South Korea’s new President Lee Jae-myung has pledged to “heal wounds” after months of political and economic turmoil across the country and to reopen dialogue with North Korea in his first speech after taking office following a landslide win at the polls.
Lee, who hails from the liberal Democratic Party of Korea, replaces ousted President Yoon Suk-yeol, who last year triggered a national emergency when he briefly imposed martial law, citing antistate forces and North Korean infiltration.
After taking the oath of office at parliament on Wednesday, Lee pledged to help South Korea reverse course following months of uncertainty and political protest.
South Korea has also found itself under attack from the United States, a top economic and security ally, where trade protectionism is on the rise under President Donald Trump.
“A Lee Jae-myung government will be a pragmatic pro-market government”, Lee said in a speech.
Lee said he would try to make headway in South Korea’s relations with Pyongyang, working to “deter North Korean nuclear and military provocations while opening communication channels and pursuing dialogue and cooperation to build peace on the Korean Peninsula”.
“We will heal the wounds of division and war and establish a future of peace and prosperity”, he said.
“No matter how costly, peace is better than war”, he added.
Lee also warned that “rising protectionism and supply chain restructuring” posed a threat to South Korea’s export-driven economy, and said he would address cost-of-living concerns facing middle- and low-income families.
South Korea’s caretaker government, which ruled after Yoon’s ouster, failed to negotiate a trade deal with the Trump administration to cut down proposed tariffs on imports from the country.
Trump’s 25 percent “Liberation Day” tariffs on South Korea – aimed at addressing the US trade imbalance – are currently on pause pending negotiations, but South Korean exporters were hit with a new 50 percent tariff on steel and aluminium products.
The family of Kumanjayi White are asking for CCTV footage and an independent investigation a week after the 24-year-old died in police custody at a supermarket in Alice Springs, Central Australia.
“The young Warlpiri man who died in police custody in Coles [supermarket] in Alice Springs on Tuesday May 27 is my Jaja [grandson],” White’s grandfather, Warlpiri leader Ned Hargraves, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“We know that he was held down by two police until he lost consciousness and perished. But at the moment we are in the dark about what really happened,” Hargraves added.
“Family representatives need to see all available footage of this incident immediately – both CCTV and body cam so we can understand what happened to my Jaja,” he said.
“But so far they are refusing to grant this.”
While details are still emerging of the circumstances surrounding the death, Hargraves said his grandson had been living in supported accommodation because of disabilities.
“He needed support and not to be criminalised because of his disability,” Hargraves said.
Gene Hill, who previously worked at the supermarket, told public broadcaster ABC that he knew the victim.
“One glance at him and you can see he’s got special needs,” said Hill, adding that the supermarket should have interpreters and Indigenous security guards to help with the language barrier between English and local Indigenous languages.
Calls for independent investigation
The Northern Territory Police Force (NTPF) said last week that White “stopped breathing” after he was “restrained” by two plainclothes police officers.
The “police will now investigate this matter on behalf of the coroner”, the NTPF added, in a statement.
Independent federal senator Lidia Thorpe, Northern Territory community group Justice Not Jails, and human rights organisation Amnesty International are among those supporting the family’s calls for an independent investigation.
Northern Territory Senator and federal Australian minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy last week acknowledged the “many traumas” the Warlpiri community in the remote Yuendumu area, where White hailed from, had experienced and said “calls for an independent investigation may be warranted”.
“It may be important to do that, given that there is such tension,” McCarthy, from the centre-left Labor federal government said, according to the ABC.
But Northern Territory (NT) Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro told ABC Radio Darwin “it is entirely appropriate” for the NT police to investigate.
“This is exactly what happens for all deaths in custody,” Finocchiaro, from the conservative Country Liberal Party (CLP), said.
Finocchiaro dismissed McCarthy’s comments as “really unhelpful” and “uneducated”.
“If she wants to support the people of Yuendumu and people concerned about this, then the best thing she can do is use her powerful voice to call for calm and confidence in the NT Police Force,” Finocchiaro said.
The Justice Not Jails advocacy group said the Country Liberal Party’s “tough on crime” approach in the Northern Territory had contributed to increased policing of Aboriginal people like White, in the lead up to his death.
“Kumanjayi White’s death has occurred in the context of the CLP’s relentless and racist attacks on Aboriginal families and communities,” Justice Not Jails said in a statement.
“These attacks include reforms to bail and sentencing that have significantly increased the number of Aboriginal people in prison, increasing the risk of further deaths in custody,” the group said.
A candlelight vigil was held for White in Sydney on Sunday, with more protests planned around Australia in the coming days.
