Israel has announced it will close its embassy in Ireland, citing Dublin’s decision last week to support a petition at the international court of justice accusing Israel of “genocide”.

The move was announced by the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, who said it was prompted by the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israeli policies”, noting its decision to join the ICJ petition last week.

The Irish taoiseach, Simon Harris, said on X: “This is a deeply regrettable decision from the Netanyahu government. I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-international law.

“Ireland wants a two-state solution and for Israel and Palestine to live in peace and security. Ireland will always speak up for human rights and international law. Nothing will distract from that.”

Israel has not applied similar measures to other countries, including Egypt, Spain, and Mexico, which also joined the petition.

Announcing the decision, Sa’ar said: “It should be noted that in the past, Israel’s ambassador to Dublin was recalled following Ireland’s unilateral decision to recognise a ‘Palestinian state’.”

He added that the move to close the embassy had been prompted by Ireland’s announcement of its support for South Africa’s legal action against Israel in the ICJ, accusing Israel of ‘genocide’.”

“The antisemitic actions and rhetoric that Ireland is taking against Israel are based on delegitimisation and demonisation of the Jewish state and on double standards,” said Sa’ar.

“Ireland has crossed all red lines in its relationship with Israel. Israel will invest its resources in promoting bilateral relations with the countries of the world according to priorities that are also derived from the attitude of the various countries towards it.

“There are countries that are interested in strengthening their ties with Israel and do not yet have an Israeli embassy,” Sa’ar continued, adding that Israel planned to open a new embassy in Moldova, which is seen as being more friendly to Israel.

“We will adjust the Israeli diplomatic structure of our missions while giving weight, among other things, to the approach and actions of the various countries towards Israel in the political arena,” he said.

Relations between Ireland and Israel have long been strained because of Ireland’s stance as one of Europe’s more pro-Palestinian states.

In November, Harris said the country’s authorities would detain his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, if he travelled to Ireland, after the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

Israel has submitted an appeal against the arrest warrants issued by the ICC for Netanyahu and the former defence minister Yoav Gallant, Army Radio reported on Sunday.

On 21 November, the ICC issued warrants for the two, citing grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant had committed the war crime of starvation and crimes against humanity such as murder and persecution.

The move to close the embassy follows last week’s statement by Micheál Martin, the Tánaiste (Ireland’s second most senior elected official) and minister for foreign affairs, that he had secured government approval for Ireland to intervene in South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel under the genocide convention.

“There has been a collective punishment of the Palestinian people through the intent and impact of military actions of Israel in Gaza, leaving 44,000 dead and millions of civilians displaced,” said Martin.

“By legally intervening in South Africa’s case, Ireland will be asking the ICJ to broaden its interpretation of what constitutes the commission of genocide by a state.

“We are concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimised.

“Ireland’s view of the convention is broader and prioritises the protection of civilian life – as a committed supporter of the convention, the government will promote that interpretation in its intervention in this case.”

Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight with airstrikes, despite the Syrian rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group was not interested in conflict with Israel.

Jolani’s comments came as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Sunday that he had approved a plan to expand settlement building in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The latest airstrikes follow a statement by Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, that Israeli troops, who seized the Golan Heights buffer zone with Syria last week, would remain for the winter on Mount Hermon – known to Syrians as Jabel Sheikh – in positions they occupied last week.

Katz’s office said in a statement that “due to what is happening in Syria, there is enormous security importance to our holding on to the peak”.

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a nom de guerre used by Ahmed al-Sharaa, told Syrian state media: “There are no excuses for any foreign intervention in Syria now after the Iranians have left. We are not in the process of engaging in a conflict with Israel.”

Jolani said Israel was using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but that he was not interested in engaging in new conflicts as the country focused on rebuilding after the end of Bashar al-Assad’s reign.

He added that “diplomatic solutions” were the only way to ensure stability rather than “ill-considered military adventures”.

“Israeli arguments have become weak and no longer justify their recent violations. The Israelis have clearly crossed the lines of engagement in Syria, which poses a threat of unwarranted escalation in the region,” Jolani said.

“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations. The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israel fired 61 missiles at Syrian military sites in less than five hours on Saturday evening.

Israeli air raids hit bases, heavy weapons, sites associated with the former Assad regime’s missile and chemical weapons programme, and destroyed Syria’s small naval force in port of Latakia.

The continuing strikes have prompted mounting concern among diplomats and international officials concerned over what they fear may be an open-ended new occupation of Syrian territory and Israel’s agenda in the Syrian buffer zone.

