Mother of US soldier being held in North Korea says she ‘just wants him to come home’
The mother of an American soldier who is believed to be in custody in North Korea says she just “wants her son to come home”.
Private Second Class Travis T. King was reportedly facing disciplinary action by the US military when he crossed into the secretive country, US officials said.
His mother Claudine Gates of Racine, Wisconsin, said she was shocked when she heard her son was in North Korea.
“I can’t see Travis doing anything like that,” she told ABC News
Ms Gates said that the Army told her on Tuesday morning that her son had crossed into the North, adding that she last heard from her son “a few days ago,” when he told her would return soon to his base in Fort Bliss.
She went on to say that she just wants “him to come home”.
The crossing has created a fresh crisis for Washington in its dealings with the nuclear-armed state.
King crossed after joining an orientation tour of the Joint Security Area, which is part of the 160-mile demilitarised zone separating South and North Korea.
The US Army said the soldier “wilfully and without authorisation crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)”.
The man was with a group of visitors, including civilians, to the Panmunjom truce village when he suddenly bolted over the brick line marking the border, South Korean media reported, citing South Korean army sources.
Two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the soldier had been due to face disciplinary action by the US military.
However, the officials also told Reuters it was not clear why the soldier fled to North Korea.
He had finished serving time in detention in South Korea for breaking an unspecified rule and was returning to his home unit in the US, two officials said.
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The soldier was not in US military custody at the time he decided to flee, one official said, and it appeared he made a surprise decision to join the civilian tour to the demilitarised zone.
It was unclear for how long North Korean authorities would hold the soldier but analysts said the incident could be valuable propaganda for the isolated country.
The US bans its citizens from entering North Korea – the notorious totalitarian state run by Kim Jong Un where millions live in hunger and poverty.
“Historically, the North holds these folks for weeks, if not months, for propaganda purposes, especially if this is a US soldier, before a coerced confession and apology,” said Victor Cha, a former US official and Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“It also sometimes requires an American official or ex-official to travel there to obtain the release,” he added.
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US serviceman ‘wilfully’ entered North Korea
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a news briefing in an update: “There’s a lot that we’re still trying to learn.
“We believe that he is in (North Korean) custody and so we’re closely monitoring and investigating the situation and working to notify the soldier’s next of kin.”
Mr Austin has also said his “foremost concern” is the soldier’s welfare.
Meanwhile, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said US officials at the Pentagon, the State Department and the United Nations were all working to “to ascertain more information and resolve this situation.”
“We’re in the early stages,” she said, adding that the primary concern was determining the wellbeing of the soldier.
South and North Korean forces face each other at the Joint Security Area and it’s often used for diplomatic meetings between the two countries.
It is also a popular tourist spot.
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N Korea’s latest missile launch
The soldier’s crossing comes at a time of high tensions on the Korean peninsula, with the arrival of a US nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine in South Korea for a rare visit.
The move is seen as a warning to North Korea over its own military activities. It has been testing increasingly powerful missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, including a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile launched last week.
It fired another ballistic missile into the sea near Japan on Tuesday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing South Korea’s military.
Four more arrests have been made by French police investigating the Louvre museum heist.
Two men and two women from the Paris region were detained on Tuesday, prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.
Ms Beccuau’s statement did not say what role the quartet are suspected of having played in the robbery. The two men are aged 38 and 39, and the two women are aged 31 and 40.
They are being interrogated by police, who can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.
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Louvre: How ‘heist of the century’ unfolded
The latest arrests come after investigating magistrates filed preliminary charges against three men and one woman who were arrested last month.
Some of the French Crown Jewels, worth an estimated £76m, were stolen in the audacious October raid.
The haul – which included a diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels linked to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense, and Empress Eugenie’s pearl and diamond tiara – has not been recovered.
The heist was pulled off in mere minutes last month – and took place while the Louvre was open to visitors, raising doubts over the credibility of the world’s most-visited museum as a guardian for its priceless works.
On Sunday 19 October, two men used a stolen furniture lift to access the second floor Galerie d’Apollon.
They then cracked open display cases with angle grinders before escaping with their loot and fleeing on the back of two scooters driven by accomplices.
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The Paris prosecutor previously said the robbery appeared to be the work of small-time criminals rather than professional gangsters.
Speaking shortly after the heist, art detective Arthur Brand told Sky News that detectives faced a “race against time” to recover the stolen treasure.
“These crown jewels are so famous, you just cannot sell them,” Mr Brand said. “The only thing they can do is melt the silver and gold down, dismantle the diamonds, try to cut them. That’s the way they will probably disappear forever.
“They [the police] have a week. If they catch the thieves, the stuff might still be there. If it takes longer, the loot is probably gone and dismantled. It’s a race against time.”
Washington woke up this morning to a flurry of developments on Ukraine.
It was the middle of the night in DC when a tweet dropped from Ukraine’s national security advisor, Rustem Umerov.
He said that the US and Ukraine had reached a “common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.”
He added that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would travel to America “at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump”.
Ukraine latest: ‘Delicate’ deal details must be sorted, White House says
By sunrise in Washington, a US official was using similar but not identical language to frame progress.
The official, speaking anonymously to US media, said that Ukraine had “agreed” to Trump’s peace proposal “with some minor details to be worked out”.
In parallel, it’s emerged that talks have been taking place in Abu Dhabi. The Americans claim to have met both Russian and Ukrainian officials there, though the Russians have not confirmed attendance.
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Peace deal ‘agreement’: What we know
“I have nothing to say. We are following the media reports,” Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, told Russian state media.
Trump is due to travel to his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago tonight, where he will remain until Sunday.
He set a deadline of Thursday – Thanksgiving – for some sort of agreement on his plan.
We know the plan has been changed from its original form, but it’s clear that Zelenskyy wants to be seen to agree to something quickly – that would go down well with President Trump.
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My sense is that Zelenskyy will try to get to Mar-a-Lago as soon as he can. Before Thursday would be a push but would meet Trump’s deadline.
It will then be left for the Russians to state their position on the revised document.
All indications are that they will reject it. But maybe the secret Abu Dhabi talks will yield something.
A woman brought in for cremation at a Thai temple was found alive in her coffin.
The 65-year-old had been taken to Wat Rat Prakhong Tham, a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok, after she appeared to stop breathing two days earlier.
Her family had travelled hundreds of miles with her body in the coffin and were preparing for her to be cremated.
However, moments before the service began a shocked temple manager, Pairat Soodthoop, said he heard a faint knock coming from inside the coffin.
Ambulance workers lift the woman in her coffin. Pic: AP
“I was a bit surprised, so I asked them to open the coffin, and everyone was startled,” he said.
“I saw her opening her eyes slightly and knocking on the side of the coffin. She must have been knocking for quite some time.”
The cremation was due to be live-streamed by the temple.
Thairath, the nation’s best-selling newspaper, named the woman in question as Chonthirat Sakulkoo, and said she was brought in by her brother, Mongkol Sakulkoo.
The brother said she had been bedridden for about two years before her health deteriorated further and she became unresponsive, appearing to have stopped breathing, according to Mr Soodthoop
The woman in her coffin. Pic: AP
So, the brother placed her in a coffin and drove her 300 miles (500km) from their home in Phitsanulok province, in the north of the country, to the capital, Bangkok.
The Bangkok Post reported that the woman’s brother had been told by local officials that his sister had died.
The woman had wished to donate her organs to a hospital in the Thai capital, but her brother was turned away as he did not have the relevant paperwork.
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Instead, he went to the temple, which offers a free cremation service.
After the woman was discovered alive she was assessed and sent to Bang Yai Hospital, Thairath reported, where she was treated for hypoglycemia, before being released back to her brother.
The woman in her coffin. Pic: AP
Asked how he felt to learn that his sister is still alive, Mr Sakulkoo said he was indifferent, according to the newspaper.
Mr Soodthoop, said the temple would cover her medical expenses.
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