Kumanjayi White’s death comes six years after nineteen year old Kumanjayi Walker was shot by Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe.
The two deaths at the hands of police have left the small community of Yuendumu, which has a population of about 870 people and is located some 293 km (182 miles) from Alice Springs, reeling.
Northern Territory coroner Elisabeth Armitage was due to deliver the findings of the inquest into Walker’s 2019 death next week, however, at the request of the family this has been deferred.
The Northern Territory Courts said the findings will “now be handed down on July 7 in either Yuendumu or Alice Springs”.
The inquest into Walker’s death began after a jury found former soldier-turned police officer Zachary Rolfe was “not guilty” of murdering Walker in March 2022.
Walker’s death prompted widespread protests around Australia, as one of 595 Indigenous people to have died in police custody since a 1991 Royal Commission.
White’s grandfather Hargraves pointed out that his grandson died on the fifth anniversary of the death of George Floyd, whose death in the United States prompted worldwide Black Lives Matter protests.
White’s death also occurred during Reconciliation Week in Australia, he added.
“I am angry and frustrated that yet another one of our young men has lost his life at the hands of the police,” Hargraves said.
Yazan Musleh, 13, has a large white bandage on his thin torso and is lying in a hospital bed set up in a tent on the grounds of Nasser Hospital.
His father, Ihab, is agitated by the bloody dawn his sons and he and his sons experienced on Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd of people gathering for aid from the Israeli-conceived and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Yazan and his 15-year-old brother Yazid had been transported by Ihab, 40, to the Rafah distribution point where the GHF operates from their shelter in al-Mawasi, Khan Younis.
They made the journey to the al-Alam Roundabout in Rafah, which is close to the distribution point, before dawn, and spent about an hour and a half walking there.
Ihab told his sons to wait for him on an elevation close to the GHF gates because they were concerned about the size of the crowded, hungry crowd.
He claims that as I looked behind the hill, I noticed several tanks close by. “I started to feel fear.” What if something went wrong or they started shooting? I prayed for protection from God.
Heavy gunfire erupted from all directions as the crowd gathered near the gates.
“I was terrified,” he said. He recalls that I saw Yazan get shot and collapse as I turned to my sons on the hill right away.
Yazid, who is also by his brother’s bedside, describes the traumatic events.
Our father said, “We were standing on the hill when the tanks suddenly started to fire.” He asserts. “My brother was immediately struck in the stomach.”
“It was horrifying to see his intestines pour out.” Then, in a donkey cart, he was rushed to the hospital.
Ihab was trying to fight the crowd while avoiding the shots that were still ringing out by the gates while attempting to reach his sons.
“Shooting was coming from quadcopters and tanks in every direction.”
I observed people assisting my son before dragging him away.
Ihab ran toward Nasser Hospital in hopes that Yazan had been taken there when he was able to escape the crowd. He claims it lasted more than an hour.
He discovered Yazan had undergone surgery at Nasser Hospital.
I finally took a breath. I thanked God that he was still alive. He claims that I had lost all hope.
In the makeshift tent ward [Abdullah al-Attar/Al Jazeera], Iman and Ihab, left, pose pose next to their son Yazan’s hospital bed.
Yazan’s intestines and spleen were torn up, and doctors now recommend lengthy, intensive treatment for him.
Iman, his mother, sits next to him and ponders why anyone would shoot at people who are trying to get food. The youngest of the five children, who is seven months old, is a girl, is from her and Ihab’s family.
I went to my children’s school to get food. Ihab claims that human habitation is killing us.
We are desperate because these aid distributions are well known and humiliating, but we are aware of this. My children are starving, and I’m desperate, but we are still shot at, right?
He claims that he had previously tried to get aid, but both times he ended up empty-handed.
There was a deadly stampede the first time. We hardly managed to escape. My son was hurt once more and did nothing, he claims.
He is aware that he can’t give up trying.
I’ll take my family’s safety. Either I survive or I pass away. I need help desperately. We are being killed by hunger.
The organization giving aid
The GHF, which was first introduced in early 2025 and is intended to “secure the distribution points,” is operated by private US military contractors.
Jake Wood, the GHF’s director, resigned two days before the distribution began, citing concerns that the organization would not adhere to humanitarian law or be impartial.
The Boston Consulting Group, which had been involved in the foundation’s planning and execution, withdrew its team and canceled its partnership with GHF five days later, on May 30.
The GHF and its methods have received unanimous criticism from international aid organizations.
We searched for food for our hungry kids.
Mohammed al-Homs, a 40-year-old father of five, is stumbling in the tent ward.
