Category World News

South Korea’s anticorruption agency has recommended that President Yoon Suk-yeol be charged with insurrection and abuse of power following a probe into the impeached leader’s short-lived martial law declaration.

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) said on Thursday that it requested prosecutors to file the charges after finding that Yoon had suspended civil rule with “the intent to exclude state authority or disrupt the constitutional order”.

Following the CIO’s transfer of the case, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office will have 11 days to decide whether to charge Yoon and send him to trial.

Yoon, who has been suspended from his duties since a December 14 impeachment vote by the National Assembly, was arrested at his residence in Seoul last week after refusing repeated summons to appear for questioning.

His arrest marked the first time in South Korean history that a sitting president was taken into custody.

Yoon’s lawyers have argued that the CIO, established in 2021 under Moon’s predecessor Moon Jae-in, does not have the authority to investigate the president for insurrection and that his arrest was illegal.

Under South Korean law, insurrection is one of the few crimes for which the president does not enjoy immunity.

The offence is punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty, though the East Asian country has a longstanding moratorium on executions.

Yoon’s political fate is separately under consideration by the Constitutional Court, which has 180 days to decide whether to uphold his impeachment or restore his presidential authority.

During his first appearance before the nine-member court on Tuesday, Yoon denied ordering troops to forcibly remove lawmakers from the National Assembly so they would not be able to vote to overturn his brief martial law decree.

Yoon told the court that lawmakers could have gathered elsewhere to overturn his December 3 decree, which he rescinded within hours following a unanimous National Assembly vote.

Hundreds of couples are tying the knot in Thailand, as the kingdom becomes the first Southeast Asian nation to legalise same-sex marriage.

The Marriage Equality Act, which was overwhelmingly passed in a historic parliamentary vote last June, was ratified by King Maha Vajiralongkorn in October and comes into effect on Thursday.

Thailand’s marriage law now uses gender-neutral terms in place of “men”, “women”, “husbands” and “wives”. It also grants the same adoption and inheritance rights to same-sex couples as heterosexual couples for the first time.

Same-sex couples can now also make medical decisions for ill or incapacitated partners, as well as extend personal financial benefits, including state pensions, to their spouse.

Campaign group Bangkok Pride and Bangkok city authorities have organised a mass LGBTQ wedding in the Thai capital, with about 180 couples gathering at the Siam Paragon shopping mall from 8am to register their unions.

“This day is important not just for us, but for our kids as well. Our family will finally become one,” transgender woman Ariya “Jin” Milintanapa told the AFP news agency.

Thailand, which ranks highly on LGBTQ legal and living conditions indexes, now becomes the third country in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage, after Taiwan and Nepal.

The law’s passing marks the culmination of around a decade of campaigning by LGBTQ groups to pass equal marriage laws in Thailand. The Netherlands was the first country to allow same-sex unions in 2001, with more than 30 countries around the world following suit in the years since.

During a celebratory photoshoot last week in advance of the law coming into effect, Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra emphasised the need for gender identity recognition beyond biological sex.

“Whether male, female or non-binary, people should have the right to identify as they wish,” she said.

“No matter your gender or who you love, love knows no limits or expectations. Everyone will be protected under the same laws. ”

Despite opinion polls suggesting overwhelming public support for the move, much of Buddhist-majority Thailand remains traditional and conservative.

New United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured Manila of Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defending the Philippines in the face of Chinese provocation in the South China Sea, during his first call with Philippines Foreign Minister Enrique Manalo.

Rubio also criticised Beijing’s “dangerous and destabilising actions in the South China Sea” in the call on Wednesday with Manalo, which the US’s top diplomat said violated international law.

“Secretary Rubio conveyed that [China’s] behavior undermines regional peace and stability and is inconsistent with international law,” the State Department said in a statement.

“An armed attack in the Pacific, including anywhere in the South China Sea, on either of their public vessels, aircraft, or armed forces – which includes their Coast Guards – would invoke mutual defence commitments,” the State Department noted.

Washington and the Philippines, a former US colony, signed the Mutual Defense Treaty in 1951 stipulating that both countries would come to one another’s defence if they faced attack.

