LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“My countrymen, do not destroy your own soil to benefit others.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai
telling the Taliban to turn away from violence Article, this pageKim son given high N. Korea party post
SEOUL, South Korea - The youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was elected to leadership roles in the ruling Workers’ Party, state media said early today, bolstering speculation he’s being groomed to succeed his father as leader of the nuclear-armed nation.
The announcement of Kim Jong Un’s election to key party positions came a day after Kim Jong Il made him a four star general. The announcement of his promotion marked his official debut in North Korean state media.
The son was named vice chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission as well as to the party’s Central Committee, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch from Pyongyang. The posts would be the son’s first known political posts.
His 68-year-old father is widely believed to be preparing the son to succeed him as leader and to take the Kim reign in North Korea to a third generation.
The military commission is authorized to formulate the party’s military policies, direct the country’s 1.2 million-member army and oversee military build-up projects, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry. The news agency said Kim Jong Il remains chairman of the commission.
Kim Kyong Hui, the leader’s younger sister, retained her post on the Central Committee while her husband, Jang Song Thaek, was named a department director of the Central Committee, the news agency said.
15 Nigerian kids abducted from bus
LAGOS, Nigeria - Fifteen Nigerian children were abducted by gunmen who seized their bus as they were being driven to school in the southeastern city of Aba on Monday, state police said.
“Our men went to the area but did not find the children,” Geoffrey Ogbonna, spokesman for the police command, said by phone Tuesday from Umuahia, the state capital. The youngsters are nursery- and primary-school pupils, he said.
The abductors have asked for a $130,000 ransom, Ogbonna said.
President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the kidnapping as “utterly callous and cruel” and ordered the security services to take all necessary steps to return the children to their families, his office said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday.
GI killed 2 others in Iraq, U.S. says
BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier in Iraq is accused of fatally shooting two other American service members and injuring a third after an argument in Iraq’s Anbar province last week, the military said.
A statement issued Tuesday by U.S. forces said Spec.
Neftaly Platero, 32, was being held in Iraq while the military conducts an investigation into the killings in Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad.
Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, said that the four men got into an argument Thursday on a U.S. base.
Platero, of the Houston area, apparently then pulled his weapon on the other men and “started shooting,” Johnson said.
A Pentagon statement said that Spec. John Carrillo Jr., 20, of Stockton, Calif., and Pfc. Gebrah P. Noonan, 26, of Watertown, Conn., died from their injuries Friday. No information was released on the wounded soldier.
U.S. confirms talks to free 2 in Iran
TEHRAN, Iran - A delegation from the Persian Gulf sultanate of Oman is visiting Iran to try to secure the release of two American men imprisoned for more than a year and accused by Tehran of illegally crossing the border and spying, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.
Oman helped secure the Sept. 14 release of a third American, Sarah Shourd, who was arrested along with the men, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, near the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009. Shourd denies Iran’s allegations and says the three were just hiking through a scenic area of Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region during a vacation.
An Iranian newspaper reported over the weekend that Omani officials were expected to visit Iran as early as Sunday and hoped to take the detainees home with them.
In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley gave the first official confirmation that such a visit was taking place.
Crowley said the State Department has received no word of any progress in the Omanis’ discussions with Iranian officials, but he said the U.S. appreciates Oman’s efforts.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 09/29/2010