SEOUL, Jan 10,2024: South Korea’s main opposition party leader, Lee Jae-myung, said on Wednesday he hoped a stabbing attack he suffered could mark the end of the “politics of hate” in the country.
He was speaking to reporters and supporters after he was discharged from a hospital in Seoul, where he has been recovering since last week’s attack in the southern city of Busan.
“I hope this case which shocked everyone can serve as a milestone to end the politics of hate and confrontation and restore proper politics,” said Lee, who thanked medical staff at the hospital and vowed to serve his country.
The attack was widely condemned as an “act of terror” and a challenge to democracy by President Yoon Suk Yeol and politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties.
Police are due to announce the outcome of an investigation into the attack later on Wednesday.
Earlier, the alleged assailant told reporters he was sorry over the fallout from the attack as he was leaving a police station.
Three members of the main opposition Democratic Party announced they would leave the party citing disagreements over Lee’s leadership while wishing him a swift recovery.
Though the Democratic Party and Yoon’s conservative People Power Party account for the majority of lawmakers in parliament, a number of politicians on both sides of the aisle have indicated they plan to break away to form new parties to run in general elections due in April.
Seoul, Jan 1,2024: Lee Jae-myung, chief of South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party, was attacked by an unidentified man with a knife during his visit to the country’s southeastern port city of Busan Tuesday, according to multiple local media reports.
While taking questions from reporters in Busan at about 10:27 a.m. local time (0127 GMT), Lee was stabbed on the left side of his neck and collapsed on the floor with blood.
The attacker approached Lee asking for an autograph and stabbed him in the left neck, video footage showed.
People around Lee wrestled the attacker to the ground before the police arrested him at the scene.
According to Yonhap news agency, the knife possessed by the attacker was at least 20 centimeters long.
About 20 minutes after the attack, Lee was taken to a hospital in a conscious state.
Dec 25,2023: An Israeli air strike outside the Syrian capital of Damascus has killed a senior adviser in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to reports from Iranian state media.
Sayyed Razi Mousavi, one of the top IRGC commanders in Syria, was killed on Monday.
He was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran, an important part of Iran’s regional network of allies and proxies known as the “Axis of Resistance”.
Mousavi “was killed during an attack by the Zionist regime a few hours ago in Zeinabiyah district in the suburbs of Damascus,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported, using a different name for Sayyida Zeinab south of the Syrian capital.
In a statement read on state TV, the IRGC said that the “usurper and savage Zionist regime will pay for this crime”.
Iran’s state television interrupted its regular news broadcast to announce that Mousavi had been killed, describing him as one of the most experienced IRGC advisers in Syria.
The strike comes amid fears that Israel’s war with the Palestinian armed group Hamas in Gaza could expand into a wider regional conflict, pulling in Iran-backed groups such as Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Mexico City, Dec 18,2023: At least 12 people were shot dead early Sunday during a Christmas party in the municipality of Salvatierra of Guanajuato state, Mexico, authorities said.
The bloodshed occurred during a Christmas posada, traditional Mexican celebration, in the community of San Jose del Carmen, the Guanajuato Attorney General’s Office said, adding that investigation is under way.
According to initial reports from the municipal government, a group of armed attackers arrived unexpectedly and opened fire at posada participants, the majority of them young people, leaving 12 dead and 10 injured.
The wounded were taken to hospitals in the municipality, authorities said, without providing details about their conditions.
In recent years, violence has increased in the region due to the dispute between criminal groups seeking control.
Dec 16,2023: More than 40 Sudanese mothers from the embattled Masalit tribe detailed how their children, mostly boys, were shot, beaten or knifed to death by fighters in the Arab-dominated RSF paramilitary and allied militias. The tribe’s leader alleges this years’ attacks are part of a campaign to exterminate his people.
Arab militiamen had shot, stabbed and burned to death members of their tribe, the darker-skinned Masalit people.
Thousands have died in the attacks. The dead include women and girls. Masalit women also have described enduring sexual assault at the hands of the Arab-dominated RSF and its allies, as Reuters detailed last month.
But in the killing sprees, witnesses say, Arab forces have specifically targeted males for death, from infants to adults.
