South Korea court ousts impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol

Update South Korea court ousts impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol
South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol. (AFP)
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Updated 04 April 2025
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South Korea court ousts impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol

South Korea court ousts impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol
  • Millions of Koreans watched the court hand down its verdict live on television
  • Yoon’s removal, which is effective immediately, triggers fresh presidential elections, which must be held within 60 days

SEOUL: South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Friday unanimously upheld President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment over his disastrous martial law declaration, stripping him of office and triggering fresh elections after months of political turmoil.

Yoon, 64, was suspended by lawmakers over his December 3 attempt to subvert civilian rule, which saw armed soldiers deployed to parliament. He was also arrested on insurrection charges as part of a separate criminal case.

Millions of Koreans watched the court hand down its verdict live on television, with the country’s main messaging app KakaoTalk saying that some users were experiencing delays due to a sudden surge in traffic.

“Given the serious negative impact and far-reaching consequences of the respondent’s constitutional violations... (We) dismiss respondent President Yoon Suk Yeol,” acting court President Moon Hyung-bae said while delivering the ruling.

Yoon’s removal, which is effective immediately, triggers fresh presidential elections, which must be held within 60 days. Authorities will announce a date in the coming days.

The decision was unanimous, and the judges have been given additional security protection by police. Outside the court, AFP reporters heard Yoon supporters shouting death threats.

Yoon’s actions “violate the core principles of the rule of law and democratic governance,” the judges said in their ruling.

Sending armed soldiers to parliament in a bid to prevent lawmakers from voting down his decree “violated the political neutrality of the armed forces.”

He deployed troops for “political purposes,” the judges said.

“In the end, the respondent’s unconstitutional and illegal acts are a betrayal of the people’s trust and constitute a serious violation of the law that cannot be tolerated,” the judges ruled.

Opposition party lawmakers clapped their hands as the verdict was announced, calling it “historic,” while lawmakers from Yoon’s party filed out of the courtroom.

Yoon is the second South Korean leader to be impeached by the court after Park Geun-hye in 2017.

After weeks of tense hearings, judges spent more than a month deliberating the case, while public unrest swelled.

Police raised the alert to the highest possible level Friday. Officers encircled the courthouse with a ring of vehicles and stationed special operations teams in the vicinity.

Anti-Yoon protesters gathered outdoors to watch a live broadcast of the verdict, cheering at many of the lines and holding hands. When Yoon’s removal was announced, they erupted into wild cheers, with some bursting into tears.

“When the dismissal was finally declared, the cheers were so loud it felt like the rally was being swept away,” Kim Min-ji, a 25-year-old anti-Yoon protester, said.

“We cried tears and shouted that we, the citizens, had won!”

Yoon, who defended his attempt to subvert civilian rule as necessary to root out “anti-state forces,” still commands the backing of extreme supporters.

Outside his residence, his supporters shouted and swore, with some bursting into tears as the verdict was announced.

This year, at least two staunch Yoon supporters have died after self-immolating in protest of the controversial leader’s impeachment.

A police official said that one person had been arrested in the vicinity of the court, with others trying to destroy police buses with batons.

Embassies — including the American, French, Russian and Chinese — have warned citizens to avoid mass gatherings in connection with Friday’s verdict.

The decision shows “first and foremost the resilience of South Korean democracy,” Byunghwan Son, professor at George Mason University, said.

“The very fact that the system did not collapse suggests that the Korean democracy can survive even the worst challenge against it — a coup attempt.”

South Korea has spent the four months since the martial law declaration without an effective head of state, as the opposition impeached Yoon’s stand-in — only for him to be later reinstated by a court ruling.

The leadership vacuum came during a series of crises and headwinds, including an aviation disaster and the deadliest wildfires in the country’s history.

This week, South Korea was slammed with 25 percent tariffs on exports to key ally the United States after President Donald Trump unveiled global, so-called reciprocal levies.

Since December, South Korea has been “partially paralyzed — it has been without a legitimate president and has been challenged by natural disasters and the political disaster called Trump,” Vladimir Tikhonov, Korean Studies professor at the University of Oslo, said.

Yoon also faces a separate criminal trial on charges of insurrection over the martial law bid.

Acting president Han Duck-soo will remain at the helm until the new elections are held.


