Sgt. Charles Robert Jenkins pleaded guilty today to deserting the U.S. Army in 1965 for North Korea, saying that he wanted to avoid “hazardous” duty on the Korean peninsula and Vietnam. The plea was apparently part of a bargain with U.S. military officials to win the frail 64-year-old a lesser sentence. Japan has urged the U.S. government to be lenient with Jenkins and allow him to live in Japan with his Japanese wife and their two daughters.
Sudan: Refugees forced to move
Sudanese security forces surrounded several camps in the war-torn region of Darfur on Tuesday, relocated refugees against their will and denied access to humanitarian groups, the United Nations said. Sudan denied closing off the camps but said angry Arab tribesmen gathered in the area. The U.N. World Food Program said they were forced to pull 88 relief workers from other areas where there has been an upsurge in violence in recent days.
Afghanistan: Hostage demands
Jaish-al Muslimeen – or Army of Muslims, a Taliban splinter group – threatening to kill three foreign U.N. hostages it abducted Thursday said Tuesday there was “some flexibility” about their demands, which include the world body’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. The group suggested it would start killing the captives today if its demands were not met.
U.N.: Responses to nuke challenge
Challenged by the U.N. nuclear chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, to prove their atomic programs are peaceful, North Korea said it would scrap its “nuclear deterrence” if the United States ended its hostile policy, and Iran said negotiations with Britain, Germany and France countries late this month may “bring fruit.”
England: Spanking ban voted down
After a passionate debate in the House of Commons, British lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Tuesday against banning parents from spanking their children. Some lawmakers argued that even mild spanking should be outlawed and insisted children should have the same legal protection as adults when it comes to being hit.
From Herald news services
Supreme Court debates segregation in prisons
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court took up a racial segregation case Tuesday that asks if black California inmates are being unconstitutionally bunked together for months at a time, in the name of keeping prisons safe.
The Bush administration has sided with a black convicted killer who claims he has been humiliated by forced prison segregation. Garrison Johnson has been in prison since 1987 for murder, robbery and assault. He contends the policy violates his constitutional right to equal treatment.
If the Supreme Court clears California’s policy, other states will feel free to copy it. Eight states side with California in the case: Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Utah.
Servicemen’s remains to be grouped
Bone fragments that scientists determined are the remains of six U.S. servicemen whose AC-47 gunship crashed in Laos in 1966 during the Vietnam war will be buried as a group Friday at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors, the Pentagon said Tuesday. The individual fragments were too small to positively identify with any one of the six servicemen, but forensic anthropologists concluded after extensive study of the fragments and other evidence that the bones were from all six men.
N.C.: Woman releases hostages
A woman apparently upset about the firing of a friend took three people hostage at gunpoint Tuesday at a Caterpillar factory in Clayton before gradually releasing them and surrendering. No one was injured during the two-hour incident. The suspect was not a Caterpillar employee.
Virginia: Arguments for sniper’s life
John Allen Muhammad’s lawyers argued before the state Supreme Court on Tuesday that the convicted sniper cannot be sentenced to death under a Virginia law because he did not pull the trigger in the October 2002 killing spree. Muhammad was sentenced to die after being convicted last year in the shooting of Dean Harold Meyers near Manassas.
Tennessee: Organ donor out of jail
A man who donated his kidney to someone he met over the Internet was freed from jail Tuesday in Cleveland after he paid part of his delinquent child support. Robert Smitty was jailed Thursday over $8,100 in unpaid child support. He was released Tuesday after paying $1,150, authorities said. Smitty’s attorney said anonymous donors had contributed $2,650 toward his release.
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