The actor had been under investigation for alleged illegal drug use. Seoul police point to apparent suicide.
South Korean actor Lee Sun-kyun, best known for his role in the Oscar-winning film Parasite, has been found dead, police said.
Lee, 48, died by apparent suicide in a Seoul park on Wednesday, according to officials in the capital.
The actor had been under police investigation over his alleged drug use. Infringements of South Korea’s tough drug laws can lead to six months in jail, or up to 14 years for repeat offenders and dealers.
Lee was found in a car at a park in central Seoul, police said.
“Less than 30 minutes earlier, his manager had called for help after the embattled actor left his home, leaving behind what appeared to be a suicide note,” said Al Jazeera’s Eunice Kim, reporting from Seoul.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing police, that Lee had left a “note that reads like a will”.
“The top actor had been under intense pressure since October,” our correspondent said. “That’s when he faced allegations of drug use, including marijuana, which is a high crime here in South Korea. Over the weekend he underwent intense police questioning, some 19 hours.”
South Korean actor Lee Sun-Kyun from the Oscar-winning film ‘Parasite’ has been found dead at 48, while under investigation for illegal drug use ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/2RRaiCxyzK
The actor had faced police questioning three times over accusations of illegal drug use amid a government crackdown.
Lee had said he was tricked into taking drugs that he believed were sleeping pills by a bar hostess trying to blackmail him, our correspondent said.
South Korea is under a wider crackdown on drug use after President Yoon Suk-yeol declared a war on drugs this year.
“Several celebrities have been called in for questioning in recent months,” Kim said. “South Korea does have some of the strictest rules when it comes to illegal substances, with prison time upwards of 14 years even if the drug use happened outside of the country.”
Our correspondent said messages of grief had been pouring in since news of Lee’s death was confirmed.
Once celebrated for his wholesome image, local news outlets reported that the actor was being dropped from television and commercial projects following the drug use scandal.
A graduate of South Korea’s prestigious Korea National University of Arts, Lee made his acting debut in 2001 in a television sitcom titled Lovers.
He later won acclaim for his performances in a variety of roles, including a charismatic chef and a genius neuroscientist who is incapable of empathy.
Globally, he is best known for his portrayal of the wealthy and shallow patriarch in director Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 Oscar-winning film, Parasite.
Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG), the United States Navy-led coalition of the willing intended to allow international shipping to continue navigating safely through the Red Sea, is set to activate within days. Including allies from Europe and the Middle East, as well as Canada and Australia, the operation has been snubbed by three important NATO countries, France, Italy and Spain.
What is the exact task of OPG?
The official line, “to secure safe passage for the commercial ships”, is too vague for any naval flag officer to feel comfortable getting into. Admirals want politicians to give them precise tasks and clear mandates needed to achieve the desired results.
Defining the threat seems easy, for now: antiship missiles and drones of various types carrying explosive warheads have been targeting merchant ships on the way to and from the Suez Canal. All were fired from Yemen, by the Houthi group also known as Ansar Allah which now controls most of the country, including the longest section of its 450km-long Red Sea coast. All missiles were surface-launched, with warheads that can damage but hardly sink big cargo ships.
The Houthis at first announced that they would target Israeli-owned ships, then expanded that to include all those using Israeli ports, ultimately to those trading with Israel. After several attacks where the Israeli connection appeared very distant or vague, it is prudent to assume that any ship could be targeted.
All missiles neutralised by US and French warships so far were shot down by sophisticated shipborne surface-to-air missiles (SAM), proving that the modern vertical-launch systems guided by the latest generation phased array radars work as designed. Many nations earmarked to participate in OPG have ships with similar capabilities. Almost all also carry modern surface-to-surface missiles that can attack targets at sea or land.
If the task of OPG were to be defined narrowly, only to prevent hits on merchant ships, it could be performed using the centuries-old principle of sailing in convoys with the protection of warships.
In a convoy, slow, defenceless commercial cargos sail in several columns at precisely defined distances from each other — led, flanked and tailed by fast warships that can take on any threat. The system is effective, as the United Kingdom, Russia, Malta, and many other countries saved by convoys in World War II can attest.