Netanyahu justified his announcement of plans to expand Israeli settlements in the part of the Golan Heights the country initially occupied in 1973 “in light of the war and the new front facing Syria” and a desire to double the Israeli population in the area.

“Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the state of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, cause it to blossom and settle in it,” he said in the statement.

The UN has called on Israel to withdraw from the buffer zone, which sits between Syria and the Israeli-occupied area.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

France, Germany and Spain have also called on Israel to withdraw from the demilitarised zone.

The UN has said Israel is in violation of a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that established the buffer zone. Israel has said the 1974 disengagement agreement “collapsed” with the fall of the Assad regime government.

Responding to Jolani, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, said: “We aren’t intervening in what is happening in Syria. We have no intention of administering Syria.”

“There was an enemy country here. Its army collapsed. There is a threat that terror elements will come here, and we advanced so … extreme terror elements won’t settle close to the border with us.

“We are unequivocally intervening only in what determines Israeli citizens’ security. The deployment along the entire border, from Mt Hermon to the meeting of the Israeli-Syrian-Jordanian border, is proper.”

According to reports, among the sites hit over the weekend were military headquarters, Syrian army positions, radars, and arms caches and assets of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, which was responsible for developing advanced weapons.

Israel also estimates it has destroyed much of the Syrian air force’s infrastructure and aircraft.

The scale of the Israeli bombing campaign has surprised many western capitals, who had believed that any Israeli strikes would be limited to chemical weapons and missiles sites rather than an effort aimed at the wholesale destruction of the Syria’s military, which has had 70% of its capabilities destroyed in hundreds of attacks.

The latest Israeli air raids came as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, wound up talks with Jordan, Turkey and Iraq with the aim of trying to shape the future of a post-Assad Syria by forging consensus among regional partners and allies whose interests often diverge.

“We know that what happens inside of Syria can have powerful consequences well beyond its borders, from mass displacement to terrorism,” he told reporters in Aqaba, Jordan. “And we know that we can’t underestimate the challenges of this moment.”

Blinken also confirmed contacts between the Biden administration and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Blinken would not discuss details of the direct contacts with HTS but said it was important for the US to convey messages to the group about its conduct and how it intended to govern in a transition period.

Antony Blinken said the US had made “direct contact” with Syria’s victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels as western and Arab states along with Turkey jointly voiced support for a united, peaceful Syria.

The US secretary of state’s comment is despite Washington having designated the HTS rebels as terrorists in 2018.

Blinken and other diplomats held talks on Syria in Aqaba, Jordan, on Saturday. “We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken said, without specifying how the contact took place.

Turkey announced it had reopened its embassy in Damascus, nearly a week after the Islamist-led rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and 12 years after the Turkish diplomatic mission was closed early in Syria’s civil war.

Turkey has been a major player in Syria’s conflict, holding considerable sway in the north-west, financing armed groups there and maintaining a working relationship with HTS, which spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad.

In a joint statement after the meeting in Jordan, diplomats from the US, Turkey, the EU and Arab countries “affirmed the full support to the Syrian people at this critical point in their history to build a more hopeful, secure and peaceful future”.

They called for a Syrian-led transition to “produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government formed through a transparent process”, with respect for human rights.

“Syria finally has the chance to end decades of isolation,” the group said.

The head of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in the country’s north-east, on Saturday appealed for Kurds “to adopt a favourable position toward the Syrian dialogue”.

The UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, urged participants in the Jordan talks to provide humanitarian aid and to ensure “that state institutions do not collapse”.

A Qatari diplomat said on Friday that a delegation from the Gulf emirate would visit Syria on Sunday to meet transitional government officials for talks on aid and reopening its embassy.

Unlike other Arab states, Qatar never restored diplomatic ties with Assad after a rupture in 2011.

The EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said in Jordan that the bloc, Syria’s biggest aid provider, was “interested in rebuilding and reconstruction of Syria”.

Assad’s flight from Syria last weekend left Syrians in joyous disbelief at the sudden end to an era in which suspected dissidents were jailed or killed. It capped more than a decade of war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaida and is designated a terrorist organisation by many western governments, but has sought to moderate its rhetoric.

“We appreciate some of the positive words we heard in recent days, but what matters is action – and sustained action,” Blinken said. If a transition moved forward, “we in turn will look at various sanctions and other measures that we have taken”.

Pubs and liquor stores in Damascus initially closed after the rebel victory but have been tentatively reopening.

“You have the right to work and live your life as you did before,” Safi, the landlord of Papa bar in the Old City, said the rebels had told him.

But in Abu Dhabi, Anwar Gargash, a presidential adviser in the UAE, said “we need to be on guard” despite HTS’s talk of unity.

