulf of Mexico, was about 52 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana, when the explosion happened Tuesday night. The rig had been drilling for oil in its current location since January, said Eileen Angelico, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Minerals Management Service.

The explosion happened "in the process of turning the well from an exploration well into a production well," BP spokesman Bill Salvin said.

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Iran reportedly tests five new missiles

Tehran, Iran (News Terupdate) - Iran said Sunday it fired five new types of locally-made coast-to-sea and sea-to-sea missiles in the last stage of its "Great Prophet 5" military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf.

The missiles were fired simultaneously and struck a single target at the same time -- a feat the Revolutionary Guard Corps described to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting as "very important."

The military exercises on Sunday also included high-speed boats waging a "war" against a warship.

The maneuvers fell on the 31st anniversary of the elite force and were designed to demonstrate new weapons systems.

Iran begins war games

Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy chief of the Revolutionary Guard told Iranian media that the exercises were aimed at demonstrating Iran's "strength, will and national resolve to defend independence and territorial integrity."

The U.S. military official noted there have been several Iranian exercises in the past, but this one received attention because the Revolutionary Guard Corps discussed it publicly in advance.

The U.S. Navy currently is operating several warships in the region, and commanders are often reminded not to let any encounters with Iranians inadvertently escalate.

Iran's missile development is being watched closely by the United States, which is pressing for tougher sanctions against the Islamic republic for its controversial nuclear program.

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Body found in sunken South Korea vessel

Seoul, South Korea (News Terupdate) - The body of a missing sailor was recovered in the wreckage of a South Korean ship that went down in the Yellow Sea in March, Yonhap news agency reported Saturday.

The ship sank mysteriously in an incident that heightened tensions between North and South Korea.

South Korea is investigating what caused the ship to sink and has not ruled out a theory that North Korea was involved, but Seoul has avoided directly blaming North Korea, which denied allegations it was responsible.

South Korea's Yonhap reported Saturday that authorities have lifted the remaining half of the vessel, which could help aid the investigation.

The 1,200-ton patrol ship Cheonan sank near the western sea border with North Korea on March 26.

Forty of Cheonan's 104 crewmembers have now been confirmed dead, and six more are also believed dead, though they are still listed as missing.

Fifty-eight crewmembers were rescued before the vessel sank.

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Dozens hurt after cruise ship lists

(News Terupdate) - Sixty passengers on a Carnival cruise ship have been treated for minor injuries after the ship listed suddenly to avoid an object in the water, a Carnival spokeswoman said.

The ship listed 12 degrees to the right to avoid hitting a large, adrift buoy at approximately 12:55 p.m. CT Wednesday, Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz told CNN.

The submerged buoy, 200 miles off the Louisiana coast, did not show up on the ship's radar, Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Richard Brahm said.

The ship, Carnival Ecstasy, was carrying approximately 2,340 passengers and 900 crew, de la Cruz said.

It was on the final leg of a five-day cruise that left Galveston, Texas, on Saturday, April 17, with stops in Cozumel and Progreso, Mexico.

De la Cruz said the ship docked in Galveston as scheduled Thursday morning.

Injured passengers were treated in the ship's infirmary and some minor damage to merchandise and unsecured objects was reported, she said.

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