But every strategy has its limitations. A convoy is big and cumbersome, extending for miles to give behemoth ships a safe distance from each other and to enable them to manoeuvre if needed. Whatever the protective measures taken, huge tankers and container carriers – longer than 300 metres (984 feet) – still present big targets. Captains of commercial ships are generally not trained in convoy operations, and most have no experience operating in large groups or under military command.
Their escorts, even if well-armed, carry a limited number of missiles and must plan their use carefully, allowing for further attacks down the shipping lane and ultimately leaving a war reserve for the defence of the ship itself. Once they expend some of the missiles, they need to replenish them – a task that is possible at sea but done much more quickly and safely in a friendly port out of reach of Houthi missiles.
To clear the critical 250 nautical miles (463km) along the Yemeni coast leading to or from the Bab al-Mandeb strait, advancing at assumed 15 knots (28kmph) — as convoys always sail at the speed of the slowest units — ships would be exposed to even the shortest-ranged Houthi missiles and drones for at least 16 hours.
And before even trying to make the dash, they would be particularly vulnerable in the staging areas in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden where ships would spend some time gathering, forming the convoy and setting under way.
The Houthi missile threat is now known to be high, and their arsenal is substantial. Naval planners must be worried by their ability to mount concentrated prolonged attacks simultaneously from several directions.
This was demonstrated in the very first attack, on October 19, when the Houthi launched four cruise missiles and 15 drones at USS Carney, a destroyer that is still operating in the Red Sea and will be part of OPG. The attack, probably planned to test the Houthis’ attack doctrine and enemy response, lasted nine hours, forcing the crew of the target ship to maintain full readiness and concentration for a prolonged period to intercept all incoming missiles.
Every admiral would tell his political superiors that military necessity would call for attacks on Houthi missile infrastructure on the ground in Yemen: fixed and mobile launch sites, production and storage facilities, command centres and whatever little radar infrastructure there exists. A proactive response to the missile threat, in other words, to destroy the Houthi ship-targeting capability, rather than the reactive one limited to shooting missiles down as they come in.
In theory, attacks against Houthi missile infrastructure could be based on satellite and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) reconnaissance and carried out by missiles launched from the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean and armed drones from distant land bases. But the only realistic chance at meaningful success would require the use of combat aircraft, bombers based on the two US Navy nuclear carriers in the region.
Attacks against targets in Yemen would have a clear military justification. But they would also carry a clear political risk: that of the West, particularly the US, being seen in the Arab and Islamic world as actually entering the Gaza war on the side of Israel. After all, the Houthis say their attacks on Red Sea ships are aimed at getting Israel to end the war.
Aware of the perils of such a development that could easily cause the conflict to spread, the US has tried to tread carefully, engaging with regional powers, and sending messages that it wants no escalation. It even openly demanded of its ally Israel that it limit civilian suffering and end the conflict as quickly as possible — to no avail.
The White House and the Pentagon are now walking on hot coals. If they do nothing, the Red Sea route will quickly close, causing US, European and Asian economies significant damage. If the half measures they currently propose, just escorting convoys without attacking missile sites on land, fail to secure safe passage, they will have lost face and failed in preventing an economic downturn. And if the US is eventually forced to attack, it will have directly contributed to a dangerous escalation that may be difficult to contain.
Mindful of all these dilemmas, France, Italy and Spain are playing it safe: they will “unilaterally” deploy their frigates to the Red Sea to “protect the ships of their respective nations”. Should the US Navy ultimately attack Yemen, the Europeans will be able to claim that they did not contribute to the intensification of the war, shoving all the responsibility to the US.
Zubaida travelled from the rural outskirts of Khost in eastern Afghanistan to give birth at a maternity hospital specialising in complicated cases, fearing a fate all too common among pregnant Afghan women – either her death or that of her child.
She lay dazed, surrounded by the unfamiliar bustle of the hospital run by international medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF. She was exhausted from the delivery the day before, but also relieved.
Her still-weak newborn slept nearby in an iron crib with peeling paint, the child’s eyes lined with kohl to ward off evil.
“If I had given birth at home, there could have been complications for the baby and for me,” said Zubaida, who doesn’t know her age.
