South Korea’s prime minister has offered to resign amid a bribery scandal just two months after he took up the country’s No. 2 post, officials said yesterday, in the latest political crisis to hit South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
Lee Wan-koo has been at the center of a corruption scandal that flared after a businessperson killed himself earlier this month, leaving a memo listing the names of eight high-profile figures he said he had bribed. Most of the eight men, including Lee, are considered as close associates of Park.
Sung Wan-jong told a local daily before his death that he gave 30 million won (US$27,713) to Lee in 2013.
Lee has denied the allegation, but he has seen growing calls to resign after South Korean media reported alleged evidence that indicates his ties to Sung.
Lee’s office yesterday said he conveyed his resignation offer on Monday to Park, who was in Peru on a four-nation trip.
Park described Lee’s resignation offer as “very regrettable” and said she “felt the prime minister’s agony,” according to a statement on the Web site of South Korea’s presidential Blue House.
Park also called for a thorough investigation into the scandal, the statement said.
South Korean presidential spokeswoman Chun Hye-ran said she has not been informed whether Park would accept the resignation.
The latest scandal comes as Park struggles to deal with criticism over her government’s handling of last year’s ferry disaster that killed more than 300 people. Violence broke out at a Seoul rally on Saturday led by relatives of the ferry victims and their supporters, leaving dozens of people injured.
Park has also faced criticism over what analysts say is her poor communication with the public and lack of transparency on personnel appointments.
Some of her prior picks for prime minister and the Cabinet have had to withdraw from the nomination process after allegations about their ethical lapses and problematic past behavior emerged.
Lee’s alleged involvement in the scandal came as a surprise after he announced a government plan last month to fight graft in what critics say was an attempt to target associates of former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak.
Sung, who was investigated after Lee Wan-koo’s anticorruption campaign announcement, had said he was betrayed by the prime minister and victimized, according to South Korean media outlets.
South Korea’s executive power is concentrated in the president, but the prime minister leads the country if the president becomes incapacitated.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS