‘Abuse, racism’ drove US soldier to defect—Nokor

SEOUL—Travis King defected to North Korea to escape “mistreatment and racial discrimination in the US Army,” state media said Wednesday, Pyongyang’s first official confirmation they are holding the American soldier.

A private second class with a checkered disciplinary record, King was due to fly back to America in July but instead slipped out of the airport, joined a tourist trip to the DMZ and ran across the border into the North.

The United States has previously said that King crossed the border intentionally and without authorization, and Pyongyang said Wednesday that King “admitted he illegally intruded,” the Korean Central News Agency reported.

“Travis King confessed he had decided to come over to the DPRK as he harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army,” KCNA added.

King “came to be kept under control by soldiers of the Korean People’s Army” after he crossed the border, KCNA said. AFP

MOSCOW—Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday it shot down three Ukrainian drones southwest of Moscow, the latest in a surge of aerial attacks near the capital.

Ukraine launched the attack at 5:00 am using “three unmanned aerial vehicles on objects in the Kaluga region”, the ministry said on Telegram.

“All UAVs were detected and destroyed in a timely manner by Russian air defense systems.”

Kaluga’s governor said the drones were shot down in the south of the region, a few hundred kilometers southwest of Moscow.

“There are no consequences for people and infrastructure,” Vladislav Shapsha said on Telegram.

The air attack is at least the fifth this month over the Kaluga region that Russia says it has thwarted.

Russian officials previously said they had intercepted drone attacks in the region on August 12, 10, 7 and 3.

Until a series of attacks in recent months, the capital and its surrounding areas had not been targeted during the conflict in Ukraine, which began more than a year ago.

In recent weeks, two drone attacks were repelled over Moscow’s financial district, with each causing minor damage to the facades of high-rise buildings. In May, drones were shot down near the Kremlin. AFP

New Zealand court finds mum guilty of murdering 3 daughters

WELLINGTON, New Zealand—A

New Zealand court on Wednesday found a woman guilty of murdering her three young daughters after a harrowing month-long trial.

Lauren Dickason was accused of strangling and suffocating her twins Maya and Karla, aged two, and first daughter Liane, six, while her husband was out to dinner with colleagues, according to local media reports.

Dickason admitted killing the girls, but had argued a defense of insanity and infanticide.

Under New Zealand law, infanticide is a defense for a mother who causes the death of her child when, “at the time of the offense, the balance of her mind was disturbed.”

The girls were killed at their home in the South Island city of Timaru soon after the family arrived in New Zealand from South Africa.

A jury at Christchurch High Court found Dickason guilty of all three charges of murder.

As the verdict was handed down, Dickason’s lawyer looked on in shock. AFP

MULTIFARIOUS MASSACRES. Policemen carry the coffin of Colombian policeman Michael Luis Leon during his funeral in Barranquilla, Colombia on Wednesday. An ambush and the detonation of a car bomb attributed to FARC guerrilla dissidents left four policemen dead in southwestern Colombia last weekend, in two new violations of the truce agreed between the Government and the rebels. AFP

Thousands flee gang clashes in Haiti capital

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—Crammed into cars, on motorcycles or on foot, thousands of residents on Tuesday fled a gang-ridden district of the Haitian capital, an AFP reporter observed. “We’re living in an extremely difficult situation,” said Elie Derisca, a resident of the Carrefour-Feuilles district in southern Port-au-Prince.

“I don’t even know where to go. I had to flee my house,” he told AFP.

At least 3,120 people have fled the district, according to an estimate by the Haitian Civil Protection Department and officials say more are likely to follow.

The neighborhood is regularly at- tacked by a gang led by Renel Destina, known by his alias Ti Lapli, who is wanted by US authorities for kidnapping American citizens. “Police officers who live in the area no longer have the means to defend us. As a result, the bandits were able to take over our homes,” said Derisca. AFP

‘Drunk’ judge shot wife with own gun prosecutors

LOS ANGELES—A California judge charged with drunkenly killing his wife with a gun he kept in an ankle holster allegedly texted a colleague after the shooting to say “I won’t be in tomorrow. I will be in custody,” a court heard Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila). Judge Jeffrey Ferguson had dozens of guns and 26,000 rounds of ammunition at his house when officers arrived to find his wife dead from a gunshot wound to the chest, the court was told.

Prosecutors said Ferguson, 72, who sits on Orange County Superior Court, smelled strongly of alcohol when he was arrested and told police, “Well, I guess I’m done for a while.”

A court in Los Angeles heard that Ferguson and his wife, Sheryl, began arguing over dinner at a restaurant near their home in an affluent Anaheim suburb. AFP