A South Korean soldier keeps watch at a guardpost near the demilitarized zone which separates the two Koreas, in Paju, north of Seoul August 7, 2013. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea proposed on Monday to resume stalled talks with North Korea, an overture that comes amid heightened diplomatic tension after Seoul's key ally the United States blamed the North for a cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.

North Korea has denied responsibility for the hack against the U.S.-based film studio arm of Japan's Sony Corp, which distributed a comedy film featuring an assassination plot against the North's leader, Kim Jong Un.

Pyongyang subsequently blamed Washington for its own internet outages, and has denied any involvement in recent system breaches into South Korea's state nuclear power operator.

Seoul's unification minister said the South had sent a letter to Pyongyang seeking negotiations, which it hopes to hold in January and would cover issues including reunions for families separated by the 1950-1953 Korean war and possible co-operation projects.

The North had accepted the letter but had yet to respond, South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae told a news briefing.

"I don't think we will have any particular agenda, but our position is to discuss everything that South and North have mutual interests in," said Ryoo, noting that 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of Korea's independence from Japan.

A delegation of high-level North Korean officials made a surprise visit in October to the closing ceremony of the Asian Games hosted by the South, and promised to reopen dialogue between the two. However, the two sides failed to hold follow-up talks as tension persisted, with the North lashing out at the South over anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets sent to the North via balloon by activist groups.

Military officials from North and South Korea met in October to discuss border altercations, including exchanges of fire, but they did not resolve their differences.

South Korea imposed a broad set of sanctions on Pyongyang in 2010 following the sinking of a South Korean corvette that killed 46 sailors. South Korea blamed the North, while Pyongyang denied it was responsible, and the issue has been an obstacle to re-engagement ever since.

Ryoo said South Korea would explain to the North its inter-Korean cooperation plans, including a peace park at the demilitarized zone, adding that it was seeking a fresh round of reunions for families separated by the Korean War before the Lunar New Year holidays in February.

The two Koreas have remained technically at war for more than six decades as the Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. Reunification of the Korean peninsula has been a priority for South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

(Editing by Tony Munroe and Alex Richardson)

A man walks past near an image of revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Havana December 27, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer

By Daniel Trotta

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's most prominent dissidents say they have been kept in the dark by U.S. officials over a list of 53 political prisoners who will be released from jail as part of a deal to end decades of hostility between the United States and Cuba.

For years, dissident leaders have told the United States which opponents of Cuba's communist government were being jailed or harassed, but they say they were not consulted when the list of prisoners to be freed was drawn up or even told who is on it.

The lack of information has stoked concern and frustration among the dissidents, who worry that the secret list is flawed and that genuine political prisoners who should be on it will be left to languish.

"We're concerned because we don't agree with the silence, because we have a right to know who they are. Who are they?" said Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White dissident group, which marches in Havana on Sundays to demand the release of prisoners.

"There are not just 53 political prisoners, there are more, and we are concerned that the U.S. list might have common criminals on it," she told Reuters in Havana.

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Alejandro Ferras Pellicer, 94, a veteran of the 1953 assault on the Moncada military barracks, sta …

U.S. officials have so far been tight-lipped about how the list of 53 was assembled and who was consulted inside Cuba. It also is not clear if some prisoners were kept off the list because the Cuban government refused to release them.

A U.S. official said on Saturday that Washington had asked Cuba to release a specific group of people jailed on charges related to their political activities, but declined to answer further questions.

Neither the U.S. nor the Cuban governments have said when the prisoners would be released. Cuba declined to comment on why more details have not been publicly released.

The dissident Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which keeps track of activists in the different opposition groups, counted in June a total of 114 political prisoners, although the number includes 12 on parole after being released plus several others who have since been freed.

Elizardo Sanchez, the group's veteran leader, says at least 80 peaceful dissidents are on the list, including some whose only crime was to demonstrate or paint anti-government signs.

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A Cuban flag hangs from a building in Havana December 27, 2014. REUTERS/Enrique De La Osa

Others include soldiers who deserted, former government officials, people who tried to hijack an airplane to the United States and eight militants jailed for entering Cuba from the United States and trying to start insurrections.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced a new era in U.S.-Cuba relations on Dec. 17, saying he would restore diplomatic ties broken more than five decades ago and begin to unravel economic sanctions that were aimed at forcing the communists from power.