Not all women who make it to the hospital are so lucky.
“Sometimes we receive patients who come too late to save their lives” after delivering at home, said Therese Tuyisabingere, the head of midwifery at MSF in Khost, the capital of the eastern province of Khost.
The facility delivers 20,000 babies a year, nearly half of those born in the province, and it only takes on high-risk and complicated pregnancies, many involving mothers who haven’t had any check-ups.
“This is a big challenge for us to save lives,” said Tuyisabingere.
She and the some 100 midwives at the clinic are on the front lines of a battle to reduce the maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan, where every birth carries major risks and with the odds against women mounting.
Afghanistan is among the worst countries in the world for deaths during childbirth, “with one woman dying every two hours”, said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, this month.
The Afghan Ministry of Public Health did not respond to requests for comment.
According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) figures, from 2017, 638 women died in Afghanistan for every 100,000 viable births, compared with 19 in the United States.
That figure conceals the huge disparities between rural and urban areas.
Terje Watterdal, country director for the non-profit Norwegian Afghanistan Committee (NAC), said they saw 5,000 maternal deaths per 100,000 births in remote parts of the country.
“Men carry the women over their shoulders, and the women die over the mountain trying to reach a hospital,” he said.
Pyongyang is thought to use the money stolen in cyber-heists to fund its illegal weapons programmes.
South Korea has imposed sanctions on North Korea’s spy chief and seven other North Koreans for alleged illicit cyber activities, which are believed to fund their country’s nuclear weapons and conventional missile programmes.
Ri Chang Ho, the head of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, was sanctioned for his involvement in “earning foreign currency through illegal cyber activities and technology theft”, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
His activities contributed to “generating revenue for the North Korean regime and procuring funds for its nuclear and missile activities”, it added.
Ri heads the agency that is believed to be the parent organisation for North Korean hacking groups Kimsuky, Lazarus and Andariel, which have been previously sanctioned by Seoul. A United Nations report earlier this year found North Korea was using ever more sophisticated techniques to target foreign aerospace and defence companies, and steal a record amount of cryptocurrency assets.
Pyongyang is already under international sanctions for its atomic bomb and ballistic missile programmes, which have seen rapid progress under leader Kim Jong Un who has moved ahead with his plan to modernise the military and acquire ever more advanced weaponry.
The sanctions’ announcement came weeks after Seoul, Tokyo and Washington launched new three-way initiatives encompassing measures to address North Korea’s cybercrime, cryptocurrency and money laundering activities, which are believed to fund the country’s nuclear and missile programmes.
Along with Ri, Seoul has sanctioned seven other North Koreans, including former China-based diplomat Yun Chol, for being involved in the “trade of lithium-6, a nuclear-related mineral and UN-sanctioned material for North Korea”.
Those blacklisted are barred from conducting foreign exchange and financial transactions with South Korean nationals without prior authorisation from Seoul, measures analysts say are mostly symbolic given the scant trade between the two countries.
Seoul has now blacklisted 83 individuals and 53 entities related to Pyongyang’s weapons programmes since October last year, its Foreign Ministry said.
North Korea has recently ramped up its nuclear and military threats, successfully launching a reconnaissance satellite on its third attempt in November and earlier this month testing the solid-fuel Hwasong-18, its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), for the third time in 2023.
Kim said last week that Pyongyang would not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack if it was “provoked” with nuclear weapons.
“Our government has made it clear that North Korea’s provocations will inevitably come with a price,” Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said in its statement on Wednesday.
“Our government will continue to closely cooperate with the international community… to make North Korea realise this fact, cease provocations, and engage in dialogue for denuclearisation.”
According to Seoul, Tokyo and Washington, Pyongyang stole as much as $1.7bn in cryptocurrency last year alone and supported its weapons programmes in part by gathering information through “malicious cyber activities”.
In June, Seoul sanctioned a Russian national over allegedly founding a North Korean front company in Mongolia to assist Pyongyang in evading sanctions to secure financing for its banned weapons programmes.
The latest sanctions were announced as Kim opened a year-end meeting of the country’s ruling party.
