World Digest
Accused U.S. Army deserter getting medical care

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Charles Jenkins, wanted by the United States for allegedly abandoning his Army platoon in 1965 and defecting to North Korea, has been hospitalized in Tokyo since arriving in Japan on Sunday. Japanese officials say Jenkins, who has lived in the North for nearly four decades, was suffering the after-effects of an operation performed in the communist state.

A Japanese hospital official said yesterday that Jenkins had prostate surgery in North Korea. An official said previously that Jenkins underwent abdominal surgery.

The United States plans to pursue a case against Jenkins, including a possible court-martial, but it has not yet officially requested custody of him, citing humanitarian concerns over his health. It was unclear if Japanese doctors' latest diagnosis would prompt U.S. officials to request his handover soon.

Rio de Janeiro

Sleuths take out ad to deny wrongdoing

U.S. corporate sleuth Kroll took out an unusual front-page ad yesterday in a Brazilian newspaper to deny wrongdoing when it spied on two men who are now top officials in the Brazilian government.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's top aides had asked justice officials to begin a full investigation into the spying to determine whether Brazilian laws were broken.

New York-based Kroll acknowledged it had seen the private e-mails of Luiz Gushiken, Lula's most trusted political and media strategist, as part of an investigation on behalf of the telecommunications firm Brasil Telecom.

Reports that an American firm spied on Gushiken and other top aides to Lula, a fiery leftist leader distrustful of the United States and U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, are likely to stoke growing anti-American sentiment in Brazil.

Kroll said in its statement on Folha de S. Paulo's front page that that the Workers' Party wasn't voted into power until two years later, after its investigation, so it was not investigating government officials. A front-page story Thursday, which Kroll said included inaccuracies, alleged that the spying continued well into 2003.
 
Rio de Janeiro

Woman's arsenal yields hefty return

A Brazilian woman surrendered an arsenal of about 1,300 firearms yesterday under the country's guns-for-money disarmament program.

A federal police spokeswoman in the city of São Paulo said the woman, who will receive $65,600 for the weaponry, which ranged from muskets to mortar shells, told police she was the daughter of a late gun collector.

For every gun that is handed in, be it licensed or illegal, owners get up to $100 and no questions are asked.

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

51 bodies unearthed from mass grave

Forensics experts have unearthed the bodies of 51 Bosnian Muslims from a mass grave believed to contain the remains of up to 300 people killed during the 1992-95 war.

The Bosnian Muslim Commission for the Search for Missing Persons found the bodies in the mass grave in Bratunac, about 55 miles northeast of Sarajevo, after nine days of exhumations, prosecutor Fatima Hadzibegovic said yesterday.

The remains were to be taken to a lab for DNA analysis in an attempt to identify them. The site is a so-called secondary grave, where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped.

U.N. and local forensics experts so far have exhumed 16,500 bodies from more than 300 mass graves found since the end of the Bosnian war, in which about 250,000 people were killed and another 1.8 million driven from their homes. More than 20,000 people remain missing and are presumed dead.

Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Reopening of bridge generates optimism

Bosnians and foreign dignitaries yesterday celebrated the reopening of a more than 400-year-old stone bridge that became a symbol of the senseless brutality of Bosnia's war when shells destroyed it in 1993.

The reconstruction of the stone span, which had survived centuries of conflict, including two world wars, before it was shattered, raised hopes that the war-wrecked nation could rebuild a multiethnic society.

Mostar essentially remains two cities. Its Muslims and Roman Catholic Croats send their children to different schools, watch their own television stations and cheer for rival soccer teams.

But many hope the bridge will help reconnect people.

"It is good that we closed the gap over the Neretva River," said Eldin Palata, a cameraman from Mostar, who shot footage of the bridge tumbling into the river when it collapsed 11 years ago.

"But until we close the gap in our heads, there will be no real progress. This is a good chance to allow our children to put behind all the evil of the war."

The bridge, built under the Turkish Ottoman empire, was destroyed midway through a war that killed 260,000 people and drove another 1.8 million from their homes.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Teen kills brother, 14, then attempts suicide

A 17-year-old South African slit his younger brother's throat to spare him the suffering of starvation and then tried to kill himself, police said yesterday.

Police said the youth, who lives in the town of Bushbuckridge in the impoverished northern Limpopo province, tried to end his own life as well as that of his 14-year-old brother after their mother walked out on the family, leaving them in the care of their father who had neglected them.

Almost half South Africa's 45 million citizens live below the poverty line, according to the United Nations.

Manama, Bahrain

U.S. aircraft carrier, vessel collide in Gulf

The U.S. aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy and a dhow collided in the Persian Gulf while the warship carried out night flight operations in support of U.S.-led forces in Iraq, the U.S. Navy 5th Fleet said yesterday.

The dhow, a traditional wooden vessel, sank after the collision late on Thursday

The statement said John F. Kennedy and the British warship Somerset launched helicopters and small boats to search for survivors, but although debris had been located, no survivors or remains had been found. It was not clear how many crew were on board the dhow, but the small vessels, mainly used for transport and fishing, can carry up to between 10 and 15 people.