Under the deal, three Cuban spies were freed from U.S. jails while Cuba released a U.S. aid contractor and a Cuban who spied for Washington. Cuba also agreed to free the 53 people who U.S. officials described as political prisoners.

Reuters spoke with six of the most influential dissident leaders in Cuba - Sanchez and Soler as well as Jose Daniel Ferrer, Martha Beatriz Roque, Guillermo Farinas and Antonio Rodiles. All said U.S. officials have been in contact with them but have given them no information about the 53 and that no one has been freed since the deal was announced.

'HUGE MISTAKE'

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People line up outside a state pharmacy to buy medicine in Havana December 27, 2014. REUTERS/Enrique …

Rodiles, leader of Por Otra Cuba (For Another Cuba), said it was a "huge mistake" for Obama not to extract more concessions from Cuba, and he was concerned that Cuba was allowed to impose secrecy over which prisoners would be freed and when.

"There are more than 53. They are accepting the regime's conditions. The regime is setting too many conditions and they are accepting them," Rodiles said.

Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) dissident group, said he has been in contact with worried relatives and that some inmates have called from prison to see if they are likely to be released.

Cuba says it has no political prisoners but, announcing the deal with the United States, President Raul Castro said his government would be releasing some inmates who were of interest to the United States. It has said nothing else about them since.

Cuba denounces the dissidents as mercenaries working for the United States in a campaign against Cuba, and the opposition groups have limited popular support.

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A man sits near graffiti reading "long live Fidel" in Havana December 27, 2014. REUTERS/St …

While Cuba has faced pressure on its human rights record over the years, none of those currently in prison have drawn significant interest internationally.

Within Cuba, one who has generated popular interest is hip-hop artist Angel Yunier Remon, alias "The Critic," who had actively demonstrated against the government.

He has been in prison since his arrest in March 2013 after a confrontation with police and pro-government demonstrators. Prosecutors are seeking an eight-year prison sentence, Sanchez's commission says.

The father of a former Cuban counter-intelligence agent said he hoped his son would be freed after serving 16 years of a 30-year sentence for trying to pass secrets to U.S. officials. "I ask Obama to publish the names so there is clarity in what is going on," said Raul Borges, the father of Ernesto Borges. "He was doing a job for the United States and in support of the American people."

One of the Ladies in White and two men who work in support of the group were freed on Dec. 9, eight days before the joint U.S.-Cuban announcement. It was unclear if they were counted as part of the 53.

They had spent nearly three years in jail waiting for trial on murder and public disorder charges, even though they were never told who the victim was, said one of the men, Ramon Munoz.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta, Rosa Tania Valdés and Nelson Acosta in Havana and Julia Edwards in Honolulu; Editing by Kieran Murray)

Mystery surrounds 53 prisoners in U.S.-Cuba swap

Prominent Cuban dissidents say they were not consulted when the list of captives to be freed was drawn up.
'Huge mistake' for Obama

Family members of passengers onboard missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 cry at a waiting area in Juanda International Airport, Surabaya December 29, 2014. REUTERS/Beawiharta

By Fergus Jensen and Siva Govindasamy

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A missing AirAsia jet carrying 162 people could be at the bottom of the sea after it was presumed to have crashed off the Indonesian coast, an official said on Monday, as countries around Asia sent ships and planes to help in the search effort.

The Indonesia AirAsia plane, an Airbus A320-200, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather during a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore on Sunday.

Flight QZ8501 did not issue a distress signal and disappeared over the Java Sea five minutes after requesting the change of course, which was refused because of heavy air traffic, officials said.

"Based on our coordinates, we expect it is in the sea, so for now (we think) it is on the sea floor," Soelistyo, head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, told reporters when asked about the missing plane's likely location.

A senior Indonesian civil aviation source told Reuters that authorities had the flight's radar data and were waiting for search and rescue teams to find debris before they started their investigation into the cause.

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A family member of a passenger onboard the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 cries as he awaits news of …

Air force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto said searchers were checking a report of an oil slick off the east coast of Belitung island, near where the plane lost contact. He also said searchers had picked up an emergency locator signal off the south of Borneo island but had been unable to pinpoint it.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

The disappearance caps a disastrous year for Malaysia-affiliated airlines, with Indonesia AirAsia 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002. The group's shares in Kuala Lumpur were down 8 percent at 0813 GMT.

