President’s top aides offer to quit as Korean political crisis deepens

Senior aides of Yoon Suk Yeol have offered to resign after two new judges were named to a court set to decide the impeached president’s fate.

An arrest warrant has been issued to detain Mr Yoon for questioning over his botched attempt to impose martial law last month after the president ignored multiple summons to answer charges of insurrection and abuse of power.

Acting president Choi Sang Mok on Tuesday approved two new judges for the Constitutional Court, which is set to rule on the validity of Mr Yoon’s impeachment by the National Assembly. The nine-judge court had three seats vacant.

If at least six of the judges rule to uphold the parliamentary decision, Mr Yoon will be removed from power.

After Mr Choi appointed the new judges, Mr Yoon’s chief of staff, policy chief, national security advisor, and special advisor on foreign affairs and security gave their resignations, as did all other senior secretaries, the president’s office said in a statement.

Mr Choi said he would not accept their resignations as the priority now was to focus on improving the economy and stabilising state affairs, his office said.

The aides had repeatedly asked to step down in the wake of Mr Yoon’s shortlived attempt to declare martial law on 3 December, but their resignations were not accepted.

Following the judicial appointments on Tuesday, the presidential office expressed regret that Mr Choi had exceeded his authority as the interim leader, the state news agency Yonhap reported.

A South Korean official told the Reuters news agency that the senior secretaries had been assisting Mr Choi since he took over as the acting president. Two other officials said the aides didn’t participate in day-to-day government operations, but were required to report to Mr Choi and attend meetings.

Mr Choi, the finance minister, assumed the position of acting president on Friday, after the parliament impeached prime minister Han Duck Soo, who had been acting president since 14 December. Mr Han’s impeachment in turn was prompted by his refusal to appoint three judges nominated by the National Assembly to fill the vacancies on the Constitutional Court.

Additional inputs by agencies.

Taliban bans windows to stop women from being seen at home

The Taliban have banned windows in residential buildings to stop women from being seen while they are at home in Afghanistan.

Hibatullah Akhundzada, the leader of the Taliban, ordered that buildings should not have windows looking into places where a woman could be sitting or standing.

The order applies to both new buildings and existing ones, according to a four-clause decree posted on social media site X (formerly Twitter) late on Saturday.

The decree, posted by government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid on X, states that new buildings should not have windows where you can see “the courtyard, kitchen, neighbour’s well and other places usually used by women”, AFP reports.

“Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts.”

The decree stipulates that in properties with windows that do not fit the new guidelines, owners will be urged to either construct a wall or block the view “to avoid nuisances caused to neighbours”.

Heather Barr, the interim deputy director of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch, told The Independent: “People have talked about the Taliban metaphorically erasing women, but increasingly, it is not metaphorical at all.

“They have already ordered that women’s voices shouldn’t be heard in public, and now they are essentially stopping women from even looking out of the window.

“They are stopping women from being seen. They are stopping women from seeing the world. It’s a total annihilation of women’s personhood and it is clearly ongoing. We don’t have any idea where this will end.”

The Taliban, a hardline Islamist group that previously ruled Afghanistan, has blocked women from the workplace, education and public spaces, as well as barring them from taking part in all sports, since seizing power after US and British forces withdrew in 2021.

Women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are currently prohibited from going to a salon, working out at the gym, and even speaking or praying in public.

Within a month of claiming Kabul, the Taliban’s education ministry banned girls and women from schools. The Taliban leaders also announced that the girls were barred from studying beyond the sixth grade – with the ban extended to colleges and universities in December 2022.

The window ban comes as the Taliban have said they will close all national and foreign non-governmental groups (NGOs) in Afghanistan that employ women.

It comes two years after they told NGOs to suspend the employment of Afghan women, allegedly because they did not wear the Islamic headscarf correctly.

In a letter published on X on Sunday night, the Ministry of Economy warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their licences to operate in Afghanistan.

The United Nations said that the position of women in Afghan society had shrunk dramatically in the last two years, and reiterated its call for the Taliban to reverse the restrictions.

“This really impacts how we can provide lifesaving humanitarian assistance to all the people in Afghanistan,” UN associate spokesperson Florencia Soto Nino-Martinez said.

“And obviously we are very concerned by the fact that we are talking about a country where half the population’s rights are being denied and they are living in poverty, and many of them, not just women, are facing a humanitarian crisis.”

