Travis King, the US soldier who fled from South to North Korea last year before being returned home, has been sentenced to one year of confinement on charges including desertion and assault of a non-commissioned officer.

But with time already served and credit for good behaviour, the 24-year-old Army private walked free, his legal team told the BBC.

At Friday’s hearing at Fort Bliss, Texas, he pleaded guilty to five of the original 14 military charges that had been filed against him. The other charges were dismissed.

He was questioned by the military judge about his decision to flee across the border into North Korea in July 2023. King joined the army in January 2021 and was in South Korea as part of a unit rotation when he crossed into North Korea.

At his hearing on Friday, King told military judge Lt Col Rick Mathew that he had decided to flee the US Army because he was “dissatisfied” with work and had been thinking about leaving for about a year before he bolted into North Korea.

“I wanted to desert from the US Army and never come back,” King said, according to reporters inside the courtroom.

He also said he had been diagnosed with mental health conditions, though he maintained he was fit to stand trial and understood the charges.

King illegally crossed into North Korea while on a civilian tour of the village of Panmunjom, located on the heavily guarded Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea.

BRITISH commandos are on standby ready to airlift civilians from Lebanon if ratcheting tensions between Israel and Hezbollah escalate to full-blown war.

The military has been placed on high alert to launch an emergency evacuation with two ships also on standby in the region.

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A defence source told The Telegraph the British government “stands prepared” to pull Brits to safety if the situation explodes.

Foreign secretary David Lammy outlined the preparations in an emergency Cobra meeting.

He yesterday warned Brits living in Lebanon to leave immediately while “commercial options remain”.

Officials are also planning to rent aircraft which could be used to carry out the emergency plans.

The Foreign Office has advised against all travel to the country since October last year – when war between Hamas and Israel exploded in Gaza.

In the year since, conflict between Israel and Hezbollah – Hamas’ Iran-backed ally in Lebanon – has spiralled, culminating in massive airstrikes and unprecedented deadly cyber attacks this week.

Now the Israeli military is poised to invade Lebanon – with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushing for all-out war.

Some British nationals in Lebanon have decided to remain there – including an unnamed charity worker who said he felt he could not abandon his colleagues.

He said: “I felt it would somehow be wrong to cut and run at the first moment when things go wrong.”

Several international airlines including Delta, AirFrance and Lufthansa have axed flights to Beirut amid the chaos.

Israel launched a double-tap hack in Lebanon, detonating Hezbollah pagers, walkie-talkies and other electronic devices earlier this week.

Some 37 people were killed and 3,600 injured in the fatal explosions, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

On Thursday the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) unleashed airstrikes over Lebanon itself, before Hezbollah launched at least 140 rockets back in a revenge strike on Friday.

The IDF responded with more strikes on Beirut, killing at least nine and wounding 60 more – and taking out Hezbollah second-in-command Ibrahim Aqil in the process.

Some 10 other senior chiefs from the terror group were killed alongside Aqil, Israel said.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire across the border almost daily in parallel with the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah has reportedly killed 26 civilians and 20 soldiers and forced another 80,000 Israelis to head south to escape the blitz.

Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday to return the evacuated Israelis “securely to their homes”.

The UN has previously said over 90,000 people in Lebanon have been forced from their homes, with some 100 civilians killed by Israeli strikes.

The US, UK, UN and other Western country have urged calm and restraint from all parties amid fears of an all-out war.

Hezbollah, an ally of terror group Hamas, has said it is attacking Israel in support of them and won’t stop until the war in Gaza ends.

Israel has vowed to continue fighting in the Strip until Hamas is destroyed and its hostages are returned home.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “The Foreign Secretary has chaired a meeting of Cobra this morning on the latest situation in Lebanon and to discuss ongoing preparedness work, with the risk of escalation remaining high.

“The safety of British nationals is our number one priority which is why we’re continuing to advise people to leave Lebanon now while commercial routes remain available.”

The US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Jordan, and Turkey have also warned their citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible.

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By Joe Brock and David Shepardson

(Reuters) -Boeing said on Friday the head of the company’s troubleddefense, space and security unit is leaving the planemaker effective immediately.

New Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg in his first significant move since taking over in August, said Ted Colbert would be leaving and Steve Parker, the unit’s chief operating officer, would assume Colbert’s responsibilities until a replacement is named at a later date.

Boeing’s space business has suffered setbacks, notably NASA’s recent decision to send Boeing’s Starliner capsule home without astronauts that followed years of missteps.

Starliner has cost Boeing $1.6 billion in overruns since 2016, according to a Reuters analysis of securities filings.

“Historically, Boeing held a superior reputation for our ability to manage programs, and we need to ensure it remains a key differentiator for us in the future,” Ortberg wrote in an email to employees.

He added he had learned “more about the future investments we need to make to be competitive and define our future, as well as about some of the more near-term hurdles engineering faces with first-time quality and execution.”

Boeing’s defense, space and security unit, one of its three main businesses, has lost billions of dollars in 2023 and 2022, which executives attributed in large part to cost overruns on fixed-price contracts.

Such contracts have high margins but leave defense contractors vulnerable to inflationary pressures that have dented U.S. corporate earnings in the last few years.

Colbert’s departure comes at a time when Boeing has been trying to save cash by announcing furloughs amid a strike by more than 32,000 of its workers.

Boeing’s shares closed down about 1% on Friday and have lost about 41% so far this year.

(Reporting by Utkarsh Shetti in Bengaluru, David Shepardson in Washington and Joe Brock in Los Angeles; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Marguerita Choy)