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A family member of a passenger onboard the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 react as waiting news at a …

MULTINATIONAL SEARCH

Tjahjanto said two C-130 Hercules planes were focusing the search for Flight QZ8501 in areas northeast of Indonesia's Bangka island, about halfway between Surabaya and Singapore, in the Java Sea.

Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea sent ships and aircraft to join the search, a foreign ministry official said. China also offered to send planes and ships and any other assistance Indonesia needed.

Soelistyo said Indonesia might not have the best technology to search underwater and had accepted offers of help from the United States, Britain and France. In 2007, it took Indonesia months to recover flight data recorders from a Boeing 737-400 operated by Indonesia's Adam Air which crashed off Sulawesi island, killing all 102 people on board.

According to Indonesian navy Flight Commander Laksamana Pertama Sigit Setiyanta, the sea depths in the area is only 25 to 50 meters (75-150 feet).

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An Indonesian man, whose wife is a passenger onboard the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, makes a phon …

Flight QZ8501 was traveling at 32,000 feet (9,753 meters) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid clouds, said Joko Muryo Atmodjo, air transportation director at Indonesia's Transport Ministry.

Permission was not given at the time due to traffic in the area. Five minutes later, at 6.17 a.m. on Sunday (2317 GMT Saturday), the plane lost contact with air traffic control, Atmodjo said.

Data from Flightradar24.com, which tracks airline flights in real time, showed several nearby aircraft were at altitudes ranging from 34,000 to 36,000 feet at the time, levels that are not unusual for cruising aircraft.

Pilots and aviation experts said thunderstorms, and requests to gain altitude to avoid them, were not unusual in that area.

"The airplane's performance is directly related to the temperature outside and increasing altitude can lead to freezing of the static radar, giving pilots an erroneous radar reading," said a Qantas Airways pilot with 25 years' experience flying in the region.

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Family members of passengers on board AirAsia flight QZ8501 wait for information inside the AirAsia …

The resulting danger is that pilots take incorrect action to control the aircraft, said the pilot, who requested anonymity.

In such an emergency the pilots would likely have been wrestling to regain control of the aircraft and not had time to issue a distress signal, the Qantas pilot said.

Online discussions among pilots centered on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the missing plane was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow in such weather conditions.

"At that altitude, that speed is exceedingly dangerous," Sydney-based aviation expert Geoff Thomas told Reuters.

"At that altitude, the thin air, the wings won't support the aircraft at that speed and you get an aerodynamic stall."

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An Indonesia AirAsia Airbus A320-200 passenger prepares to land at Sukarno-Hatta airport in Tangeran …

Safety authorities say accidents involving a loss of control, such as might occur in bad weather, are rare but almost always catastrophic.

"MY HEART BLEEDS"

The Indonesian pilot was experienced and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, the airline said. The aircraft had accumulated about 23,000 flight hours in some 13,600 flights, according to Airbus.

Malaysia AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes flew to Surabaya and, along with Indonesian officials, updated distraught relatives of passengers at a crisis center at the airport in Indonesia's second-largest city.

"Keeping positive and staying strong," he said on Twitter.

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Family of passengers onboard AirAsia flight QZ8501 react at a waiting area in Juanda International A …

"My heart bleeds for all the relatives of my crew and our passengers. Nothing is more important to us," he said.

Indonesia's Transport Ministry said the government would review AirAsia's Indonesian business unit to improve safety.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged people to pray for the safety of the passengers and crew. Such sentiments were echoed by other world leaders, including Pope Francis.

Louise Sidharta was at Singapore's Changi Airport waiting for her fiancée to return from a family holiday.

"It was supposed to be their last vacation before we got married," she said.

An explosion is seen during a car bomb attack at a rally held by Shi'ite political organisation Asaib Ahl Haq (League of the Righteous) in Baghdad, in this April 25, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani/Files

By Isabel Coles, Ahmed Rasheed and Ned Parker

SALAHUDDIN PROVINCE, Iraq (Reuters) - The machine gun poking out from between a framed portrait of a Shi'ite imam and a stuffed toy Minnie Mouse was trained on anyone who approached the checkpoint.

Like dozens of other communities in Iraq, this small Sunni settlement in northern Salahuddin province’s Tuz Khurmatu district has been reduced to rubble. In October, Shi'ite militiamen and Kurdish peshmerga captured the village from the Sunni militant group Islamic State. The victors then laid it to waste, looting anything of value and setting fire to much of the rest. Residents have still not been allowed to return.

