SOUTH KOREA
Opposition leader sentenced
The Seoul Central District Court yesterday handed Lee Jae-myung, the country’s opposition leader, a suspended prison sentence for contravening election laws — a ruling that might prevent him from running in the next presidential election. The court ruled that Lee, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, was guilty of making false statements in violation of the Public Official Election Act. It handed him a one-year jail term, suspended for two years, a court spokesperson said. Lee called the ruling a dark day in history and vowed to appeal. “The verdict is very difficult to accept,” he said. “I believe that our people, using common sense and a sense of justice, can come to their own conclusions.”
FRANCE
Dengue hits Guadeloupe
The overseas territory of Guadeloupe on Thursday declared a dengue epidemic, with authorities saying the outbreak was being driven by the dengue 3 serotype, a less common strain of the mosquito-borne disease. “Dengue fever has entered the epidemic phase,” officials said in a statement.
VENEZUELA
Jailed activist dies
An opposition activist who was arrested during a post-election crackdown died on Thursday in custody, his party said. Jesus Martinez, 36, died in a hospital in the eastern city of Barcelona from a heart problem associated with complications from type II diabetes. On Wednesday, his family had reported that one of his legs would have to be amputated due to necrosis, the death of body tissue. Martinez was a member of the Vente Venezuela party of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has called President Nicolas Maduro’s election to a third term as fraudulent. Machado, commenting on Martinez’s death, told reporters: “This is a crime, this is murder.” She said that Martinez’s fellow prisoners and mother had for days begged prison guards to transfer him to a hospital. “When he arrived at the hospital ... he was practically beyond saving,” she said.
UNITED STATES
Onion buys Infowars
Satirical news publication The Onion on Thursday was named the winning bidder for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than US$1 billion in defamation judgements for calling the massacre a hoax. However, the judge in Jones’ bankruptcy case said that he had concerns about how the auction was conducted and ordered a hearing for next week after complaints by lawyers for Jones and a company affiliated with Jones that put in a US$3.5 million bid. The purchase would turn over Jones’ company to a humor Web site that plans to relaunch the Infowars platform in January as a parody.
UNITED STATES
Kennedy tapped for health
President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr as his secretary of health. “We want you to come up with things and ideas and what you’ve been talking about for a long time and I think you’re going to do some unbelievable things,” Trump told Kennedy during an event at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Kennedy, a scion of the famous US political family, is an environmental campaigner who abandoned a bid for the presidency to endorse Trump. If approved by the Senate, Kennedy would take over the Health and Human Services Department, which has a budget of close to US$2 trillion.
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
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