The ministry said it is responsible for the registration, coordination, leadership and supervision of all activities carried out by national and foreign organisations.

The government is once again ordering the stoppage of all female work in institutions not controlled by the Taliban, according to the letter.

It is the Taliban’s latest attempt to control or intervene in NGO activity.

Earlier this month, the UN Security Council heard that an increasing proportion of female Afghan humanitarian workers were prevented from doing their work even though relief work remains critical.

According to Tom Fletcher, a senior UN official, the proportion of humanitarian organisations reporting that their female or male staff were stopped by the Taliban’s morality police has also increased.

The Taliban deny they are stopping aid agencies from carrying out their work or interfering with their activities.

Additional reporting by AP

South Korea plane crash: Everything we know so far

All but two of the 181 passengers and crew on a Jeju Air flight have been killed after the plane crash-landed and skidded off a runway at a South Korean airport and hit a concrete perimeter fence, bursting into flames.

The country’s fire service has said that two crew were rescued from the wreckage, but it is the worst aviation disaster ever in South Korea.

Here is everything we know so far:

The Jeju Air flight from Bangkok crashed while attempting to land at Muan International Airport in southwestern South Korea on Sunday morning. Footage showed the Boeing 737-800 “belly landing” without landing gear and sliding at high speed along the runway before hitting the wall.

Local TV stations aired footage showing thick plumes of black smoke billowing from the plane, which was engulfed in flames.

Witnesses reported hearing loud “bang” noises before the aircraft struck the wall.

The exact cause of the crash is still under investigation. Local broadcaster MBC aired footage that appears to show a bird strike incident as the plane was descending. Officials have also said weather conditions may have played a role.

The crashed plane’s black box has been retrieved, according to a senior Transport Ministry official.

Transport Ministry officials have said their early assessment of communications records show the airport control tower issued a bird strike warning to the plane shortly before it intended to land. The flight had reportedly attempted one landing before being forced to “go around” when the landing gear failed to lower normally.

Jeju Air CEO Kim Yi-bae said later they had found no issues when the plane was inspected prior to the crash.

“The question about whether the landing gear was working properly or not is related to the accident investigation,” he said. “You will hear the result when it comes out.”

8.57am local time: Muan International Airport’s control tower issued a warning over possible bird strikes.

8.58am: The pilot sent a “Mayday” distress signal.

9am: The plane attempted to land on the runway but failed to deploy its landing gear.

9.03am: the aircraft crash-landed on its fuselage, collided with the airport fence, and erupted into flames.

Experts said the bird strike report and the way the aircraft attempted to land raised more questions than answers.

“At this point there are a lot more questions than we have answers. Why was the plane going so fast? Why were the flaps not open? Why was the landing gear not down?,” said Gregory Alegi, an aviation expert and former teacher at Italy’s air force academy.

According to the transport ministry, investigators have recovered both black boxes from the wreckage: the cockpit voice recorder at 11.30am and the flight data recorder at 2.24pm. Eight aircraft accident investigators and nine aviation safety inspectors were conducting initial investigations at the scene.

The only two survivors so far are two of the six crew members.

Media reports indicate that they were near the rear emergency exit. It’s believed they escaped after the tail section detached during the crash.

They were pulled from the wreckage and taken to hospital.

One of the survivors was being treated for fractures to his ribs, shoulder blade and upper spine, said Ju Woong, director of the Ewha Womans University Seoul Hospital. Mr Ju said the 33-year-old man, called Lee in local media, told doctors he “woke up to find [himself] rescued.” The other survivor is believed to be a 25-year-old woman.

Among the 175 passengers aboard the flight, the youngest passenger was a three-year-old boy and the oldest was 78.

Five of the dead were children under the age of 10, authorities said.

There were also two Thai women aged 22 and 45, according to the Thai government. The rest of the passengers were South Korea nationals.

Hours after the crash, family members gathered in the airport’s arrival area, some crying and hugging as Red Cross volunteers handed out blankets.

Families screamed and wept loudly as a medic announced the names of 22 victims identified by their fingerprints. Papers were circulated for families to write down their contact details.

Mortuary vehicles lined up outside to take bodies away, and authorities said a temporary morgue had been established.

In a televised news conference, Kim E-bae, Jeju Air’s president, bowed with other senior company officials as he apologised to bereaved families and said he takes “full responsibility” for the incident.

