To the United States military he was a turncoat and a traitor, the soldier who defected to communist North Korea and lived as a fugitive during the height of the Cold War. On Tuesday, though, Charles Jenkins finally started his new life, having served a short court-martial sentence after deserting from the US army almost 40 years ago.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to start up a World War II museum-piece tank? Surprisingly little, in many instances. Curators at the SA National Museum of Military History regularly start up a selection of their restored fleet of armoured and other vehicles to keep them in running order. Recently, it was the turn of a Soviet T34/85 medium tank of World War II vintage.

The Bush administration’s robust assertions that the situation in Iraq would improve with next month’s elections were badly shaken on Tuesday with the leak of a gloomy end-of-tour cable from the departing CIA station chief in Baghdad. It arrived on a day when United States forces recorded the death of the 1 000th soldier to be killed in combat since the beginning of the war.

Israel is increasingly wary that British Prime Minister Tony Blair will use his impending visit to force the pace of the peace process as he promotes his own Middle East conference following Yasser Arafat’s death. Concern is increasing in Jerusalem at Britain’s attempts to force a greater role for Europe in ending the conflict.

The United States Congress voted on Tuesday to adopt the September 11 commission’s recommendations for sweeping reform of America’s intelligence services, after the White House intervened to reach a compromise with Republican dissidents.

The true scale of ignorance and lack of sympathy in the United Kingdom to people living with HIV and Aids has been revealed in a survey of British attitudes, released last Wednesday. It suggests the stigma endured by those with the disease in Britain is as serious an issue as it is at the heart of the pandemic in Africa or Asia.