Naval Base

The Pakistani Navy has court-martialed three officers for "negligence" in connection with a dramatic Taliban attack on a naval base in the southern port city of Karachi last year, a spokesman said Tuesday. The brazen, 18-hour assault on Naval Station Mehran last May destroyed two U.S.-supplied surveillance aircraft and killed 10 people on the base. The ability of the militants to penetrate the high-security base led to speculation they may have had inside information or assistance.

The Pakistani Navy has court-martialed three officers for "negligence" in connection with a dramatic Taliban attack on a naval base in the southern port city of Karachi last year, a spokesman said Tuesday. The brazen, 18-hour assault on Naval Station Mehran last May destroyed two U.S.-supplied surveillance aircraft and killed 10 people on the base. The ability of the militants to penetrate the high-security base led to speculation they may have had inside information or assistance.

A federal appeal court won't force the U.S. government to reconsider the enemy combatant designation of two former Guantanamo Bay detainees. The U.S Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday upheld a decision throwing out the lawsuit of Nazul Gul and Adel Hamad. They were held for several years at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay before being released to Afghanistan and Sudan in 2007. The two say their designation as enemy combatants were never lifted, and it is now keeping them and more than 100 others from traveling freely, and also hurting their reputations.

Cleaning up an old military base doesn't happen overnight. Even before South Weymouth Naval Air Station closed in 1997, the Navy began addressing the environmental hazards at the air base, which includes land in Abington, Rockland, and Weymouth. Today, even as the vast property that was once home to World War II blimps gets redeveloped into a new community called SouthField, the work continues. Approximately $50 million has been spent on site investigations, studies, and remediation efforts, according to David A. Barney, who is overseeing the cleanup for the Navy.

COPENHAGEN — The Danish government yesterday won a legal battle against a freewheeling neighborhood that has remained largely self-governing since its creation by hippie squatters four decades ago. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision from 2009 saying the roughly 900 residents of Christiania have no irrevocable right to use the former naval base as their home. The decision ends a six-year legal standoff and means the government can go ahead with plans to “normalize’’ the neighborhood and tear down scores of ramshackle homes built at the site without permits.

LONDON -- A prisoner being held at Guantanamo Bay said US personnel used methods that amounted to torture to break his hunger strike, according to a broadcast report yesterday. "I would still be on the strike if I had any choice. Death is better than continuing life like this," Fawzi al-Odah was quoted as saying on British Broadcasting Corp. radio. A BBC reporter put written questions to Odah's lawyer, Tom Wilner, who wrote down the responses obtained in a meeting at Guantanamo, the US naval base in Cuba.

MIAMI -- The commanding officer of the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was relieved of his duties yesterday, after he was accused of inappropriate management practices, officials said. The officer, Captain Leslie J. McCoy, who had commanded Guantanamo since March 2003, was the subject of an investigation into inappropriate personnel and administrative practices unrelated to the base's detention camp for suspected terrorists. "His release and reassignment are in no way related to the detainee operations taking place in Guantanamo," said C. Patrick Dooling,...

CAMP ZAMA, Japan -- US Army deserter Charles Jenkins was released from military jail today after serving 25 days for abandoning his squadron in 1965 and defecting to North Korea, where he lived for nearly four decades. Jenkins, 64, left the prison at the US naval base in Yokosuka and was to be taken by helicopter to the Camp Zama Army base, where he was expected to join his family for several days before moving to his wife's hometown in Japan, US military officials in Zama said.

WASHINGTON -- A new Army manual bans torture and degrading treatment of prisoners, for the first time specifically mentioning forced nakedness, hooding, and other procedures that have become infamous during the 5-year-old war on terror. Delayed more than a year amid criticism of the Defense Department's treatment of prisoners, the new Army Field Manual was released yesterday, revising one from 1992. It also explicitly bans beating prisoners, sexually humiliating them, threatening them with dogs, depriving them of food or water, performing mock executions, shocking...

MONTPELIER -- Vermont National Guard Chief Martha Rainville will be a candidate for the US House, two sources close to Rainville have told The Associated Press. Rainville's political spokesman, Nathan Rice, said yesterday that the general had made a decision but he would not say what that decision was. Rice said Rainville, a Republican, would announce today or tomorrow when she would make her announcement. But two separate sources, who asked that their names not be used because of Rainville's desire to keep the decision private, told the wire service that Rainville has...