Mr Kim said the company hadn’t identified any mechanical problems with the aircraft following regular checkups and that he would wait for the results of government investigations into the cause of the incident.

The crash was not due to “any maintenance issues”, the head of Jeju Air’s management team added later.

According to the Yonhap news agency, Song Kyung-hoon told a press briefing: “There are areas we have to investigate further by determining the exact cause of the crash.”

He added that there is a schedule for maintenance checks and that they leave “no stone unturned” regarding maintenance work ahead of take-offs. The official also said that the company’s insurance plan should be able to support the victims and their families.

A separate statement from the airline expressed a “deep apology” over the crash and said it will do its “utmost to manage the aftermath of the accident”.

Boeing said in a statement on X it was in contact with Jeju Air and is ready to support the company in dealing with the crash.“We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew,” Boeing said.

Uyghurs among foreign militants given ranks in Syrian military

Syria’s new rulers have inducted foreign Islamist fighters, including Uyghurs, a Jordanian and a Turk, into the country’s military in the aftermath of president Bashar al-Assad‘s ouster.

The new leadership under Abu Mohammed al Golani, chief of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former Al Qaeda and Isis affiliate that led the rebellion against Mr Assad, last week unveiled an accord to dissolve the armed militias operating in the country and integrate them into the military.

Mr Golani, the de facto leader, has since tapped dozens of former militants, including foreigners, for high-ranking positions in the army. At least six of the nearly 50 military roles announced by the defence ministry have gone to foreigners, Reuters reported on Sunday.

The new regime said the appointments were aimed at modernising the military “in order to guarantee security and stability”, AFP reported.

The decision to install Islamist fighters in senior military roles could alarm foreign governments as well as Syrian citizens fearful of the new regime’s intentions, particularly towards minority groups. The concerns remain despite the de facto government pledging not to export Islamic revolution and to rule with tolerance towards Syria’s large minority groups.

The fighters named to military positions on Sunday included members of Mr Golani’s HTS as well as former army officers who had joined the opposition in the early days of the civil war. The foreign fighters are either from the HTS or aligned with the rebel group, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor based in the UK.

Abdulaziz Dawood Khudaberdi, a Uyghur from China’s Xinjiang region, was made a brigadier general, his Turkistan Islamic Party said.

Fellow Uyghur fighters Mawlan Tarsoun Abdussamad and Abdulsalam Yasin Ahmad were given the rank of colonel, the party said in a statement congratulating them and the Uyghur community on the appointments.

Thousands of Sunni Muslim insurgents from abroad joined Syria’s rebel groups early in the 13-year civil war to fight Mr Assad and the Shia militias supporting him, giving the conflict a sectarian overtone.

Some foreign fighters launched their own armed groups, while many joined Isis as it rampaged through Iraq and Syria, briefly declaring a so-called caliphate before being routed by forces backed by the US and Iran.

In remarks broadcast on Sunday, Mr Golani said the new Syria “cannot be run by the mentality of groups and militias”. The new regime has indicated that foreign fighters and their families could be granted Syrian citizenship owing to their contributions in overthrowing Mr Assad.

“This is a small token of recognition for the sacrifices Islamist jihadists gave to our struggle for freedom from Assad’s oppression,” an HTS source told Reuters.

Seventh Palestinian baby freezes to death as thunderstorms loom

A seventh Palestinian baby has frozen to death as more than a million displaced Gazans struggle to survive in freezing winter conditions, with more thunderstorms forecast to batter the besieged territory.

Most families in Gaza, displaced multiple times over the past year by the Israeli assault on the territory, are living in makeshift shelters that provide little protection against the cold, with humanitarian aid failing to meet even the most basic needs.

Jumaa al-Batran, one month old, died of hypothermia in a tent in Deir al-Balah on Monday, just a day after her twin brother Ali suffered the same fate, the British news agency Reuters reported.

Ali died at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, with doctors quoted by the Palestinian news agency Wafa attributing the death to freezing temperatures.

The twins are the sixth and seventh Palestinian babies to die of severe cold in Gaza within a week. Their father told Reuters he found Jumaa’s lifeless body “frozen like ice”.

The Palestinian Meteorological Department has forecast more rainfall and thunderstorms across Gaza on New Year’s Eve, and temperatures are expected to remain cold to very cold.