He also left early on Sunday for his family so he could get some food, but he claimed he had been shot twice in the leg and the mouth, causing my front teeth to break.
There were so many injured and dead people around me when I collapsed. Everyone was running and screaming. Gunfire was emitted by tanks and drones all over. The world seemed to be at its end, in my opinion.
Because medical personnel couldn’t reach the injured, he lay bleeding on the ground for what appeared to be an hour.
Mohammed al-Homs, a father of five, was shot in the leg and mouth [Abdullah al-Attar/Al Jazeera].
Then, word spread that the distribution gates had opened, and people began to travel to the center.
The only time it was possible to move the injured to a nearby medical facility was when.
Muhammad declares, “This was my first attempt at getting aid, and it will be my last.”
I didn’t anticipate surviving. We were met with tanks and drones as we searched for food for our afflicted children.
I never imagined that a box of food would cause me to die.
Khaled al-Lahham, 36, is another person who managed to get an aid package on the first day of distribution, on May 27 and who also volunteered to do it on Sunday.
Al-Lahham is caring for seven siblings who have been displaced in al-Mawasi’s tents, including his parents, an aunt, and seven siblings.
He was able to travel as close as he could to the al-Alam Roundabout roundabout with five friends that morning.
Khaled al-Lahham visited the distribution center to try to get food for the 10 family members [Abdullah al-Attar/Al Jazeera]
The six friends started kicking out of the car as the distribution period approached.
“Suddenly, there was screams and loud gunfire all around.” Khaled, who was unable to get out of the car, claims that he felt a sharp pain in his leg as a bullet had penetrated my thigh.
As people ran and screamed at me, I was screaming and bleeding. He adds that the shooting was irrational. “There were tanks, quadcopters, and fire from all directions,” the statement read.
Khaled was injured and huddled in the back seat until a friend drove him to the hospital and returned.
Khaled says, “I never imagined I’d be put to death for a box of food.”
Why do they lie to people and kill them in this manner if they don’t want to distribute the aid?
Two Chinese nationals have been accused of bringing a deadly fungus into the country, according to US federal prosecutors. Authorities claim the fungus could be used as a “potential agroterrorism weapon.”
The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan released the charges against Jian Yunqing, 33, and Liu Zunyong, 34, two Chinese researchers, on Tuesday. Additional charges are brought against the pair, including conspiracy, visa fraud, and making false statements to investigators.
According to the prosecution, Liu allegedly brought the fungus Fusarium graminearum into the US to conduct research at his girlfriend’s job, a University of Michigan laboratory.
According to the allegations, Fusarium graminearum causes “head blight,” a disease that affects crops like wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and is “responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide every year.”
The pathogen can cause “vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects” and is also dangerous for people and livestock.
Federal authorities said on Tuesday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan via AP that a Chinese scientist allegedly had a plant pathogen that he entered the country with last year.
US Customs and Border Protection and the FBI, whose responsibilities include investigating international and economic espionage as well as counterterrorism, conducted the investigation.
Jian’s ties to the Chinese government are also being investigated as a result of the FBI’s earlier arrests and subsequent federal court appearances this week.
According to the allegations, Jian allegedly received funding from the Chinese government to conduct research on the same toxic fungus there.
According to the Associated Press news agency, Liu was returned to China from Detroit in July 2024 after airport customs officials discovered the fungus in his backpack. According to the AP, he later admitted to bringing the material into the US to conduct research at the University of Michigan, where he had previously collaborated with his girlfriend.
The FBI discovered a book titled “Plant-Pathogen Warfare under Changing Climate Conditions” on Liu’s phone during their investigation. Jian later lied to investigators about knowing about the smuggling scheme after receiving messages on the couple’s phones that read, “We knew.”
Due to the absence of a treaty between the US and China, it is unlikely that Liu will face extradition.
On X, FBI Director Kash Patel claimed on X that China was “working around the clock to deploy operatives and researchers to infiltrate American institutions and target our food supply, which would have serious consequences.”
New: I can confirm that the FBI has detained a Chinese national who is accused of entering the country through a smuggling a dangerous biological pathogen.
Yunqing Jian is alleged to have smuggled a dangerous fungus called “Fusarium graminearum,” which is…
A request for comment was not immediately addressed by the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC.
On Tuesday, the University of Michigan released a concise statement condemning “any actions that seek to harm, threaten national security, or undermine the university’s essential public mission.”
The case comes a week after Marco Rubio, the secretary of state for national security, announced that he would start “aggressively” revoke Chinese student visas in the US on national security grounds.
Chinese nationals affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a group of about 100 million people, are among the students who are being targeted. While some Chinese may join for ideological reasons, having access to better jobs and educational opportunities comes with being a member of the CCP.