"Our people are burning them," said one of the Shi'ite militiamen when asked about the smoke drifting up from still smoldering houses. Asked why, he shrugged as if the answer was self evident.

The Shi'ite and Kurdish paramilitary groups now patrol the scorched landscape, eager to claim the most strategic areas or the few houses that are still intact. For now, the two forces are convenient but uncomfortable allies against the nihilist Islamic State.

This is how the new Iraq is being forged: block by block, house by house, village by village, mostly out of sight and control of officials in Baghdad.

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A man walks past the site of a car bomb attack in Baghdad's Sadr City, in this August 7, 2014 fi …

What is emerging is a different country to the one that existed before June. That month, Iraq's military and national police, rotten with corruption and sectarian politics, collapsed after Islamic State forces attacked Mosul. The militant group's victory in the largest city in the north was one step on its remarkable dash across Iraq.

Islamic State's campaign slowed towards the end of the summer. But it has left the group in charge of roughly one-third of Iraq, including huge swathes of its western desert and parts of its war ravaged central belt. It also shattered the illusion of a unified and functioning state, triggering multiple sectarian fractures and pushing rival groups to protect their turf or be destroyed.

The far north is now effectively an independent Kurdish region that has expanded into oil-rich Kirkuk, long disputed between the Kurds and Iraqi Arabs. Other areas in the north have fallen to Shi'ite militias and Kurdish peshmerga fighters, who claim land where they can.

In Baghdad's rural outskirts and in the Diyala province to the east and north towards Samarra, militias, sometimes backed by Iraqi military, are seizing land and destroying houses in Sunni areas.

Last there is Baghdad and Iraq's southern provinces, which are ostensibly still ruled by the country's Shi'ite-led government. But the state is a shell of what it once was. As respect for the army and police has faded, Iraqis in the south have turned to the Shi'ite militia groups who responded to the rallying cry of Iraq's most senior clergy to take on Islamic State.

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Iraqi security forces personnel take part in clashes with the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq …

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a Shi'ite moderate who became Iraq's new leader in September, four months after national elections, hopes that the country can be stitched back together. Abadi has tried to engage the three main communities, taking a more conciliatory tone than that of his predecessor Nuri al-Maliki, who was often confrontational and divisive. Abadi, the Kurds and even some Sunni politicians now all speak of the need for federal regions, so the country's communities can govern themselves and remain part of a unified state.

Iraq, though, has been splintered into more than just three parts, and the longer those fragments exist on their own the harder it will be to rebuild the country even as a loose federation. Such an arrangement would require the defeat of Islamic State, a massive rebuilding program in the Sunni regions, unity among Iraq's fractious political and tribal leaders, and an accommodation between the Kurds and Baghdad on the Kurds' territorial gains.

Even the optimists recognize all that will be difficult. Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd who wants Iraq to stay united, says he can picture Iraq eventually regaining its "strength and balance." But, he concedes, "the country is severely fractured right now."

Ali Allawi, a former minister of trade, defense and finance, and author of two books on Iraqi history, agrees. "There is so much up in the air," he said. "There are the trappings of a functioning state, but it is like a functioning state lying on a sea of Jello...The ground is so unstable and shifting."

KURDISTAN

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Iraqi security forces arrest suspected militants of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and th …

Iraq's Kurds often see opportunity in times of trouble. This year they moved quickly to take lands long disputed with Arab Iraqis, including Kirkuk. For a while, talk of secession increased, but then quieted after Islamic State mounted a successful attack into Kurdistan in August. Since then, buoyed by U.S. air strikes designed to hurt Islamic State, the Kurds have recaptured areas they lost and forged an agreement to export oil from Kirkuk and its own fields for Baghdad.

Kurdish business tycoon Sirwan Barzani, a nephew of Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, sees this as a moment to advance his people's nationalist dream. He was in Paris chairing a board meeting of the telecom company he founded in 2000 when he received news that Islamic State militants had overrun Mosul. A former peshmerga fighter in the 1980s, he canceled his holiday plans in Marbella and rushed back to Kurdistan to help prepare for war, taking command of peshmerga forces along a 130 km (81 mile) stretch of the Kurds' front line with Islamic State.