Humanitarian agencies estimate that 1.6 million Gazans are living in makeshift shelters, with half a million in flood-prone areas. Most children eat only one meal a day, further reducing their ability to withstand the cold.

The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, with many families forced to flee repeatedly as Israeli forces have expanded their operations in the north.

The UN relief agency for the Palestinians, Unrwa, said on Sunday that aid is nowhere near enough and a ceasefire is desperately needed to deliver food as a famine looms.

In addition to the cold, heavy rainfall in recent days flooded many camps, leaving families scrambling to repair their damaged shelters or move to areas that offer even less protection.

“The water seeped inside and onto the mattresses and my children’s clothes. Everything is soaked—the blankets, the pillows, everything,” Sabreen Abu Shanab told Reuters as she described her three children waking up drenched and freezing.

Gaza’s civil defence reported hundreds of distress calls from families whose makeshift tents have been flooded. “Our crews can only evacuate citizens from their damaged shelters to other places that are mostly unsuitable to shelter, and they remain in the open – under the rain and bitter cold,” it said on Telegram.

Hamas, which governs Gaza, has appealed to the international community for urgent relief. They have called on the UN to send “relief supplies and tents to protect hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians from the cold and the disastrous effects”.

“The humanitarian and legal duty of the international community and the UN requires urgent action to provide relief to our people in the Gaza Strip, who have been subjected to a Zionist crime of genocide and ethnic cleansing,” the group said in a statement.

Palestinian authorities, meanwhile, announced on Monday that five more detainees from Gaza have been killed in Israeli prisons.

The deaths are “clear evidence of the extent of the occupation’s brutality and its detachment from all human values,” they added.

Hamas also accused Israel of “the crimes of enforced disappearance, the policy of medical negligence, the acts of torture, abuse and deprivation” towards Palestinian prisoners. The group said the crimes it alleges are the results of “international impotence” and “the unjust American bias against our people”.

The worsening winter conditions come as Gaza’s healthcare system is in near-total collapse as Israeli forces intensify attacks on hospitals. On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike on Al Wafa hospital in Gaza City killed seven people. The military claimed that the strike was targeted at Hamas militants.

Earlier, on Friday, Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, detaining over 240 people, including dozens of medical staff.

The hospital has since been rendered non-operational, leaving northern Gaza with a single small functioning medical facility.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, said on Monday that hospitals in Gaza have become a “battleground”.

China says it has shared most Covid data of any country

China defended its approach to sharing Covid data and collaborating with global agencies after the World Health Organization urged the country to provide more information to help uncover the origins of the virus.

Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday that China had shared more data and research results on Covid than any other country.

“China is the only country that organised experts to share traceability progress with the WHO on many occasions,” Mr Mao said during a press briefing.

The comments came after the WHO released a statement on Monday reiterating its appeal for access to additional data to better understand the origins of the virus. The UN agency stressed that uncovering how Covid emerged was critical to preventing future pandemics.

The first cases of Covid were confirmed in Wuhan in late 2019 and the virus soon spread throughout the world. Beijing was soon facing international scrutiny over transparency of its early data and cooperation with global research efforts.

The WHO recorded almost 760 million Covid cases and 6.9 million deaths worldwide. The agency declared the pandemic over in 2023, but stressed that the disease would be a permanent reminder of the potential for new viruses to emerge with devastating consequences.

China pushed back against the call for additional investigations inside the country. It said research into the origins of the virus should be expanded to other countries.

“On the issue of Covid traceability, China has shared the most data and research results and made the greatest contribution to global traceability research,” Mr Mao said.

In early 2023, Chinese scientists uploaded data from the initial days of the pandemic to a global database revealing DNA from several animal species, including raccoon dogs, in environmental samples that had tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It supported the hypothesis that raccoon dogs could have been key conduits for the virus.

An international team of researchers analysing the data suggested the presence of raccoon dogs at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Market, a major early outbreak site, was a significant clue to the virus’s origins.

China insisted that it had fully cooperated with investigations into the origins of the pandemic. Mr Mao said that WHO experts who visited China in 2021 “went to all the places they wanted to go and met all the people they wanted to see”.

Additional reporting by agencies.

Arrest warrant issued for South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol

A warrant has been issued to detain South Korea’s impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol for questioning over his shortlived attempt to impose martial law earlier this month.

