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.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
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