Washington sees the Kurds as its most dependable ally in Iraq. For Barzani and other Kurds, though, the fight against Islamic State is simply the continuation of a long struggle for an independent nation.

Before leading an offensive last month to drive Islamic State militants back across the river Zab towards Mosul, Barzani said he met with an American general to talk strategy and coordinate airstrikes.

"They asked about my plan," Barzani told Reuters in a military base on the frontline near Gwer, 48 kilometers (30 miles) south of the Iraqi Kurdish capital Arbil. "I said, 'My plan is to change the Sykes-Picot agreement'" – a reference to the 1916 agreement between France and Britain that marked out what would become the borders of today's Middle East.

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry looks out over Baghdad from a helicopter in this September 10, 20 …

"Iraq is not real," Barzani said. "It exists only on the map. The country is killing itself. The Shi'ites and Sunnis cannot live together. How can they expect us to live with them? Our culture is different. The mentality of Kurds is different. We want a divorce."

THE SUNNIS

Where Kurds saw opportunity in 2014, Iraq's Sunnis saw endless turmoil and new oppression. Residents in the western and northern cities of Mosul, Tikrit and Falluja – all now controlled by Islamic State – complain about fuel and water shortages, and Islamic State directives that women cover themselves and smokers be fined. They tell stories about the destruction wrought by shelling by the Iraqi government and U.S. forces.

In places where Sunnis themselves are battling Islamic State, the brutality can be unrelenting. Many wonder what will be left when the war finishes and whether it will be possible for Sunnis to reconcile even among themselves.

Sheikh Ali Abed al-Fraih has spent months fighting Islamic State. A tribal soldier in Anbar province, he has sunken, tired eyes and a frown. His clothes are one size too big for him. He sees the conflict as an internal battle among the Anbar tribes. Some have chosen to join Islamic State, others to fight the group. Some of his enemies, he says, are from his own clan. The fight will not end even if areas around his town of Haditha and other Anbar cities are cleared, he says. All sides will want revenge. "Blood demands blood. Anbar will never stop."

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Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect, fleeing violence from forces loyal to the Islamic St …

Fraih flew to Baghdad in late December to beg the government to send help to Haditha, which is pinned to the west and east by Islamic State and defended by a five km-long (3 mile) berm. Fraih could only reach Baghdad by military plane. The government had promised for two months to send food and medicine, but no help had come. The week before Christmas the government told him help would come in a week. Fraih tried be polite about the promise, but it's hard. "It's all words," he said.

Every day, tribal fighters and Iraqi soldiers in Haditha stop Islamic State assaults and defend the city's massive dam. If Islamic State take the dam they could flood Anbar and choke off water supplies to the Shi'ite south. The army, in particular, is struggling, he said. "In every fight the army loses 50 soldiers. Their vehicles get destroyed, they are short on fuel, and no new vehicles are coming. They are hurting more than my own men."

The city's one lifeline to the outside world is a huge government airbase called Ain al-Assad, some 36 km (22 miles) south. Fraih recently met U.S. Special Forces there. They assured him that if Islamic State breaks through the barriers to Haditha, the U.S. will carry out air strikes. The logic confuses Fraih. "They know the people have no food, no weapons, no ammunition, nothing. We are sinking. If you are not going to help us, at least take us to the south and north. We are dying now."

His faith in getting help from anyone has almost vanished.

"What is left of Iraq if it keeps moving this way?" he asked.

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Displaced people, who fled from the violence in the province of Nineveh, arrive at Sulaimaniya provi …

THE SHI'ITES

In a house on the outskirts of Baghdad, a Shi'ite tribal leader sat and imagined his world as "a dark tunnel with no light" at its end.

"Iraq is not a country now," he said. "It was before Mosul."

The sheikh, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would like to see his country reunited but suspects Abadi is too weak to counter the many forces working against him. Now the Shi'ite militias and Iran, whom the sheikh fought in the 1980s, are his protectors. It is a situation he accepts with a grim inevitability.

"We are like a sinking ship. Whoever gives you a hand lifting you from the sea whether enemy or friend, you take it without seeing his face because he is there."

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A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter keeps guard as his colleagues train before deploying to fight the Islami …

Iranian-advised paramilitaries now visit his house regularly. He has come to enjoy the Iranian commander of a branch of the Khorasani Brigades, a group named for a region in northeastern Iran. The commander likes to joke, speaks good Arabic and has an easy way, while other fighters speak only Persian, the sheikh said. He expresses appreciation for their defense of his relatives in the Shi'ite town of Balad, which is under assault from the Islamic State.

The sheikh's changing perceptions are shared by other Iraqi Shi'ites. They once viewed Iran as the enemy but now see their neighbor as Iraq's one real friend. The streets of Baghdad and southern Iraq are decorated with images of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The sheikh, though, does not believe he can rely on Iran altogether. He is sure some Iranian-backed militiamen would happily kill him. He has heard of one case in Diyala where a militia leader shot dead the son of a popular Shi'ite tribal leader. He has also watched as militia fighters aligned with police and army officers kidnapped a cousin and a friend for ransom. "I feel threatened by their bad elements," he said of the militias.

If the state doesn't rebuild its military quickly and replace the multiple groups now patrolling the lands, the sheikh fears Shi'ite parts of Iraq will descend further into lawlessness. "It will be chaos like the old times, where strong tribes take land from the weak tribe. Militias fight militias," he said. "It will be the rule of the jungle, where the strong animal eats the weak."

(Edited by Simon Robinson)

Reuters Videos
Ferry victim's body makes it to Brindisi, Renzi mourns the loss

By Steve Scherer and James Mackenzie

ROME/ATHENS (Reuters) - Rescue teams evacuated more than 400 people from a car ferry that caught fire off Greece's Adriatic coast in a 36-hour operation on roiling seas, but 10 people were killed in the disaster.

Italian and Greek authorities continued an air search of the sea around the vessel while they sought to verify the number of passengers who had been on board, fearing that many people could be missing.

The fire broke out on Sunday on a vehicle deck of the Norman Atlantic ferry, whose manifest said should be carrying 478 passengers and crew and more than 200 vehicles. Rescue efforts were complicated by bad weather.

Italian and Greek helicopters began airlifting passengers from the upper deck as the ferry drifted in rough seas between Greece and Italy on Sunday afternoon and continued throughout the night. Ten people aboard the ferry were killed, the Italian coastguard said.

"It was hell," Dimitra Theodossiou, a Greek soprano opera singer, told Italy's la Repubblica newspaper. She was evacuated by helicopter during the night.

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In this photo taken from a nearby ship, vessels try to extinguish the fire at the Italian-flagged No …

"It was very cold, terribly cold. Nearby ships sprayed water from their hydrants (to fight the fire) and we were completely wet," she said.

She was treated for a mild case of hypothermia at a hospital in Lecce, Italy, and later released.

The Italian captain, Argilio Giacomazzi, abandoned the ship once all others had been evacuated, Italian Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi said.

Fifty-six crew members were evacuated, while 234 of those rescued were Greek, 54 Turkish, 22 Albanians and 22 Italians, Lupi said.

He would not confirm a report from Greece that there were 38 still missing.

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Firefighters help passengers leave the "Spirit of Piraeus" cargo container ship as they arrive in Ba …

"It's absolutely premature" to say how many are missing, Lupi said.

Some of those rescued were not on the original ship's manifest, and Italian authorities are looking for a definitive list of passengers to cross-check it with the names of the survivors, he said, adding that it was possible that there were illegal migrants aboard.

A medical team and a flight operator had boarded the vessel to assist the passengers and crew during the rescue, the Italian navy said. Its San Giorgio amphibious transport ship coordinated the rescue operation.

A merchant ship carrying a reported 49 of the ferry passengers, including four children, arrived in the southern Italian port of Bari early on Monday.

Bad weather hampered efforts overnight to attach cables to the ferry for towing. Pictures from Monday afternoon showed the ship still smoldering, and Lupi said tow cables attached overnight broke.

Italian and Albanian magistrates ordered that the ship be seized in order to investigate the cause of the fire, which is still unknown, and magistrates in both countries are deciding together where the vessel should be towed, Italy's Transport Ministry said in a statement.

The Italian-flagged ferry, chartered by Greek ferry operator Anek Lines, was sailing from Patras in western Greece to Ancona in Italy.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, speaking at a year-end news conference in Rome, praised the work of the Italian-led rescue effort, which he said had helped avoid a "massacre".

(Additional reporting by Antonio Defano in Bari, George Georgiopoulos in Athens and Isla Binnie in Rome; Editing by Angus MacSwan)