Kim told delegates that 2023 had been a “year of great turn and great change” as well as one of “great importance”, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
He also noted that the country’s new weapons, including its spy satellite, had “unswervingly put” North Korea “on the position of a military power”.
The dead include a nine-year-old child who was swept into a surging storm drain on the outskirts of Brisbane.
At least eight people have been killed with one still missing after severe storms battered Australia’s eastern states over the Christmas holidays, bringing down trees and power lines and leaving tens of thousands of households without power.
Police and rescue services in the states of Victoria and Queensland confirmed the deaths of eight people, the youngest a nine-year-old girl who was reportedly swept away in a flooded storm drain on the outskirts of Brisbane, Queensland’s capital.
In Gympie, some 180km (111 miles) north of the city, three women were swept into a storm drain when floodwaters surged through the rural town.
One of the women survived, a 40-year-old woman died and emergency services said there were now “grave concerns” for the other woman. Queensland Fire and Emergency Services deputy commissioner Kevin Walsh said rescue teams would continue scouring the area on Wednesday.
“It’s absolutely tragic news for families in this region at Christmas time,” Gympie Mayor Glen Hartwig told ABC News.
Severe thunderstorms hit the country’s eastern coast on December 25 and December 26, bringing large hailstones, high winds and torrential rain. Rivers flooded and high winds blew off roofs and brought down trees in some of the worst-affected areas.
Eleven people were tossed into the ocean when their boat capsized at sea off Brisbane. Police said on Wednesday that three people had drowned, while eight were rescued from the water and rushed to hospital.
“It has been a very tragic 24 hours due to the weather,” Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll told reporters.
The Bureau of Meteorology has warned that coastal regions in Queensland were still at risk of “dangerous” storms as well as “life-threatening” floods, “giant” hail and “damaging” winds.
Queensland’s power company Energex said the storm brought down more than 1,000 power lines and about 86,000 households remained without electricity.
It was expected to take days to restore power to some people, the company said.
Meanwhile, in Victoria, a woman was found dead late on Tuesday evening after flash floods swamped a regional campground in Buchan, 350km (217 miles) east of the state capital Melbourne.
Two people were also killed by falling trees.
The wild weather also took a toll on the annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race.
Less than 24 hours after the 95 boats left Sydney Harbour on December 26 on their way south to the Tasmanian capital, eight entrants had pulled out.
The Sydney to Hobart race got underway on December 26 [David Gray/AFP]
SHK Scallywag, a Hong Kong-owned ship that had been contesting for the lead, was damaged and crew member Geoff Cropley said the sailors had endured “lightning and thunder for hours”.
They were now “hunkered down”, he added, with the weather slowly beginning to improve.
First held in 1945, this year marks the 25th anniversary of a violent storm that tore into the 1998 race fleet, with wild winds whipping up mountainous seas in which six people died, five boats sank and 55 sailors were rescued.
The east coast storms come after former Tropical Cyclone Jasper made landfall earlier this month, causing flooding and widespread damage in Queensland.
In the country’s west, meanwhile, several regions are fighting fires. A volunteer firefighter was killed while responding to a bushfire, media reported.
Australia is currently in an El Nino, which can cause extremes ranging from wildfires to tropical cyclones and prolonged droughts.
As the war enters its 672nd day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Wednesday, December 27, 2023.
Fighting
Ukraine said it destroyed the Novocherkassk landing ship in an attack on a naval base in Russian-occupied Crimea. Russia acknowledged the ship had been damaged and that the attack started a fire which was brought under control. One person was killed and four injured.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said his troops remained on the northern edge of Marinka after Russia’s defence minister said Moscow was in control of the now-ruined town, a short drive from the Russian-occupied regional centre of Donetsk. Zaluzhnyi said Marinka “no longer existed” due to the destruction wreaked upon it.
Ukraine said at least one person was killed and four others injured in a Russian attack on a railway station in the southern city of Kherson, where about 140 people were preparing for an evacuation.
Ukraine’s Air Force said its air defence systems destroyed 13 of the 19 drones Russia launched against Ukraine during the night.
Politics and diplomacy
Taiwan announced an expansion to its list of sanctioned goods for Russia and its ally Belarus over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in a move the Economy Ministry said was necessary to prevent Taiwanese high-tech goods from being used for military purposes. The list includes equipment for making semiconductors as well as certain chemicals and medicines, the ministry said in a statement.
Jakarta, Indonesia – For more than a decade, Mary Jane Veloso has been held in a prison in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta awaiting execution after being found guilty of drug trafficking.
This year, her family got to see her for the first time in five years.
“Mary Jane has been here in Indonesia for a very long time already. Before Mary Jane’s father and I pass away, we hope that she comes home for her children and she will be the one that takes care of her children,” her mother Celia told Al Jazeera.
“It’s been a very long time. We want her back,” she added.
Like many Filipinos, Veloso sought work overseas because the money was better than at home.
Leaving her two sons with her mother, she first went to Dubai where she spent nine months as a domestic worker.
After another household employee allegedly tried to rape her, Veloso left her job and returned home to the Philippines where she was approached by a woman named Maria Kristina Sergio who said she had a job for her in Malaysia.
Eager for another chance, Veloso accepted the offer but when she got to Malaysia, she found there was no work.
Sergio, her contact, instead suggested Veloso join her on a holiday to Indonesia, but when the women landed at Yogyakarta’s Adisutjipto Airport in April 2010, officials found 2.6kg (5.7 pounds) of heroin in 25-year-old Veloso’s suitcase.
Six months later, she was found guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced to death.
Despite a tough line on drugs by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who was first elected in 2014, Veloso has so far managed to escape the firing squad.
Veloso’s family speaking to the media about their efforts to secure clemency earlier this year [File: Rolex Dela Pena/EPA]
She won a last-minute reprieve in 2015, when seven foreigners and an Indonesian were executed, after Sergio turned herself in to the Philippines police on allegations of people trafficking and the government in Manila under then President Benigno Aquino asked for Veloso’s case to be reviewed.
As Widodo enters his last few months in office, Veloso’s family are now hoping the outgoing president will agree to clemency for the Filipino after, in March, giving a rare pardon to another domestic worker who had also been sentenced to death.
‘Forced to go abroad’
Veloso’s supporters argue she is a victim of human trafficking.
According to the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), which is raising awareness about Veloso’s case, the drugs were “secretly stashed in a bag given to her by the brother of Tintin’s [Sergio’s] boyfriend in Malaysia without Mary Jane’s knowledge, consent or intention”.
Hailing from Nueva Ecija, north of Manila on the island of Luzon, all the women in the Veloso family were among the millions of Filipinos working overseas to provide for their families.
“Our life is very difficult, it’s very hard, we don’t have much [money] to eat,” their mother Celia Veloso explained. “That’s why we are forced to make a choice to go abroad. All of my daughters, four of them… all worked overseas”.
Mary Jane’s recruiters for the supposed job in Malaysia, Sergio and Julius Lacanilao, were found guilty in January 2020 of running an alleged illegal recruitment network and sentenced to life in prison.
Veloso has also filed a case against the pair in the same court but has been unable to give testimony because it needs to be delivered in person and she cannot do so because while being on death row in Indonesia.
“The only barrier right now for that to move forward is for both governments, both Indonesia and the Philippine government, to agree on the technicality… where this testimony will be taken,” said Joanna Concepcion, who chairs Migrante International, an organisation advocating for Veloso.
Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah told Al Jazeera he had not followed up on the issue and referred questions to the Ministry of Law and Human Rights.
The law ministry spokesperson did not reply to Al Jazeera’s questions.
Mary Jane Veloso at a prison craft workshop in 2016 [Rana Dyandra/Antara Foto via Reuters]
Widodo and former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who took office after Aquino, shared the same hardline approach to drugs, with Duterte leading a brutal crackdown, which left thousands dead and is now the subject of an International Criminal Court investigation.
Instead of seeking clemency from Indonesia, Widodo said Duterte had given the green light for Veloso’s execution in 2015. The Philippines, which does not use capital punishment, said Duterte had said he would simply respect the judicial process.
Migrante International’s Concepcion says there does not seem to have been much of a change in approach since Ferdinand Marcos Jr took office in June 2022.
