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Charles Jenkins: US soldier who defected to North Korea dies

A former US sergeant who defected to North Korea and became Pyongyang's prisoner for nearly 40 years has died.

Charles Jenkins, 77, lived in Japan where he had settled with his family after his 2004 release.

He was among four US soldiers who defected in the 1960s and later became North Korean film stars, but was the only one who was released.

The others reportedly died in North Korea, including James Dresnok who was said to have died of a stroke in 2016.

Charles Jenkins died on Sado island on Monday, where he was living with his wife Hitomi Soga, also a former prisoner of North Korea.

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He collapsed outside his home, Japanese media reports said, and later died of heart problems in hospital. His wife said in a statement that she was "very surprised" by his death and "cannot think of anything", according to AFP news agency.

A plan that went wrong

Mr Jenkins had led an extraordinary but also difficult life in North Korea, which he would later chronicle in a memoir and several interviews.

In 1965, while stationed with the US army in South Korea by the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), Mr 

Jenkins decided to abandon his unit and defect to the North, fearing he would be killed in patrols or sent to fight in the Vietnam War.

He said he thought that once in North Korea, he could seek asylum with the Russian embassy, and eventually return to the US in a prisoner swap.

One January night, Mr Jenkins said he downed several beers, walked across the DMZ, and surrendered to North Korean soldiers there. He was only 24 years old.

But Russia did not grant him or the other Americans asylum. Instead, they were held as prisoners by 

the North Koreans.

"Thinking back now, I was a fool. If there's a God in the heaven, he carried me through it," said Mr Jenkins in a 2005 interview with US broadcaster CBS.

The men were forced to study the teachings of then-leader Kim Il-sung; did translation work; and taught English. But they also became minor celebrities when they acted in North Korean propaganda films, starring as Western villains.

Mr Jenkins said his captors often beat him, and conducted medical procedures on him that were sometimes unnecessary or brutal, including cutting off a US Army tattoo without anaesthesia, an experience which Mr Jenkins has described as "hell".

Roy Moore: The eyes of the world are on Alabama election

Sexual misconduct claims against an already-controversial candidate have thrust a US Senate race into the global spotlight - and highlighted divisions between President Trump and top Republicans.

Question: Just how interested is the world in the Alabama election tomorrow?

Answer: A reporter from Moldova is down there. It's pretty much all you need to know.

News organisations from foreign countries love stories about America that expose its weaknesses. They always have done.

It can sometimes be explained as schadenfreude, an almost indecent glee when things are perceived to have gone wrong in the world's superpower.

The riots in Ferguson, the shooting of Trayvon Martin, Hurricane Katrina, the financial crash, and now the Alabama race.

Those reporters would not normally fly to the Deep South to cover a mere US Senate race, especially one that should have been a straightforward Republican win in this conservative state.

Then again, you don't often get a candidate who believes homosexuality should be illegal, Muslims should be banned from serving in Congress and the last time America was great was when there was slavery.

That's the Republican, Roy Moore.