Pope sends condolences to victims of Texas floods

Updated 2 sec ago
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Pope sends condolences to victims of Texas floods

Pope sends condolences to victims of Texas floods
VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo on Sunday sent condolences to the families of devastating floods in Texas which have left at least 50 people dead and nearly 30 more missing, many of them children.
“I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in a summer camp in the disaster caused by flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas. We pray for them,” said the US-born pontiff following Angelus prayers.
Rescuers searched through the night to try to locate 27 girls and teenagers missing from a riverside summer camp after flash floods caused by torrential rains on Friday, when the Guadalupe River rose eight meters (26 feet) in just 45 minutes.
Nearly 300 millimeters of rain per hour suddenly fell, a third of the average annual rainfall.

Emergency at Afghan border as migrant returns from Iran surge ahead of deadline

Emergency at Afghan border as migrant returns from Iran surge ahead of deadline
Updated 12 min 21 sec ago
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Emergency at Afghan border as migrant returns from Iran surge ahead of deadline

Emergency at Afghan border as migrant returns from Iran surge ahead of deadline
  • Numbers of people crossing the border have surged since mid-June, with a peak of more than 43,000 people crossing at Islam Qala in western Herat province on July 1, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday

ISLAM QALA: Tens of thousands of Afghans streamed over the border from Iran in the days before a return deadline set for Sunday, the United Nations said, sparking an “emergency” situation at border points.

In late May, Iran said undocumented Afghans must leave the country by July 6, potentially impacting four million people, out of the six million Afghans Tehran says live in the country.

Numbers of people crossing the border have surged since mid-June, with a peak of more than 43,000 people crossing at Islam Qala in western Herat province on July 1, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.

The UN migration agency IOM said more than 250,000 Afghans returned from Iran in June.

UNICEF country representative Tajudeen Oyewale said this was an “emergency” situation in a country already facing a “chronic returnee crisis,” with 1.4 million Afghans returning from traditional hosts Iran and Pakistan this year.

“What is concerning is that 25 percent of all these returnees are children... because the demographics have shifted” from individual men to whole families, crossing the border with scant belongings and money, he told AFP on Thursday.

He noted Islam Qala could accommodate the vast numbers but was inadequately equipped in terms of services, saying, “When you start hitting more than 20,000 people (a day) that is completely beyond the planning scenario that we have.”

The agency has engaged emergency processes to ramp up water and sanitation systems built for 7-10,000 people a day, along with vaccinations, nutrition and child-friendly spaces.

Many people crossing reported pressure from authorities or even arrest and deportation.

“Some people are so afraid that they don’t leave the house themselves... They send their young children out just for a piece of bread, and even those children get arrested sometimes,” said 38-year-old Aref Atayi of the pressures Afghans face in Iran.

“Even if I have to beg in my own country, it’s still better than staying in a place where we’re treated like this,” he told AFP on Saturday, as he waited at the IOM-run reception center for some support to help his family resettle.

Massive foreign aid cuts have impacted the response to the crisis, with the UN, international non-governmental groups and Taliban officials calling for more funding to support the returnees.

The UN has warned the influx could destabilize the country already grappling with entrenched poverty, unemployment and climate change-related shocks and urged countries not to forcibly return Afghans.


Japan’s emperor begins a weeklong visit to Mongolia that will honor POWs

Japan’s emperor begins a weeklong visit to Mongolia that will honor POWs
Updated 06 July 2025
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Japan’s emperor begins a weeklong visit to Mongolia that will honor POWs

Japan’s emperor begins a weeklong visit to Mongolia that will honor POWs
  • The emperor said it’s part of his effort at atonement and remembrance of the tragedy of war fought in the name of his grandfather, Emperor Hirohito

TOKYO: Japan’s Emperor Naruhito began a weeklong visit to Mongolia on Sunday during which he plans to honor thousands of Japanese prisoners of World War II who were held under harsh conditions in the country.

Naruhito’s visit marks the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII. In recent years, he has toured some of the places where the bloodiest battles and bombings occurred, including Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Hiroshima. The emperor has said it’s part of his effort at atonement and remembrance of the tragedy of war fought in the name of his grandfather, Emperor Hirohito.

While the vast majority of Japanese soldiers were taken to Siberia, around 12,000 to 14,000 ended up in Mongolia, which was fighting alongside the Soviets against Japan.

Most of the POWs were put to hard labor and construction work for the Mongolian government’s headquarters, a state university and a theater that are still preserved in the capital Ulaanbaatar. The prisoners toiled under harsh conditions and scarce food. Japanese records show about 1,700 of them died in Mongolia.

“As we mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war this year, we should never forget the pain and sorrow of the people,” Naruhito said last week. “I believe it is important to not forget those who died, deepen understanding of the wartime past and to nurture the peace-loving heart.”

Naruhito had previously visited Mongolia as crown prince in 2007.