“He continues the same policy and has not publicly said that it would change anything that Duterte had done,” she said.
Indonesia and the Philippines are founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Indonesia was the first country Marcos Jr visited after he was elected president..
“Maybe he is playing it safe,” Concepcion added. “It was his first state visit at that time as president, so I’m sure that the agenda items that he would discuss were very carefully planned out, of what specific issues that his first state visit would focus on”.
In the first two years of Widodo’s first term, 18 people, including two women, were executed. All had been found guilty of drug offences.
Under international law, where the death penalty exists, it is supposed to be used only for the “most serious crimes”, a threshold that does not include drug crimes.
Amid widespread criticism from national, regional and global human rights defenders, there has not been an execution in Indonesia since July 2016, according to Afif Abdul Qoyim, coordinator of the Community Legal Aid Institute (LBHM), an organisation that campaigns against the death penalty.
Activists have been calling for a moratorium, but one is not formally in place.
“[The president] still can arrange an execution any time he wants, or the next government can also do it in the early part of their reign,” Afif told Al Jazeera.
Maintaining pressure
Earlier this year, Jokowi gave clemency to another female migrant worker, Merri Utami, who was almost executed in 2016.
Even though Merri Utami’s and Veloso’s cases share some similarities, Afif notes some key differences.
“One of the factors, probably, is the nationality. Merri Utami is Indonesian, while Mary Jane has a foreign nationality,” he explained, adding that Indonesia often tried to suggest that it was foreigners who were most involved in drug trafficking.
Still, Mary Jane Veloso is not losing hope.
While Marcos Jr may seem to have continued the Duterte approach to the case, on the sidelines of his visit to Indonesia, his Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo made a request for “executive clemency” for Veloso during a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi in Jakarta.
Now Veloso’s legal team is lodging an appeal before Widodo leaves office.
“The truth is, the first clemency was to SBY [Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president from 2004-2014]. Mary Jane never asked clemency to Jokowi,” Veloso’s lawyer Agus Salim told Al Jazeera.
The Indonesia general election is scheduled for February 2024.
“We are going to keep pushing until Widodo formally leaves the office… We’re still hopeful that there are some actions, some development,” Concepcion said.
Veloso’s family is anxiously awaiting developments.
Her eldest son Mark Danielle is now 20 years old,
“It’s hard to grow up without my mother,” he said. “We really want to be with my mother and be able to see her every day, to see her, to hug her.”
Ukrainian authorities say Russian shelling of a train station kills a police officer and injures four others.
Ukrainian officials say at least one person has been killed and four others injured in a Russian attack on a rail station in the southern city of Kherson, as Russia’s invasion continues to take a heavy toll on Ukrainian civilians.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenk said the Russian shelling struck the rail station on Tuesday as about 140 people there were preparing for an evacuation, killing a policeman.
“Thanks to the clear actions of the police, everyone was successfully taken to safe places,” Klymenko said on Telegram.
“Unfortunately, a police lieutenant from the Kirovohrad region lost his life due to the shelling … Two more police officers are in the hospital with shrapnel wounds.”
The city was captured by Russian forces after they first invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but were pushed out of the city by a Ukrainian counteroffensive in November of the same year. But Russian forces have continued to bombard the city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported the shelling attack earlier on Tuesday, and two civilians are being treated at a hospital for shrapnel wounds alongside the two wounded police officers.
The Ukrainian railway company Ukrzaliznytsya said in a message on Telegram that a train and the station were damaged but that “the situation is under control and the railway is ready to continue functioning.”
Roman Mrochko, the head of the Kherson military administration, had said earlier on Tuesday that the city has been targeted for the last day by persistent Russian attacks.
The war in Ukraine has continued to kill and injure many civilians, and the conflict has shown few signs of abating soon.
Ukrainian fighters struck a Russian ship in the Black Sea on Tuesday, boosting the morale of Ukrainian forces that have faced difficult questions after a much-anticipated counteroffensive failed to win back substantial territory from Russia over the summer.
