Politics

Seoul / AFP South Korea’s main opposition party voted on Monday to seek the impeachment of President Park Geun-Hye after prosecutors named her a criminal suspect in a snowballing corruption case. But it remains unclear exactly when Park’s opponents will formally try to start the process, a difficult and lengthy one with no guarantee about the outcome. Members of the Democratic ...

  Washington / AFP As Donald Trump builds the team he has promised will drain the Washington swamp, the president-elect may temper concerns provoked by early controversial picks by hiring a respected but tough-talking Marine general. As the Republican billionaire’s motley crew of advisors gathered once again on Monday at his Trump Tower offices in New York, talk was of retired ...

  Washington / AFP One policeman was shot dead and three others shot and wounded in four US cities, coinciding with an epidemic of racially-tinged gun violence involving law enforcement. Police were shot in San Antonio, Texas, Sanibel, Florida, and in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and Gladstone, local police departments said. There was no known connection between the shootings. ...

  Manila / AFP Children as young as nine could be jailed in the Philippines for certain crimes under a proposed law backed by the president, sparking concern on Monday from the United Nations and rights groups. President Rodrigo Duterte’s allies have been pushing to pass laws by December that would restore the death penalty and lower the minimum age of ...

  Paris / AFP The surprise winner of the first round of France’s rightwing presidential primary, conservative ex-premier Francois Fillon, was the runaway favourite on Monday to win the contest expected to decide France’s next leader. Fillon, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher who has pledged deep economic reforms, pulled off a stunning upset on Sunday, surging from behind to knock his ...

  Kiev / AFP Ukraine on Monday marked the third anniversary of the start of its pro-EU revolution with President Petro Poroshenko’s firm rejection of “the Russian world”. The so-called Euromaidan protests lasted three months and culminated in a bloodbath that claimed the lives of more than 100 largely unarmed people and about 20 anti-riot police. Poroshenko has declared November 21 ...

  Edirne / AFP Turkish authorities on Monday blocked a delegation of national and European Parliament lawmakers from visiting the leader of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party who has been held in jail for almost three weeks. The delegation of a dozen members of the Party of European Socialists (PES) sought to make a visit to the head of the Peoples’ ...

  Washington / AFP With his shock victory in the race for the White House, President-elect Donald Trump at last is in position to deliver on one of his most strident campaign promises: to repeal Obamacare. With fellow Republicans in control of the US Congress, Trump has the means and ostensibly a mandate from his party to gut the law. But ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korean prosecutors said on Sunday that President Park Geun-Hye colluded with her close confidante in a corruption and influence-peddling scandal that has sparked massive nationwide protests and calls for her impeachment. Park’s longtime friend Choi Soon-Sil was charged on Sunday with coercion and abuse of power, as was one of the president’s former aides. Another presidential ...

  Paris / AFP France’s right-wing presidential hopefuls kick off their nominating contest on Sunday as a sudden tightening of the race cast doubt on ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy’s chances of regaining the Elysee Palace. A late surge by the third-placed Francois Fillon, who was prime minister under Sarkozy, catapulted him into pole position for the first-round primary vote. A voter survey ...