Rubio held the call with his Philippine counterpart a day after holding a four-way meeting with his Quadrilateral Security Dialogue counterparts from India, Japan and Australia.

In a veiled warning to Beijing, the four-country diplomatic and security grouping – known as the Quad – said they support a “free and open Indo-Pacific” region, “where the rule of law, democratic values, sovereignty and territorial integrity are upheld and defended”.

“We also strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion,” they said in a statement.

China holds expansive claims covering most of the South China Sea, infringing on the maritime claims of several Southeast Asia nations, including the Philippines.

In 2016, in a dispute brought by Manila against Beijing, the Permanent Court of Arbitration tribunal in The Hague ruled that China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea lacked any legal basis.

The ruling, which Beijing has rejected, has had little bearing on China’s growing assertive actions in the disputed maritime area.

Chinese and Philippine vessels have engaged in increasingly tense confrontations over disputed islands, waters and reefs in the area over the past year.

On January 14, the Philippines criticised China for deploying a “monster ship” inside Manila’s exclusive maritime economic zone, calling the move by China’s coastguard alarming and intended to intimidate fishermen operating around a contested shoal.

“It is an escalation and provocative,” Philippines National Security Council spokesperson Jonathan Malaya said at the time, adding that the presence of the vessel was “illegal” and “unacceptable”.

In response, the Philippine navy held a “sovereignty patrol” with a live-fire exercise near the shoal, followed by joint military exercises with the US.

That week, China’s People’s Liberation Army also conducted military combat readiness drills in the contested waters.

United States President Donald Trump has set in motion a process to redesignate Yemen’s Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organisation”, the White House has said.

Trump’s executive order signed on Wednesday directs Secretary of State Marco Rubio to submit a report concerning the designation within 30 days after consultation with the director of national intelligence and the secretary of the treasury.

Rubio would then have 15 days to “take all appropriate action” concerning the designation of the rebel group, also known as Ansar Allah.

Trump’s order to review the Houthis’ status is essentially a formality as a follow-up statement from the White House confirmed that Rubio, who called for the redesignation during his time as a senator, had been directed to recommend the listing.

Trump listed the Yemeni group as a “foreign terrorist organisation” and “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” (SDGT) entity during the final days of his first term.

Former US President Joe Biden’s administration reversed Trump’s designations weeks after coming into office, with former Secretary of State Antony Blinken citing “recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen”.

The Biden administration reimposed the SDGT designation – the narrower of the two classifications – in January last year in response to the rebel group’s repeated attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The White House said in its statement that Biden’s “weak policy” had resulted in the Houthis firing on US Navy warships dozens of times, targeting commercial vessels more than 100 times and attacking civilian infrastructure in partner nations.

“Under President Trump, it is now the policy of the United States to cooperate with its regional partners to eliminate the Houthis’ capabilities and operations, deprive them of resources, and thereby end their attacks on US personnel and civilians, US partners, and maritime shipping in the Red Sea,” the White House said.

Once the Houthis are relisted, Trump’s order also instructs the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to “end its relationship” with entities that have made payments to the group, or opposed efforts to counter it “while turning a blind eye” towards its “terrorism and abuses”.

Trump’s order came just hours after the Houthis announced they had released the crew of the Galaxy Leader cargo vessel, which was seized by the Iran-aligned group shortly after the start of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Firefighters said on Wednesday the Hughes Fire in the Castaic Lake area of Los Angeles County – located about 80km (50 miles) north of the city of Los Angeles – prompted evacuation orders to local residents amid the “immediate threat to life” due to the blaze.

An estimated 18,600 people live in the local community where ferocious flames devoured trees and brush on the hillsides around Castaic Lake.

Robert Jensen of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department urged everyone in the fire-affected area to leave immediately and not suffer the same fate as some in the devastating fires that hit the Los Angeles area of Eaton and Palisades, as well as other areas, that killed 28 people and left thousands homeless.

“We’ve seen the devastation caused by people failing to follow those orders in the Palisades and Eaton fires,” Jensen said.

“I don’t want to see that here in our community as well. If you’ve been issued an evacuation order, please get out,” he said.

US television news showed police driving around the Castaic area urging people to leave as crews on the ground and in water-dropping aircraft fought to prevent the wind-driven fire from moving southward towards more populated foothill communities.

The blaze was fanned by strong, dry Santa Ana winds that raced through the area, pushing a vast pall of smoke and embers ahead of the flames.

Firefighting crews from the Los Angeles County Fire Department and Angeles National Forest were also attacking the blaze from the ground.

It was not immediately known what sparked the fire, but it occurred during red flag fire conditions when meteorologists say strong winds and low humidity create conditions ripe for rapid fire spread.

The University of California San Diego shared dramatic video of the start of the Hughes Fire and its rapid development on its ALERTCalifornia online platform, showing a huge cloud of smoke developing quickly as the fire spreads across hillsides.

The start and rapid growth of the #HughesFire in Los Angeles County seen from ALERTCalifornia’s Whitaker Ridge camera. Check conditions live on multiple cameras at https://t. co/Azu4PbZNY7 and look to @Angeles_NF and @LACOFD for updates. pic. twitter. com/JyKOpyY2jx

US President Donald Trump, who criticised the response to earlier wildfires in the Los Angeles area during his inaugural address on Monday, said he will travel to the city on Friday.

As the new fire raged in Castaic, the Eaton and Palisades fires – that have also ravaged Los Angeles – have been brought under greater control, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said.

The Eaton Fire, which has burned through 5,674 hectares (14,021 acres) east of Los Angeles, is now 91 percent contained, while the larger Palisades Fire, which has consumed 9,489 hectares (23,448 acres) on the west side of Los Angeles, is almost 70 percent contained, authorities said.

Since the Eaton and Palisades fires broke out on January 7, they have killed 28 people and damaged or destroyed nearly 16,000 structures, Cal Fire said.

At one point, during the height of the fires, 180,000 people were under evacuation orders, according to Los Angeles County officials.

Private forecaster AccuWeather projects damage and economic losses from the fires around Los Angeles at more than $250bn.

The United States military has started to send 1,500 active-duty troops to the country’s southern border with Mexico, as part of President Donald Trump’s long-promised crackdown on immigration.

The White House confirmed the troop movement on Wednesday, though the full details of the order have yet to be released.

Officials told US media that the service members involved included 500 marines. They are not expected to conduct law enforcement duties as part of their role at the border.

The troop deployment was widely expected, as immigration had been a hallmark of Trump’s campaign for a second term.

Shortly after he was sworn in on Monday, the Republican leader signed an executive order declaring a “national emergency” at the border, repeating some of the heated rhetoric he had delivered on the campaign trail.

“America’s sovereignty is under attack,” the executive order said. “This invasion has caused widespread chaos and suffering in our country over the last 4 years. ”

The order included provisions for the deployment of armed forces “to support the activities of the Secretary of Homeland Security in obtaining complete operational control of the southern border”.

It also called for additional physical barriers to be erected, as well as the use of unmanned aerial surveillance.

Trump’s communications team quickly hailed Wednesday’s troop deployment as a fulfilment of his election-season promise.

“This is something President Trump campaigned on,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.

“The American people have been waiting for such a time as this – for our Department of Defense to actually implement homeland security seriously. ”

An estimated 2,500 US National Guard members and reserve troops are already at the border.

In addition, US Customs and Border Protection employs more than 45,000 people. As of fiscal year 2023, 19,104 of those employees served as border patrol agents to secure the areas between official ports of entry.

Immigration advocates, however, fear an increased military presence at the border could discourage legitimate asylum claims or lead to the use of military tactics on civilians.

But Trump has argued that a military response is needed given the rates of irregular entry into the US.

He has also regularly conflated immigration with increased crime, something not borne out by statistics. Studies have repeatedly shown that undocumented people in the US commit crimes at a much lower rate than US-born citizens, including violent crimes.

Still, Trump has used examples like that of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, to advance his proposals.

In February 2024, Riley was killed while jogging at the University of Georgia, and an undocumented Venezuelan man was ultimately found guilty of her murder.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act, named in her honour.

It requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain any undocumented person arrested or charged with a crime like theft or robbery. Having already passed the Senate, the bill now proceeds to Trump’s desk, where he is expected to sign it. It will be the first major legislation of his administration.