“This latest destruction of Putin’s navy demonstrates that those who believe there’s a stalemate in the Ukraine war are wrong!” UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Chinese President Xi Jinping renewed his longstanding vow to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s heel in a speech marking the late Communist leader Mao Zedong’s 130th birthday.
“The complete reunification of our motherland is an overall trend, a righteous cause, and the common aspiration of the people,” the 70-year-old proclaimed Tuesday, according to the South China Morning Post. “Our motherland must be reunified, and it will surely be reunified.”
Taiwan has operated as a self-governing island since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, with its own government, currency, and military.
Beijing has long maintained that Taiwan is part of China and Xi has kept military force on the table to bring about a reunification, though he reportedly told President Biden last month that his preference is to annex the island peacefully.
Xi Jinping voiced opposition to any international efforts to separate China from Taiwan. ZUMAPRESS.com
For decades, the US has observed a so-called “One China” policy, which acknowledges Beijing’s claim to the island, but does not recognize it.
Meanwhile, officials in Washington have kept the specter of military intervention on the table if China attempts to invade.
Biden has repeatedly suggested that the US would take military action if China invades Taiwan, only for the White House to repeatedly backpedal on some of those suggestions.
Taiwan is set to hold its presidential election next month. Brennan O’Connor/ZUMA / SplashNews.com
During Tuesday’s speech in Beijing, Xi also hailed Mao as a “spiritual treasure.”
Ironically, Mao had Xi’s father purged from the Chinese Communist Party, while the future leader was sent to work in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution of the late-1960s. Xi ultimately was accepted back into the CCP fold at the tenth time of asking in the mid-1970s.
China has been building up its military at a fervent clip. AFP/Getty Images
Taiwan is poised to hold presidential elections in January, and Western officials have expressed fears that the CCP may meddle in the vote.
Incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen, whose Democratic Progressive Party has endorsed Taiwanese nationalism and close ties with the US, is term-limited and therefore not able to vie for reelection as president.
Panel’s approval clears another hurdle in Sweden’s accession process to the bloc in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs commission has approved Sweden’s NATO membership bid.
The decision, taken on Tuesday, is a key step towards enlarging the military alliance after 19 months of delays in which Ankara demanded security-related concessions from Stockholm.
The commission, controlled by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), voted to back the bid made by Sweden last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The next step is a vote by the full parliament, in which the AK Party and its allies hold a majority. Sweden’s NATO membership is expected to pass, and then the measure would go to Erdogan. If he signs it into law, he would conclude a process that has taken nearly two years and frustrated some of Ankara’s allies in the West.
Commission head Fuat Oktay, however, played down expectations for a speedy vote in the full Grand National Assembly, telling reporters that the speaker would decide on a timing for the vote. Parliament also has a two-week recess in early January.
“The decision to submit it to the general assembly has been made now, but this should not be interpreted as [a sign] that it will pass the general assembly with the same speed. There is no such thing,” Oktay said.
In a statement after the commission’s approval, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said Sweden welcomed the move and looked forward to joining NATO.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg also hailed the approval by the Turkish parliamentary commission.
“I welcome the vote by the Turkish parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership,” Stoltenberg said, urging Turkey and fellow holdout Hungary to complete their ratifications “as soon as possible”.
All NATO members, which now number 31, are required to approve new memberships.
Erdogan raised objections in May last year to both Swedish and Finnish requests to join the alliance over what he said was their protection of people whom Turkey accuses of being “terrorists” and over their defence of trade embargoes.
Turkey ratified Finland’s bid in April but kept Sweden waiting until it took more steps to crack down on local members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey, the European Union and the United States list as a terrorist group.
In response, Stockholm introduced a bill that makes being a member of a “terrorist organisation” illegal.
Sweden and NATO members Finland, Canada and the Netherlands also took steps to relax arms-export policies affecting Turkey.
While NATO member Hungary has also not ratified Sweden’s membership, Turkey is seen as the main roadblock to adding the Scandinavian nation to the military alliance and bolstering its defences in the Baltic Sea region.
Erdogan had also linked Turkey’s ratification of Sweden’s membership with the US approval of sales of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.
After a call with US President Joe Biden this month, he said Washington was considering the ratification to move on the request.
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