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by Jung Hawon Agence France-Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — A former South Korean presidential contender stepped down as a provincial governor and announced his retirement from politics Tuesday in a stunning political fall after a female aide accused him of multiple rapes. Ahn Hee-jung — who came second to current President Moon Jae-in in the contest for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination last year — is the most prominent figure to face abuse allegations […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A former aide to President Donald Trump’s election campaign said Monday he is rejecting a subpoena to provide information to the investigation into Russian meddling. Sam Nunberg, who worked on the campaign during 2015, said collecting emails and other communications he had with other key Trump advisers, particularly Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, was too much trouble and he would not do it. “They want me over at the grand […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un discussed ways to ease tensions on the peninsula with visiting South Korean envoys, the state KCNA news agency reported Tuesday. Kim “warmly welcomed” the South Korean officials, who handed over a letter from President Moon Jae-in. “Hearing the intention of President Moon Jae In for a summit from the special envoy of the south side, he exchanged views and made a satisfactory agreement,” the Korean […]
by Sunghee Hwang Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The most senior South Koreans to travel to North Korea for more than a decade met leader Kim Jong Un Monday, a Seoul official said, the latest step in an Olympics-driven rapprochement on the divided peninsula. The delegation, representing the South’s President Moon Jae-in, is pushing for talks between the nuclear-armed regime and the United States, after Kim sent his sister Kim Yo […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The most senior South Koreans to travel North for more than a decade headed for Pyongyang Monday on a mission to push for talks between the nuclear-armed regime and the United States. An intense rapprochement saw athletes from both sides of the divided peninsula march together at the South’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics last month, with the North’s leader Kim Jong Un sending his sister as a special envoy to […]
by Joanna Chiu and Laurent Thomet Agence France Presse BEIJING, China (AFP) — China’s rubber-stamp parliament kicked off its most significant meeting in a generation on Monday, preparing to offer Xi Jinping a lifetime mandate to mold the Asian giant into a global superpower. Thousands of Chinese legislators gathered in the imposing Great Hall of the People in a session that will make Xi the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, concentrating the growing might […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China announced on Monday an 8.1 percent defense budget increase for 2018, giving the world’s largest armed forces a boost after spending slowed in the previous two years. Beijing will spend 1.11 trillion yuan ($175 billion) on its military, according to a budget report presented before the opening session of the annual National People’s Congress, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The outlay compares with a seven percent increase last […]
BALIKPAPAN, Indonesia (AFP) — A human leg and arm have been found inside the belly of a huge crocodile suspected of mauling a man to death in Borneo, Indonesian police said Friday. Authorities shot and killed the six-meter (20-foot) long crocodile close to a riverbank where a local palm oil plantation worker had gone missing two days earlier, with only his motorbike and sandals found at the site, they said. The search ended Thursday when […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea’s Catholic hierarchy on Tuesday said it was “devastated” by allegations that a priest had tried to rape a woman, after she came forward to join the country’s burgeoning #MeToo movement. The Catholic Church has been rocked around the globe by years of damaging clerical sex abuse cases as well as cover-ups by senior church officials who often ignored victims and protected predators. Until now the church in […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday said Japan cannot declare the issue of its former wartime sex slaves “over”, repeating calls for Tokyo to apologize over the issue and confront wrongdoings. The controversy of the so-called comfort women — those forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during World War II — has marred relations between the neighbors for decades. Park Geun-Hye, Moon’s ousted predecessor, struck a deal […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — The developer of a building in Taiwan that partially collapsed during an earthquake has been detained for negligent manslaughter with prosecutors saying the man was not licensed to oversee construction projects. The lower floors of the 12-storey Yun Tsui residential building — which also housed a restaurant and hotel — pancaked when a 6.4-magnitude quake struck the tourist hotspot of Hualien on February 6. A total of 17 people died in […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — North Korea told a United Nations disarmament forum on Tuesday that sanctions over its nuclear program would “never work”, as it voiced further defiance against President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign. The “US should (be) aware that sanctions and pressure will never threaten (North Korea) and never work”, said Han Tae Song, Pyongyang’s envoy to the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. The comments came days after Trump unveiled what he […]
