Travis King, Army soldier who ran into North Korea, to plead guilty to desertion: Attorney
(FORT BLISS, Texas) — Travis King, the U.S. Army soldier who ran across the border from South Korea to North Korea last year will plead guilty, to desertion and assault charges as part of a plea deal, according to his attorney.
At a court hearing on Sept. 20 at Fort Bliss, Texas, King is expected to plead guilty to five of the 14 charges he is facing. The five charges include one for desertion, three for disobeying a lawful order, and one for assault on a non-commissioned officer.
King’s attorney, Franklin Rosenblatt, disclosed the plea deal in a statement provided today to ABC News. The possibility of a plea deal for King’s case first came to light in mid-July.
“US Army Private Travis King will take responsibility for his conduct and enter a guilty plea,” Rosenblatt’s statement read. “He was charged by the Army with fourteen offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He will plead guilty to five of those, including desertion.”
“He will plead not guilty to the remaining offenses, which the Army will withdraw and dismiss,” he adds.
“Travis’s guilty plea will be entered at a general court-martial. There he will explain what he did, answer a military judge’s questions about why he is pleading guilty, and be sentenced,” said Rosenblatt. “Travis is grateful to his friends and family who have supported him, and to all outside of his circle who did not pre-judge his case based on the initial allegations.”
At the Sept. 20 hearing a military judge will determine whether to accept the deal and how much time King should serve in a military prison.
In July, 2023 King crossed into North Korea triggering an international incident when he was held by North Korean authorities for more than two months after he dashed into North Korea at the Joint Security Area at the DMZ. Prior to joining the tour group that brought him to the DMZ King had escaped from his Army escort at the airport where he was to have boarded a flight to take him back to the United States.
(LONDON) — The U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan has said U.S.-mediated cease-fire talks between warring Sudanese parties are set to go ahead this week, despite pending confirmation of participation from the Sudanese Army.
The talks are set to begin Wednesday in Geneva, Switzerland, and will be co-hosted by Switzerland and Saudi Arabia with additional observation from the African Union, Egypt, the United Nations and the United Arab Emirates, a senior U.S. official told ABC News.
“The time for peace is now,” said U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello on Tuesday ahead of talks aimed at ending the now 16-month war between the Sudanese Army (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces Paramilitary group (RSF), along with its allied militias.
“The RSF delegation has arrived in Switzerland,” Perriello said on social media early on Wednesday. “Our U.S. delegation, and the collective international partners, technical experts, and Sudanese civil society, are still waiting on the SAF. The world is watching.”
Perriello said in the days leading up to the talks that the facilitators had had “extensive engagement” with the SAF, but still had not been given confirmation that representatives would arrive in Switzerland.
“We will move forward with every effort possible with our international partners to reach an action plan, a concrete action plan, about how we can advance that cessation of violence and the full humanitarian access and, monitoring and enforcement mechanism,” he said. “These are long past due.”
The talks come as the U.N. warns the situation in Sudan has reached a “catastrophic breaking point,” with a declaration of famine in Sudan’s North Darfur, recent widespread flooding and unabated combat between warring parties compounding on what was already “one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent memory.”
New figures from the International Office for Migration (IOM) show displacement in Sudan continues to soar, with almost 11 million people now internally displaced — many of whom have already been displaced twice, or more.
“Tens of millions of Sudanese face either full on starvation or acute hunger,” said Perriello. “There are more refugees and displaced people than the entire population of Switzerland just from Sudan alone right now.”
In Sudan’s Sennar State, where the RSF has advanced amid reports of widespread killings, lootings and human rights abuses, over 700,000 people have been displaced.
“Without an immediate, massive, and coordinated global response, we risk witnessing tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming months. We are at breaking point, a catastrophic, cataclysmic breaking point,” said Othman Belbeisi, IOM’s Regional Director for Middle East North Africa.
The northeast African nation was plunged into chaos in April 2023 as tensions between Sudan’s military and the notorious paramilitary group RSF boiled over as forces loyal to the two rival generals battled for control of the resource-rich nation following talks over a planned transition to civilian rule.
Fighting began on April 15, 2023, in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, before spreading across the country. The combat between warring parties has continued to rage in areas of North Darfur, Al Jazirah state, Sennar State, West Kordofan and other areas.
