Life in a North Korean Labor Camp: 'No Thinking ... Just Fear'
BY ED FLANAGAN AND JULIE YOO
SEOUL, South Korea -- An orphan who was caught trying to escape from North Korea told NBC News how he was "treated like an animal" in one of the country's notorious labor camps.
The head of a United Nations panel on Monday said atrocities committed by North Korea against its own people were "strikingly similar" to those perpetrated by the Nazis during World War II and released a 400-page report which shed new light on the camps. American missionary Kenneth Bae is currently imprisoned in North Korea after being sentenced to 15 years of hard labor on charges of trying to overthrow the state. The conditions he is being held in remain unclear.
The U.N. report came as no shock for Hyuk Kim, who was a homeless 16-year-old when he was arrested by state security in 1998 trying to cross the border into China in search of food. He was sent to North Korea's Jungeori Labor Camp after being ordered jailed for three years.Rajiv Gandhi assassination death sentences commuted
Three convicted over killing of Indian PM may be freed as judges rule they cannot be kept indefinitely on death row
India’s supreme court has commuted the death sentences of three men convicted of assassinating Rajiv Gandhi, the country’s former prime minister, in a case that has riveted the nation for 23 years.
The court said there had been an exceptional delay in considering the accused’s mercy petitions and reduced their sentences to life in jail. The government of Tamil Nadu state can now decide whether or not to release the men.
Rajiv Gandhi was the scion of India’s most important political family – his mother, Indira Gandhi, was prime minister and his grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was one of India’s founding fathers. His wife, Sonia Gandhi, heads India’s ruling Congress party and his son, Rahul, is touted as a prime ministerial candidate in upcoming elections.
Venezuela: Fears of more protest violence as opposing sides prepare to march in Caracas
Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez will emerge from hiding and defy arrest warrant to lead anti-government marchSteohen Starr
The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics last Friday week presented the world with a history of Russia equally romantic and fanciful. But a different history of Sochi, today at the centre of international attention, is being presented by descendants of those driven from the Black Sea city 150 years ago.
In a rooftop apartment in Istanbul, 64-year-old Rengin Yurdakul tells of being haunted by her ancestors’ forced deportation from present-day Sochi during the Russian-Caucasian war. “My parents and grandparents were born in Turkey. I don’t even speak the language of my ancestors but I feel a deep pain – I feel that I’m Circassian; it’s who I am,” she says.
Olympic spotlight
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Sochi massacres and deportation of about 500,000 Circassians.
Iran and P5+1 sit down for latest round of nuclear talks in Vienna
Iran and world powers are meeting in Vienna for their latest nuclear talks. Negotiators hope to reach a lasting accord to permanently silence fears about Iran's atomic ambitions.
Though Iran has taken steps to meet the terms of an agreement reached in November, expectations remain low as the P5+1 - the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the US, China, Russia, Britain and France) plus Germany - meet with the country Tuesday in Vienna.
Many nations suspect that Iran has long sought nuclear weapons, despite Tehran's insistence that its nuclear program has the pure purpose of providing energy, and Israel, for just one example, has expressed firm opposition to compromises.
Speaking in Iran on Monday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called himself "not optimistic," even saying that he expected talks to "lead nowhere" - although he was ultimately "not against them."
Somali government accused of diverting weapons to warlords
UN experts say systematic government abuses have allowed weapons and ammunition to get into the hands of clan leaders, warlords and al-Qaeda members.
The experts, who are monitoring the partial lifting of an arms embargo on Somalia, recommended that the UN Security Council re-impose a full arms embargo when the 12-month partial suspension ends in early March.
As a possible alternative, it said the government must be subject to enhanced notification and reporting requirements for arms deliveries, "if not a partial tightening." A letter from the experts monitoring sanctions against Somalia and Eritrea, obtained on Friday by the Associated Press, details a number of incidents of weapons being diverted from the government – including one to a leader of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab.
A call to Somalia's UN Mission seeking comment was not answered. Somalia has been trying to establish its first functioning central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a longtime dictator and turned on each other, plunging the impoverished nation into chaos.
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