The country’s anti-corruption agency said on Tuesday that a Seoul court granted the arrest warrant sought by prosecutors investigating Mr Yoon over the martial law declaration.

The warrant came after the president ignored multiple summons for questioning over charges of insurrection and abuse of power.

Mr Yoon’s lawyers called the warrant and the charges “unlawful”.

Yoon Kab Keun, one of the lawyers, said the president had “no reason to avoid the investigation” but his conduct should be judged by the constitutional court and not through criminal proceedings.

He said Mr Yoon would be present personally at constitutional court hearings.

The constitutional court is preparing to rule on the validity of Mr Yoon’s impeachment by the National Assembly. If it clears the parliamentary decision, Mr Yoon will be removed from office.

The latest development deepens South Korea’s political crisis which started on 3 December when the president declared martial law, sparking widespread protests and the impeachment of Mr Yoon as well as his acting successor Han Duck Soo.

The warrant, valid until 6 January, could see Mr Yoon detained at the Seoul Detention Center if executed, the state news agency Yonhap reported.

Mr Yoon is South Korea’s first sitting president to face arrest.

The leader of a rebellion can face the death penalty or life imprisonment if convicted under South Korean law. Mr Yoon has presidential immunity from most criminal prosecution, but the privilege doesn’t extend to allegations of rebellion or treason.

However, experts suggest the warrant is unlikely to be executed.

“Unless Yoon voluntarily lets them detain him, there is no way to detain him,” Choi Jin, director of the Institute of Presidential Leadership in Seoul, told the Associated Press news agency. “Should investigators have hand-to-hand fights with the security service?”

Mr Yoon is likely to ignore the warrant. But investigators could visit his residence to show they are strictly and fairly carrying out their work.

The presidential security service, which previously blocked a police raid on Mr Yoon’s office, said in a statement it will follow due process in handling the warrant.

Chinese hackers breach US Treasury in ‘major’ cyber attack

The US Treasury has been hacked by suspected Chinese actors that accessed government workstations and unclassified documents, officials said.

The department made the revelation on Monday after being notified on 8 December by third-party software provider BeyondTrust that the hackers had accessed a security key to get past safety measures, The Washington Post reported.

The Treasury notified the Senate Banking Committee of the breach in a letter viewed by several media outlets. It called the breach a “major incident”. Department policy categorises nation state hacking incidents as “major”, according to the letter.

When the Treasury was notified of the incident, it reached out to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, and took the BeyondTrust service offline, a department spokesperson said, according to The Post.

The department didn’t say how many workstations had been accessed or what kind of documents the hackers could have obtained. But in its letter to lawmakers, the department said “at this time there is no evidence indicating the threat actor has continued access to Treasury information”.

“Treasury takes very seriously all threats against our systems, and the data it holds,” the department said. “Over the last four years, Treasury has significantly bolstered its cyber defense, and we will continue to work with both private and public sector partners to protect our financial system from threat actors.”

Assistant treasury secretary Aditi Hardikar noted in Monday’s letter that it was working with CISA as well as the FBI but didn’t say anything further other than the hack had been attributed to Chinese actors.

“Based on available indicators, the incident has been attributed to a Chinese state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat actor,” Hardikar said in the letter, according to CNN.

“With access to the stolen key, the threat actor was able to override the service’s security, remotely access certain Treasury user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users,” Hardikar added.

“CISA was engaged immediately upon Treasury’s knowledge of the attack, and the remaining governing bodies were contacted as soon as the scope of the attack became evident.”

The Chinese embassy denied the allegations, calling them baseless and part of a smear campaign. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said Beijing “firmly opposes the US’s smear attacks against China without any factual basis”.

The Treasury plans to provide further details to lawmakers in 30 days.

A spokesperson for BeyondTrust, based in Johns Creek, Georgia, told Reuters in an email that the company “previously identified and took measures to address a security incident in early December 2024” involving its remote support product.

BeyondTrust “notified the limited number of customers who were involved” as well as law enforcement, the spokesperson said. “BeyondTrust has been supporting the investigative efforts.”

Tom Hegel, a threat researcher at cybersecurity company SentinelOne, said the reported security incident “fits a well-documented pattern of operations by PRC-linked groups, with a particular focus on abusing trusted third-party services — a method that has become increasingly prominent in recent years”.

Additional reporting by agencies.