Two Iran Guards killed clearing explosives after Israel war

Two Iran Guards killed clearing explosives after Israel war
Updated 06 July 2025
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Two Iran Guards killed clearing explosives after Israel war

Two Iran Guards killed clearing explosives after Israel war
  • Tasnim news agency, citing a statement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said that “two members of the Guards were killed Sunday in Khorramabad while clearing the area of explosives left by the Zionist regime’s aggression”

TEHRAN: Two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were killed Sunday while attempting to defuse explosives in an area of the country’s west hit by Israeli strikes last month, Iranian media reported.

Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war sparked by an Israeli bombing campaign on June 13. The strikes, according to Israel, were aimed at preventing the Islamic republic from developing a nuclear weapon — an ambition Tehran has consistently denied.

Tasnim news agency, citing a statement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said that “two members of the Guards were killed Sunday in Khorramabad while clearing the area of explosives left by the Zionist regime’s aggression.”

The Israeli strikes during the war killed key commanders of Iran’s armed forces, including Guards, as well as top nuclear scientists.

The strikes killed more than 900 people across Iran, its judiciary has said, while retaliatory Iranian missile barrages killed at least 28 people in Israel, according to official figures.

A ceasefire between the two arch-foes took effect on June 24.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday made his first public appearance since the war broke out, state media reported, taking part in a religious ceremony in Tehran.

Iran announced the reopening of its airspace on Thursday, including over Tehran, which had been closed since the first day of the war.


Croatian right wing singer Marko Perkovic and fans perform pro Nazi salute at massive concert

Croatian right wing singer Marko Perkovic and fans perform pro Nazi salute at massive concert
Updated 06 July 2025
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Croatian right wing singer Marko Perkovic and fans perform pro Nazi salute at massive concert

Croatian right wing singer Marko Perkovic and fans perform pro Nazi salute at massive concert
  • Organizers said that half a million people attended Perkovic’s concert in the Croatian capital
  • The Nazi salute is punishable by law in Croatia, but courts have ruled Perkovic can use it as part of his song, the Croatian state television HRT said

ZAGREB: A hugely popular right-wing Croatian singer and hundreds of thousands of his fans performed a pro-Nazi World War II salute at a massive concert in Zagreb, drawing criticism.

One of Marko Perkovic’s most popular songs, played in the late Staurday concert, starts with the dreaded “For the homeland — Ready!” salute, used by Croatia’s Nazi-era puppet Ustasha regime that ran concentration camps at the time.

Perkovic, whose stage name is Thompson after a US-made machine gun, had previously said both the song and the salute focus on the 1991-95 ethnic war in Croatia, in which he fought using the American firearm, after the country declared independence from the former Yugoslavia. He says his controversial song is “a witness of an era.”

The 1990s conflict erupted when rebel minority Serbs, backed by neighboring Serbia, took up guns, intending to split from Croatia and unite with Serbia.

Perkovic’s immense popularity in Croatia reflects prevailing nationalist sentiments in the country 30 years after the war ended.

The WWII Ustasha troops in Croatia brutally killed tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma and antifascist Croats in a string of concentration camps in the country. Despite documented atrocities, some nationalists still view the Ustasha regime leaders as founders of the independent Croatian state.

Organizers said that half a million people attended Perkovic’s concert in the Croatian capital. Video footage aired by Croatian media showed many fans displaying pro-Nazi salutes earlier in the day.

The salute is punishable by law in Croatia, but courts have ruled Perkovic can use it as part of his song, the Croatian state television HRT said.

Perkovic has been banned from performing in some European cities over frequent pro-Nazi references and displays at his gigs.

Croatia’s Vecernji List daily wrote that the concert’s “supreme organization” has been overshadowed by the use of the salute of a regime that signed off on “mass executions of people.”

Regional N1 television noted that whatever the modern interpretations of the salute may be its roots are “undoubtedly” in the Ustasha regime era.

N1 said that while “Germans have made a clear cut” from anything Nazi-related “to prevent crooked interpretations and the return to a dark past ... Croatia is nowhere near that in 2025.”

In neighboring Serbia, populist President Aleksandar Vucic criticized Perkovic’s concerts as a display “of support for pro-Nazi values.” Former Serbian liberal leader Boris Tadic said it was a “great shame for Croatia” and “the European Union” because the concert “glorifies the killing of members of one nation, in this case Serbian.”

Croatia joined the EU in 2013.

Croatian police said Perkovic’s concert was the biggest ever in the country and an unseen security challenge, deploying thousands of officers.

No major incidents were reported.