The front-runner to succeed impeached South Korean president Park Geun-hye yesterday called for unity as the country writes a “new history,” while hundreds gathered outside the home of the ousted leader in a show of support.
The South Korean Constitutional Court on Friday upheld a parliamentary vote to impeach Park, effectively removing her from office over a corruption scandal involving her close friend.
A presidential election is to be held within 60 days of the ruling, with local media outlets saying that May 9 is the most likely date.
Photo: Reuters
The likely winner is former Democratic Party leader Moon Jae-In who enjoys 36 percent of popular support.
“If the power of candlelight has brought us this far, we now have to work together for a complete victory,” Moon told a news conference, referring to weekly candlelit vigils that called for Park’s ouster.
“South Korea will make new history through a regime change,” she said.
Photo: AP
Park, who is South Korea’s first democratically elected president to be ousted from office, remains holed up at the presidential Blue House as workers repair and clean her private residence.
TV footage showed hundreds of flag-waving Park supporters gathered outside her home in prosperous southern Seoul, while media reports said that she is likely to leave the presidential office today.
Moon said it would be “heartless” to kick Park out of the Blue House while her home was being prepared, but warned against possible attempts to destroy or remove state documents before she left.
Park was found to have broken the law by allowing her confidante Choi Soon-sil to meddle in state affairs and breaching rules on public servants’ activities.
The court ruling removed her presidential immunity to criminal indictment.
She has already been named a criminal suspect, accused of bribery for offering policy favors to firms that benefited Choi.
For months she has refused to make herself available for questioning by prosecutors probing the scandal.
However, that might no longer be an option once she leaves the Blue House, when she could face formal arrest if she refuses a summons, with local reports saying that the prosecutors were mulling imposing a travel ban on Park.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion