SEOUL: South Korean authorities investigating impeached President Yoon Seok Yeol were at his official residence on Wednesday to execute an arrest warrant over insurrection accusations related to his Dec. 3 martial law declaration.
Video footage showed vehicles from the investigating authorites in front of Yoon’s hill-side villa in Seoul, where he has been holed up for weeks.
Investigators were foiled on Jan. 3 from serving the first ever arrest warrant issued against a sitting South Korean president after a standoff with hundreds of presidential security agents and military guards.
Some 6,500 supporters of Yoon were gathered at the residence on Wednesday, and some ruling party lawmakers were forming a human chain to block the execution of the arrest warrant, Yonhap news agency said.
The team executing the arrest warrant, made up of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) and the police, secured a re-issued warrant on Jan. 7 and has held multiple meetings in a bid to ensure a successful execution.
South Korea authorities at President Yoon’s residence to execute arrest warrant
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South Korea authorities at President Yoon’s residence to execute arrest warrant
- Video footage showed vehicles from the investigating authorites in front of Yoon’s hill-side villa in Seoul, where he has been holed up for weeks
Captive Ukrainians address Russian court in emotional statements
“I have never served in the Ukrainian army, I served in the Soviet army, more than 30 years ago,” Oleg Zharkov, whom prosecutors want to jail for 19.5 years, told the court
WARSAW: Four Ukrainian men taken captive by Russia at the start of its invasion gave emotional statements in court this week as they faced massive sentences for “seizure of power” and terrorism, Russian media reported Thursday.
Two of the four left the Ukrainian army years before Moscow launched its full-scale attack in 2022, while another had never taken up arms, according to the Mediazona news outlet.
On top of taking thousands of Ukrainian troops captive since launching its 2022 attack, Moscow has also taken an unknown number of civilians into Russia from occupied Ukrainian territory.
“I have never served in the Ukrainian army, I served in the Soviet army, more than 30 years ago,” Oleg Zharkov, whom prosecutors want to jail for 19.5 years, told the court, according to a transcript published by the Mediazona website Thursday.
“It’s no secret that in any military unit not only soldiers work but electricians, plumbers, handymen... People like me.”
The four spoke at a military court in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don late Wednesday, most of whom were captured during the 2022 siege of Mariupol.
All of them served in Ukraine’s Azov battalion — banned in Russia — at various points in time, some of whom worked in civilian roles supporting the army such as cooks or plumbers.
They are among 24 accused of taking part in a terrorist organization and trying to overthrow Russian authorities — despite not living in Russian territory before their arrest. Two of the other 20 were exchanged in prisoner swaps, while one died in custody last year.
Oleksandr Mukhin, facing 22 years, served in the Azov battalion for a year between 2017 and 2018.
“I’m a former serviceman, let’s start from that,” he said. He was working as a security guard when Moscow attacked.
He said he was taken from his home in Mariupol in March 2022 by “some people, beaten, put a sack on my head and taken away.”
“On Russophobia... How can I criticize someone for speaking Russian when I’m a Russian speaker?“
Soldier Mykyta Tymonin said he had seen torture in custody.
“Sitting in Rostov, you do not feel that there is a war between Russia and Ukraine, and in Ukraine people feel it: many people die, children. Many families are forced to go abroad,” he said.
Anatoliy Grytsyk said he had been a soldier his whole professional life and served in Bosnia, Kuwait and Kosovo.
He said his wife had been “shot in the street in front of him.”
“I cannot tell people what I feel, what I went through, what your country did to mine,” he said.
“God forbid you ever feel this.”
First-time asylum applications in EU fall 13 percent in 2024, Eurostat says
- Eurostat reported 912,000 first-time asylum requests from non-EU citizens
- Syrians made up the largest share of applicants
KYIV: First-time applications from people seeking asylum in European Union countries fell by 13 percent last year, the first decline in them since 2020, data from the bloc’s statistics office Eurostat showed on Thursday.
Eurostat reported 912,000 first-time asylum requests from non-EU citizens across the bloc’s 27 member states, down from more than 1 million in 2023.
Syrians made up the largest share of applicants, like every year since 2013, accounting for 16 percent of the first-time requests last year. The next biggest groups came from Venezuela and Afghanistan, accounting for 8 percent each.
Eurostat said nearly 148,000 first-time applications came from Syria in 2024, down 19.2 percent from a year earlier.
Of the total number of applications for international protection in EU countries, more than three quarters were received by Germany, Spain, Italy and France. Unaccompanied minors made up 3.9 percent of the applicants, Eurostat said.
Indian forces kill 30 Maoist rebels, one soldier dead
- An Indian paramilitary soldier was also killed in one of two separate skirmishes
- Another four rebels were killed in a separate clash in the state’s south
NEW DELHI: Indian forces killed at least 30 Maoist rebels Thursday in one of the deadliest jungle clashes since the government ramped up efforts to crush the long-running insurgency.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in the decades-long “Naxalite” rebellion, whose members say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
An Indian paramilitary soldier was also killed in one of two separate skirmishes that broke out in central Chhattisgarh state, both of which carried on through the day, according to police.
Bastar Inspector General of Police Sundarraj Pattilingam told AFP that the soldier had been killed during a skirmish that broke out in Bijapur district, where 26 guerrillas had also been killed.
Another four rebels were killed in a separate clash in the state’s south.
Searches at both battle sites saw security forces recovering caches of arms and ammunition from both areas.
“The (Narendra) Modi government is moving forward with a ruthless approach against Naxalites and is adopting a zero tolerance policy against those Naxalites who are not surrendering,” interior minister Amit Shah wrote on social media platform X.
The rebels, known as Naxalites after the district where their armed campaign began in 1967, were inspired by the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.
Shah has repeatedly vowed that India’s government would crush the remnants of the rebellion by the end of March next year.
A crackdown by security forces killed around 287 rebels last year, an overwhelming majority of them in Chhattisgarh, according to government data.
More than 80 Maoists had already been killed so far this year, according to a tally on Sunday by the Press Trust of India news agency.
The Maoists demand land, jobs and a share of the region’s immense natural resources for local residents.
They made inroads in a number of remote communities across India’s east and south, and the movement gained in strength and numbers until the early 2000s.
New Delhi then deployed tens of thousands of troops in a stretch of territory known as the “Red Corridor.”
The conflict has also seen scores of deadly attacks on government forces. A roadside bomb killed at least nine Indian troops in January.
Putin must stop ‘unnecessary demands’ that prolong war, Zelensky tells EU
- “Sanctions must remain in place until Russia starts withdrawing from our land,” he said
BRUSSELS: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow must stop making “unnecessary demands” that extend the war, calling for sanctions on Russia to remain in place until it begins pulling out of Ukrainian territory.
“Putin must stop making unnecessary demands that only prolong the war and must start fulfilling what he promises the world,” he told EU leaders by video call, according to an official transcript.
“Sanctions must remain in place until Russia starts withdrawing from our land and fully compensates for the damage caused by its aggression.”
UK PM Starmer: We must be ready to react quickly if Ukraine peace deal struck
- “(Our) plans are focusing on keeping the sky safe, the sea safe and the border safe and secure in Ukraine,” Starmer said
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday it was important Britain and its allies were able to react immediately should there be a peace deal struck between Russia and Ukraine.
His comments, made during a visit to a nuclear submarine facility, come on the day military chiefs from dozens of countries meet in Britain to discuss planning for a possible peacekeeping force in Ukraine.
“(Our) plans are focusing on keeping the sky safe, the sea safe and the border safe and secure in Ukraine, and working with the Ukrainians,” Starmer told reporters.
“We’re working at pace because we don’t know if there’ll be a deal. I certainly hope there will be, but if there’s a deal, it’s really important that we’re able to react straight away.”