Thirty-six of the mothers told Reuters their children were shot from close range, 33 of them boys and eight girls. Six of the mothers said they watched as their children, some as young as six months old, were beaten to death by RSF and Arab militia fighters. Five of the six children killed this way were boys.
The killers used knives, too: Ten people who escaped to Chad told Reuters they saw children having their throats slit. All were boys.
Most of these children were killed as they fled with their mothers from El Geneina. En route to Chad, five survivors described seeing militiamen stop women with babies, check the child’s sex, and kill it if it turned out to be a boy.
Masalit men were also hunted down by the RSF and its allies. In the most recent round of violence in El Geneina in early November, Reuters revealed that hundreds of young Masalit men were rounded up and taken to various locations in the city where eyewitnesses said some of them were executed.
More than 30 women interviewed for this report said their husbands, brothers or fathers were killed or went missing in this year’s attacks. Several women said they hid their brothers or smuggled them out of El Geneina for fear they would be targeted. Dozens of men recounted how they cut through valleys and traveled along remote routes to Chad to evade checkpoints set up by the RSF and Arab militias.
Five survivors told Reuters they saw militiamen stop women with babies, check the child’s sex, and kill it if it turned out to be a boy.
Reuters was unable to independently corroborate the details of some accounts. In some cases, friends and neighbors confirmed elements of the survivors’ stories. Common patterns also emerged from the descriptions of the violence given by survivors. For some people, Reuters was able to review registration cards issued for refugees by the United Nations.
U.N. workers in Chad have so far collected demographic data on more than a quarter of the 484,000 refugees who have fled Sudan this year and now reside in camps along the border. Based on this data, the U.N. estimates nearly twice as many adult females as males have crossed the border. Despite the targeting of males, the gap is less pronounced among children, where there is almost parity between the number of boys and girls.
Several mothers of slain children, as well as other witnesses, said the militiamen made clear why they were targeting Masalit boys: They wanted to be sure the children wouldn’t grow up to be fighters and one day seek revenge for the attacks on the Masalit.
A Trail of Blood and Fear
The escape route taken by hundreds of thousands of Masalit in fleeing Sudan. Arab forces specifically hunted down and killed male infants, boys and adults along the way, dozens of survivors told Reuters.
Ana Scattone, an emergency protection officer at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Chadian border town of Adre, said the targeting of males also has a more far-reaching goal. “The objective of the killings seems to be the elimination of future fighters as well as the line of ancestry of a specific ethnic group,” Scattone said.
New Delhi, Dec 13,2023: In a major security breach, when the Lok Sabha proceedings was underway, two persons on Wednesday jumped into the house chamber from the visitors’ gallery, triggering panic and chaos among the members.
Televised footage of the proceedings showed the members attempting to catch the intruders as they climbed from desk to desk. The house was adjourned moments later.
One person was seen leaping over the benches of the Lok Sabha while another was seen dangling from the public gallery spraying a yellow-coloured gas when the Zero Hour was in progress.
Both the miscreants have been apprehended by the security personnel and further enquiry is being carried out.
The proceedings in the lower house were adjourned soon after the incident till 2 PM. According to a preliminary probe, tear gas canister was found in the shoe of the suspect.
It may be mentioned that the incident happened on the 22nd anniversary of the terror attack in Parliament in 2001.
Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, the Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, said, “This is certainly a security breach because today we observed the death anniversary of people who sacrificed their lives in 2001.”
“This is a serious breach of security, especially on December 13, the day when Parliament was attacked in 2001,” Congress MP Karti Chidambaram said.
Samajwadi Party (SP) MP Dimple Yadav also raised concerns and said, “All those who come here, be it visitors or reporters, don’t carry tags. So, I think the government should pay attention to this. I think this is a complete security lapse. Anything could have happened inside the Lok Sabha.”
Meanwhile, two other persons, identified as 42-year-old Neelam and 25-year-old Amol Shinde, were detained by local police outside New Delhi’s Transport Bhavan, where they were protesting with yellow smoke.
After the incident, the proceedings of the Lok Sabha resumed at 2 pm. Speaking over security breach in the lower house, Speaker Om Birla said that initial investigation on the incident which took place during zero hour, is being done and necessary instructions have also been given to Delhi Police.
He added that in the preliminary investigation, it has been found that it was just a cloud of smoke and there was no need to worry about the smoke”
Birla said, “It is our collective responsibility to ensure the functioning of the house despite all adversities”.
United Nations, Oct 18,2023: Marking six months since fighting began in Sudan on April 15, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday almost 4,000 people were killed and thousands of others injured.
UN humanitarians said the fighting also sent hundreds of thousands of people into neighboring South Sudan and Chad.
Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported that the majority of the casualties between April 15 and August are believed to have been targeted mainly due to their ethnicity, particularly in West Darfur.
Dujarric said at least 29 cities, towns and villages were looted and razed across Darfur.
“UNHCR and partners provided displaced families in North and West Darfur with core relief items,” he said. “And of course, the agency, and all of us at the UN, continue to call on the parties to the conflict to guarantee the protection of civilians, including refugees and internally displaced human beings, and to ensure safe passage of humanitarian assistance wherever it’s needed.”
The fighting erupted first in the capital, Khartoum, between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the previously allied Rapid Support Forces and spread throughout the country.
The violence sent thousands fleeing to safer locations within Sudan and neighboring nations.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported thousands of people continue to arrive daily in South Sudan. As of Friday, 310,000 people crossed the border into South Sudan, most of them returning South Sudanese refugees. The number also included Sudanese refugees and third-country nationals.
The humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, Marie-Helene Verney, warns that as the weeks go by, people are arriving with fewer and fewer resources and in an increasingly poor state of health. Malnutrition is also rising among new arrivals as conditions in Sudan deteriorate further.
The International Organization for Migration and its partners helped 150,000 people reach their final destinations. South Sudan also transported thousands of people while many others found their own way.
The humanitarians said additional funding is needed to provide life-saving nutrition services to thousands of children arriving from Sudan. There is also an urgent need to provide adequate space in overcrowded transit centers to reduce the risks of disease outbreaks and gender-based violence.
“South Sudan continues to face overlapping crises, including floods, conflict and food insecurity,” OCHA said. “Some 9.4 million people – 76 percent of the population – need humanitarian assistance. The 1.7 billion U.S. dollar Humanitarian Response Plan for South Sudan is just more than half funded.”
The spokesman said on Monday that Violette Kakyomya, the humanitarian coordinator in Sudan’s neighbor to the west, Chad, reported the conflict triggered a refugee rush, initiating multiple humanitarian crises.
Speaking in Geneva, she said most of the nearly 490,000 refugees crossing the border into eastern Chad to seek safety and protection are mostly women and children.
The influx brought the total number of refugees living in Chad to one million, Dujarric said, meaning that one in 17 people who live in Chad is a refugee.
He said the conflict in Sudan also affects Chad’s supply chain, with the region’s prices of basic food commodities more than doubled. Food insecurity and malnutrition affect 5.7 million people.
” Kakyomya underlined the extreme generosity of the people in Chad who continue to welcome refugees and call for support to ensure a sustained humanitarian support as 7 million Chadians – out of 18 million – need humanitarian assistance this year,” Dujarric said.
The 921 million U.S. dollar Humanitarian Response Plan for Chad is a little more than 25 percent funded.
Jerusalem, Oct 18,2023: Hundreds of people were killed in an airstrike on the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital in the Palestinian enclave on Tuesday.
Gaza’s health ministry said the airstrike was carried out by Israel while the Israeli military said the Islamic Jihad organization is responsible for the “failed shooting” that targeted Israel.
“According to intelligence information from a number of sources we have, Islamic Jihad terrorist organization is responsible for the failed rocket launch that hit the hospital,” said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a statement posted on social media X.
Several Arab and regional countries including Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan and Türkiye have condemned Israel over the airstrikes.
After the attack, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas canceled his participation in a four-way summit to be held in Amman, the capital of Jordan on Wednesday and returned to Ramallah. He was expected to meet with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, and U.S. President Joe Biden at the summit.
