Security Council takes up N. Korea’s human rights

Security Council takes up N. Korea’s human rights

UNITED NATIONS

The U.N. Security Council took up the issue of North Korea’s bleak human-rights situation for the first time Monday, a groundbreaking step toward possibly holding the nuclear-armed but desperately poor country and leader Kim Jong Un accountable for purported crimes against humanity. North Korea quickly denounced the move.

The meeting appeared to be the first time that any country’s human-rights situation has been scheduled for ongoing debate by the U.N.’s most powerful body, meaning that the issue now can be brought up at any time. It also came amid U.S. accusations that North Korea was behind a devastating hacking attack.

“Today, we have broken the council’s silence. We have begun to shine a light, and what it has revealed is terrifying,” U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said.

Iraqi Kurds continue assault

MOUNT SINJAR, Iraq

Iraqi Kurdish forces forged ahead with their assault Monday on a militant-held town in northern Iraq but encountered heavy resistance from Islamic State fighters whose snipers fired at the attackers and who used burning tires to create a smoke screen against coalition airstrikes.

The battle for the town of Sinjar has emerged as the latest fighting front in the campaign to chip away at the territory that IS captured in its summer blitz across northern and western Iraq.

Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters launched their offensive on the town, about 250 miles northwest of Baghdad, last week. In the opening days of the operation, the Kurds managed to reach thousands of Yazidis who were trapped on Mount Sinjar, which overlooks the town and sweeping desert plain below.

Judge OKs protocol on lethal injection

OKLAHOMA CITY

Oklahoma’s lethal- injection protocol is constitutional and the state can proceed with the scheduled executions of four death-row inmates early next year, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot denied a request for a preliminary injunction that was requested by a group of Oklahoma death-row inmates. The prisoners argued the use of the sedative midazolam as the first drug in a three-drug combination the state administers risks subjecting them to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

After the ruling, Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton said the state planned to move forward with the execution of Charles Frederick Warner on Jan. 15 and three other lethal injections scheduled through March 5.

Immigrants line up for driver’s licenses

PHOENIX

Young immigrants protected from deportation under an Obama administration policy began getting Arizona driver’s licenses Monday for the first time.

Arizona was one of the last states in the country where officials refused to issue driver’s licenses to young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children but allowed to remain under the 2012 Obama administration program.

Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer waged a lengthy legal battle over the program. Courts ruled against the state on several occasions and cleared the way for licenses to be issued Monday.

People lined up early at a Motor Vehicle Division office in Phoenix and cheered when the doors opened.

Associated Press