Taipei / AFP Taiwan’s defence minister warned on Tuesday that enemy threats were growing daily after China’s aircraft carrier and a flotilla of other warships passed south of the island in an exercise as tensions rise. After sailing south of Taiwan itself, the Liaoning and five other warships on Monday passed the Taiwan-administered Dongsha Islands in the South China …

  Seoul / AFP South Korea’s ruling conservative party officially split Tuesday over the impeachment of scandal-hit President Park Geun-Hye, threatening to complicate presidential elections that could be held as soon as March. A group of 29 lawmakers left the ruling Saenuri Party, arguing that its leadership refuses to embrace reforms despite the political crisis fuelled by the corruption scandal that …

  Seoul / AFP North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is planning a “prime time” nuclear weapons push in 2017 to take advantage of leadership transitions in South Korea and the United States, a high-ranking defector said on Tuesday. In his first press conference since fleeing his post as North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain in August, Thae Yong-Ho said Kim …