The civil war has left almost 16,000 dead in its wake and at least 33,000 injured according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Local groups, however, warn the true toll is likely much higher.
The U.S. invited warring parties to cease-fire talks last month. The talks are the latest in a string of yet-successful initiatives aimed at ending the war as regional and international efforts to end the conflict intensify.
They aim to build off the Jeddah negotiations, which were co-facilitated with Saudi Arabia. The talks are not set to address broader political issues, the U.S. State Department said.
“The US and our partners stand with the Sudanese people in pushing forward with all efforts to produce a cessation of violence and expanded humanitarian access now,” said Perriello.
(LONDON) — Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed Andrii Sybiha as the country’s new foreign minister on Thursday, amid a major reshuffle that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says is needed ahead of an “extremely important” fall.
Sybiha was nominated by Zelenskyy to replace the outgoing Dmytro Kuleba, who led Kyiv’s diplomatic efforts since 2020 and became a key figure in Ukraine’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion from February 2022.
David Arakhamia — the leader of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People Party in the Ukrainian parliament — said on Telegram on Wednesday that Sybiha was in line for the position.
Sybiha was confirmed in a parliamentary vote, two members of parliament confirmed to ABC News. He won the support of 258 of 401 lawmakers and was sworn in during the parliamentary session shortly after the vote. The 258 votes were out of a total of 315 lawmakers present.
Sybiha, 49, was Ukraine’s senior envoy to Turkey from 2016 to 2021, and served two stints at Kyiv’s embassy in Poland.
Sybiha joined the presidential office in 2021, working under influential administration head Andriy Yermak. He was appointed the country’s first deputy foreign minister earlier this year.
“He is a well-known, experienced diplomat with vast experience,” Oleksandr Merezhko — a member of parliament representing Zelenskyy’s party and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee — told ABC News shortly before the confirmation vote.
“Since the first days of the full-scale invasion, Sybiha was with the president, was involved in all important negotiations and — due to his professionalism — has earned the trust and respect of the president,” Merezhko said.
Such proximity to Zelenskyy may help avoid any tensions between the presidency and the foreign ministry.
Sybiha is known as a “thinker” and an “intellectual” among those who have worked closely with him, Merezhko said, and as someone willing to make hard decisions.
“He is not afraid to be unpopular,” Merezhko added.
Ukrainian lawmaker Bohan Yaremenko — also a member of the foreign affairs committee — told ABC News the new minister is “tough, experienced, professional.”
Sybiha is “very different” to his predecessor, Yaremenko said, with a far smaller public profile.
“He spent two years next to the president, so he knows more than anyone else about the most recent negotiations with all important partners,” Yaremenko said.
Zelenskyy said in a Wednesday statement that the country needs “need new energy and these new steps are connected to strengthening our state in different directions.”
“Autumn will be extremely important for Ukraine,” he added. “And our state institutions must be set up in such a way that Ukraine will achieve all the results we need — for all of us.”
(LONDON) — In one of the largest exchanges of drone attacks since the Russia-Ukraine war began, dozens were shot down in Russia and Ukraine in overnight assaults, officials in both countries said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said Wednesday they shot down more than 50 Ukrainian long-range drones over various regions, including nearly a dozen around Moscow.
The drones over Moscow were shot down Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, local time, according to Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.
Unverified videos published online showed explosions in the sky over Russia. Sobyanin said some of the drones were destroyed in the region surrounding Moscow, brought down by the city’s layered air defense.
Ukrainian authorities have not yet commented on the attack in Russia.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces shot down 50 Shahed drones and subdued 16 others in a prolonged attack — the longest drone assault since the start of the full-scale — officials in Ukraine said.
Ten drones were shot down around Kyiv, according to Maj. Gen. Anatoliy Barhylevych, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces. The drone assault lasted for 16 hours, from 10 p.m. Tuesday till 2 p.m. Wednesday local time, he said.
Russian authorities have not yet commented on the attack in Ukraine.
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv warned in an alert Wednesday to American citizens in Ukraine that “during the next several days and through the weekend there is an increased risk of both nighttime and daytime Russian drone and missile attacks.”
The alert said the threat was tied to Ukraine’s upcoming Independence Day and did not suggest it was connected to any Ukrainian military activities inside Russian territory.