A federal appeal court won't force the U.S. government to reconsider the enemy combatant designation of two former Guantanamo Bay detainees. The U.S Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday upheld a decision throwing out the lawsuit of Nazul Gul and Adel Hamad. They were held for several years at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay before being released to Afghanistan and Sudan in 2007. The two say their designation as enemy combatants were never lifted, and it is now keeping them and more than 100 others from traveling freely, and also hurting their reputations.

COPENHAGEN — The Danish government yesterday won a legal battle against a freewheeling neighborhood that has remained largely self-governing since its creation by hippie squatters four decades ago. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision from 2009 saying the roughly 900 residents of Christiania have no irrevocable right to use the former naval base as their home. The decision ends a six-year legal standoff and means the government can go ahead with plans to “normalize’’ the neighborhood and tear down scores of ramshackle homes built at the site without permits.

BOULDERS BEACH, South Africa - Nesting in the sparkling sand, preening on the rocks and darting through the waters, the penguins on the southern tip of Africa are the ultimate crowd-pleaser. But crisis looms. Short of food, exposed to predators and the sun, their numbers are plummeting. But salvation may rest in a simple man-made solution - housing for penguins. Dotting the shore of this penguin colony near the Cape of Good Hope are 200 nesting boxes, each big enough to house a happy family of parents, eggs, and chicks.

GALLE, Sri Lanka -- Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels posing as fishermen blew up two boats in a suicide ambush on a Sri Lankan naval base yesterday, killing at least one sailor in the first such attack on the southern coast popular with tourists, the military said. A pro-rebel website said 15 rebels took part in the attack. Military officials could not confirm the number of insurgents involved, but it said all were killed. Two other sailors were left missing and 12 were wounded in the attack, which damaged two navy fast boats and another small...

WASHINGTON -- A new Army manual bans torture and degrading treatment of prisoners, for the first time specifically mentioning forced nakedness, hooding, and other procedures that have become infamous during the 5-year-old war on terror. Delayed more than a year amid criticism of the Defense Department's treatment of prisoners, the new Army Field Manual was released yesterday, revising one from 1992. It also explicitly bans beating prisoners, sexually humiliating them, threatening them with dogs, depriving them of food or water, performing mock executions, shocking...

LONDON -- A prisoner being held at Guantanamo Bay said US personnel used methods that amounted to torture to break his hunger strike, according to a broadcast report yesterday. "I would still be on the strike if I had any choice. Death is better than continuing life like this," Fawzi al-Odah was quoted as saying on British Broadcasting Corp. radio. A BBC reporter put written questions to Odah's lawyer, Tom Wilner, who wrote down the responses obtained in a meeting at Guantanamo, the US naval base in Cuba.

HAVANA -- American activists camping out at a Cuban military checkpoint outside the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay started their first day of a water-only fast yesterday to protest the treatment of suspected terrorists detained at the base. Members of Witness Against Torture are demanding access to the camp to meet with inmates. The activists arrived late Sunday at the checkpoint, which is about 5 miles from the US base, after a five-day march from the eastern Cuba city of Santiago.

BOULDERS BEACH, South Africa - Nesting in the sparkling sand, preening on the rocks and darting through the waters, the penguins on the southern tip of Africa are the ultimate crowd-pleaser. But crisis looms. Short of food, exposed to predators and the sun, their numbers are plummeting. But salvation may rest in a simple man-made solution - housing for penguins. Dotting the shore of this penguin colony near the Cape of Good Hope are 200 nesting boxes, each big enough to house a happy family of parents, eggs, and chicks.

MONTPELIER -- Vermont National Guard Chief Martha Rainville will be a candidate for the US House, two sources close to Rainville have told The Associated Press. Rainville's political spokesman, Nathan Rice, said yesterday that the general had made a decision but he would not say what that decision was. Rice said Rainville, a Republican, would announce today or tomorrow when she would make her announcement. But two separate sources, who asked that their names not be used because of Rainville's desire to keep the decision private, told the wire service that Rainville has decided to run....

HAVANA -- American activists camping out at a Cuban military checkpoint outside the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay started their first day of a water-only fast yesterday to protest the treatment of suspected terrorists detained at the base. Members of Witness Against Torture are demanding access to the camp to meet with inmates. The activists arrived late Sunday at the checkpoint, which is about 5 miles from the US base, after a five-day march from the eastern Cuba city of Santiago.