Students from prestigious backgrounds, like those studying in the US, are frequently also members of the CCP.
Four Dutch journalists were killed during the brutal civil war in El Salvador in 1982 when three former military officers were found guilty.
A jury in the northern city of Chalatenango found them guilty late on Tuesday, along with former minister of national defense Colonel Jose Guillermo Garcia, 91, former police colonel Francisco Moran, 93, and former army brigade commander Colonel Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, 85, according to a lawyer.
The three former officers were given 15 years in prison each for the killings, according to a report from The Diario El Salvador news outlet.
Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Hans ter Laag, and Joop Willemsen, four Dutch journalists, were killed while filming a television documentary about El Salvador’s civil war, which saw 75, 000 civilian casualties killed between 1980 and 1992, most of whom were killed by US-backed government security forces.
The journalists planned to spend several days reporting on the war from the front lines and had ties to leftist rebels. However, they and the rebels were ambushed by Salvadoran soldiers carrying assault rifles and machineguns.
The Foundation Comunicandonos, an organization that represents victims, said Oscar Perez, an attorney, “we have clearly demonstrated the level of responsibility of the accused.”
He claimed that “the entire organized power structure” had made political-military decisions that led to the journalists’ murder.
In 1993, a UN-sponsored Truth Commission discovered that Reyes, who still lives in the US, knew that the journalists had entered an ambush trap.
Reyes’ extradition request was approved by the Salvadoran Supreme Court in March, but so far no progress has been made.
In a private hospital in San Salvador, the capital, are the elderly Garcia and Moran being watched by police.
After a US judge found him guilty of serious human rights violations in the early years of the conflict between the military and the leftist Farabundo Mart National Liberation Front, Garca was deported in 2016.
Following the end of the civil war, the Supreme Court reinstated the men’s legal rights in 2018.
On Wednesday, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is supported by the US and Israel, will stop providing aid to the war-torn region after Israeli forces once more opened fire on Palestinian aid seekers close to a GHF distribution site, killing at least 27 people and injuring more than 100.
Israeli soldiers also warned that people in Gaza should heed the GHF announcement and warned that the approach roads to the aid distribution centers will be “considered combat zones” on Wednesday.
An Israeli military spokesman said, “We confirm that tomorrow, travel is strictly prohibited on the roads leading to the distribution centers,” and that entry is also prohibited.
GHF stated in a social media post that the temporary suspension was necessary to allow for “renovation, reorganization, and efficiency improvement work.”
“Entry to the distribution center areas is slowly prohibited due to the ongoing updates! Avoid going there by following general directions. On Thursday, operations will resume. The group asked that users to keep an eye on updates.
Since GHF started operating in the area on May 27th, more than 100 Palestinians who are desperate for aid have been reported killed by Israeli forces close to the GHF distribution centers.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has demanded an independent investigation into the deaths and that “perpetrators be held accountable” for the killing of people who desperately need food supplies.
Palestinians risking their lives for food, according to Guterres.
The Israeli military admitted shooting at aid workers on Tuesday, but claimed they opened fire when “suspects” deviated from a predetermined route as a crowd of Palestinians made their way to the Gaza distribution site.
Israel’s military stated that it is reviewing the incident and the casualty reports.
Reverend Dr. Johnnie Moore, a leading US evangelical Christian leader, was appointed as GHF’s new executive chairman on Tuesday.
In a statement, Moore, a former evangelical adviser to the White House under the first administration of Donald Trump, claimed that GHF was “demonstrating that it is possible to transport enormous amounts of food to people who need it most — safely, efficiently, and effectively.”
The UN and other aid organizations have criticized the GHF as being biased and a part of Israel’s military exercises in Gaza. Israel has also been accused of “weaponizing” hunger in Gaza as a result of a months-long Israeli blockade of basic goods entering the war-torn region.
Given that Moore’s appointment raises questions about GHF’s operations in Gaza, given that he backs the contentious proposal Trump made in February to allow the US to conquer the country, remove the Palestinian population, and concentrate on real estate development in the region.
After Trump suggested it, Moore posted a video of Trump’s remarks on X that read, “The USA will take full responsibility for the future of Gaza, giving everyone hope andamp; a future.”
In response to UN Secretary-General’s outcry over the killing of aid workers in Gaza on Sunday, Moore responded on social media by saying: “Mr. Secretary-General, it was a lie… you’re still spreading it.”
Before the beginning of the Gaza operation, former US marine Jake Wood, the organization’s founding executive director, resigned and questioned its “impartiality and” independence.