Biden is expected to arrive in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ceremonial President Isaac Herzog before heading to Jordan to attend the quartet summit. Biden’s schedule also includes a meeting with Israel’s new wartime Cabinet, according to state-owned Kan TV news.
The Israeli military was in preparations for continuing the fight against the Gaza-ruling Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), following the rampage by Hamas militants in Israel on Oct. 7.
“We are preparing for the next stages of war,” Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli army, told reporters in a briefing on Tuesday. “We haven’t disclosed what they will be. Everyone is discussing the possibility of a ground offensive, but it might be something different.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu toured southern Israel and warned that “the battle (in Gaza) will be carried out with mighty force in the next few days.”
Fresh clashes broke out along the Israeli-Lebanese border on Tuesday. The Israeli military stated that observation troops noticed “a squad attempting to infiltrate the security border fence and plant an explosive device.” At least four of them were killed, the military said. An Israeli attack also targeted “a military infrastructure of Hezbollah” in response to fire directed at Israel on Monday.
Later, an anti-tank missile from Lebanon was launched toward the town of Metula on the Israeli side of the border, triggering Israeli tank strikes in response.
“If Hezbollah makes the mistake of attacking Israel, it will be destroyed,” Israel’s military chief Herzi Halevi warned during a tour in the Northern Command.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Israel on Tuesday to show solidarity with Israel, saying in a statement alongside Netanyahu that he was on “a visit to friends in difficult times.”
The total number of fatalities in Gaza has reached at least 3,000 in the 11-day ongoing war, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The death toll in Israel remains at about 1,300, with most of them killed on Oct. 7 in the Hamas surprise attacks on southern communities.
Hyderabad, Oct 17, 2023: In a resolute demonstration of upholding the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) for the 2023 Telangana State Legislative Assembly election, the Telangana police have confiscated an astonishing Rs 101 crores worth of assets, including cash, liquor, gold/silver, drugs, and freebies, within just eight days of MCC implementation.
According to a press release issued by the Police on Tuesday, the MCC came into effect on October 9, in preparation for the forthcoming Telangana Assembly Elections, which encompass 119 Assembly Constituencies and are scheduled for November 30.
With the initiation of the Model Code of Conduct, and in strict adherence to the guidelines set by the Election Commission of India, the Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana led the police in establishing a comprehensive system that included (373) Flying Squads (FS), (374) Static Surveillance Teams (SST), (95) State Internal Border Check posts, and the deployment of mobile units consisting of local police.
This collective effort aimed to combat illicit transportation of money, such as cash and precious metals, liquor, freebies, and other prohibited items.
During this extensive enforcement operation, the police successfully seized the following items between October 9 and 17, spanning the entire Telangana State:
Ne cash of Rs 55,99,26,994, liquor worth of Rs 2,60,57,004, Ganja (1234 kgs), 0.3 Ltrs – Weed Oil, 0.13 MDMA, all worth Rs. 3,42,84,275, Gold (72.06 kgs) , Silver (429 kgs) and Diamond (42.25 carrot), all worth of Rs. 38,45,44,526, Other Freebies with an estimated worth of Rs. 70,04,500.
Total Seizure with an estimated worth of (Including Cash, Liquor, Precious metals, Drugs & Freebies) Rs. 101,18,17,299.
As many as 5529 licensed arms deposited, 3 un-licensed Arms seized, Explosives — 18 Gelatin sticks, five detonators & 6 cordtex wire bundles also seized during the period.
Total Bind over cases were 5252. 17,128 persons were bound over , 845 persons were bound down.
This remarkable enforcement effort showcases the commitment of the Telangana Police in ensuring fair and transparent elections in the state.
Washington, Sep 30 (UNI) Scott Hall, one of the co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case involving former President Donald Trump, has entered a guilty plea during a hearing in Fulton County Superior Court.
Hall faces seven charges alleging he was part of a conspiracy, along with former President Trump, to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election in Georgia. Scott is specifically accused of tampering with electronic voting machines in Coffee County.
Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee on Friday imposed 12-month probation for each count against him, effectively resulting in a five-year probation term, along with a $1,000 fine for each count, totaling $5,000.
In addition, McAfee ordered Scott not to participate in any activities regarding polling or the administration of elections.
UNI/SPU