The country’s situation remains highly volatile. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an ambush by “loyalist elements of the former regime” killed at least four rebel fighters near a villa belonging to an Assad relative on the Mediterranean coast.

With Agence France-Presse

Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight with airstrikes, despite the Syrian rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group was not interested in conflict with Israel.

Jolani’s comments came as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Sunday that he had approved a plan to expand settlement building in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The latest airstrikes follow a statement by Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, that Israeli troops, who seized the Golan Heights buffer zone with Syria last week, would remain for the winter on Mount Hermon – known to Syrians as Jabel Sheikh – in positions they occupied last week.

Katz’s office said in a statement that “due to what is happening in Syria, there is enormous security importance to our holding on to the peak”.

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a nom de guerre used by Ahmed al-Sharaa, told Syrian state media: “There are no excuses for any foreign intervention in Syria now after the Iranians have left. We are not in the process of engaging in a conflict with Israel.”

Jolani said Israel was using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but that he was not interested in engaging in new conflicts as the country focused on rebuilding after the end of Bashar al-Assad’s reign.

He added that “diplomatic solutions” were the only way to ensure stability rather than “ill-considered military adventures”.

“Israeli arguments have become weak and no longer justify their recent violations. The Israelis have clearly crossed the lines of engagement in Syria, which poses a threat of unwarranted escalation in the region,” Jolani said.

“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations. The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israel fired 61 missiles at Syrian military sites in less than five hours on Saturday evening.

Israeli air raids hit bases, heavy weapons, sites associated with the former Assad regime’s missile and chemical weapons programme, and destroyed Syria’s small naval force in port of Latakia.

The continuing strikes have prompted mounting concern among diplomats and international officials concerned over what they fear may be an open-ended new occupation of Syrian territory and Israel’s agenda in the Syrian buffer zone.

Netanyahu justified his announcement of plans to expand Israeli settlements in the part of the Golan Heights the country initially occupied in 1973 “in light of the war and the new front facing Syria” and a desire to double the Israeli population in the area.

“Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the state of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, cause it to blossom and settle in it,” he said in the statement.

The UN has called on Israel to withdraw from the buffer zone, which sits between Syria and the Israeli-occupied area.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

France, Germany and Spain have also called on Israel to withdraw from the demilitarised zone.

The UN has said Israel is in violation of a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that established the buffer zone. Israel has said the 1974 disengagement agreement “collapsed” with the fall of the Assad regime government.

Responding to Jolani, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, said: “We aren’t intervening in what is happening in Syria. We have no intention of administering Syria.”

“There was an enemy country here. Its army collapsed. There is a threat that terror elements will come here, and we advanced so … extreme terror elements won’t settle close to the border with us.

“We are unequivocally intervening only in what determines Israeli citizens’ security. The deployment along the entire border, from Mt Hermon to the meeting of the Israeli-Syrian-Jordanian border, is proper.”

According to reports, among the sites hit over the weekend were military headquarters, Syrian army positions, radars, and arms caches and assets of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, which was responsible for developing advanced weapons.

Israel also estimates it has destroyed much of the Syrian air force’s infrastructure and aircraft.

The scale of the Israeli bombing campaign has surprised many western capitals, who had believed that any Israeli strikes would be limited to chemical weapons and missiles sites rather than an effort aimed at the wholesale destruction of the Syria’s military, which has had 70% of its capabilities destroyed in hundreds of attacks.

The latest Israeli air raids came as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, wound up talks with Jordan, Turkey and Iraq with the aim of trying to shape the future of a post-Assad Syria by forging consensus among regional partners and allies whose interests often diverge.

“We know that what happens inside of Syria can have powerful consequences well beyond its borders, from mass displacement to terrorism,” he told reporters in Aqaba, Jordan. “And we know that we can’t underestimate the challenges of this moment.”

Blinken also confirmed contacts between the Biden administration and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Blinken would not discuss details of the direct contacts with HTS but said it was important for the US to convey messages to the group about its conduct and how it intended to govern in a transition period.

Antony Blinken said the US had made “direct contact” with Syria’s victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels as western and Arab states along with Turkey jointly voiced support for a united, peaceful Syria.

The US secretary of state’s comment is despite Washington having designated the HTS rebels as terrorists in 2018.

Blinken and other diplomats held talks on Syria in Aqaba, Jordan, on Saturday. “We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken said, without specifying how the contact took place.

Turkey announced it had reopened its embassy in Damascus, nearly a week after the Islamist-led rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and 12 years after the Turkish diplomatic mission was closed early in Syria’s civil war.

Turkey has been a major player in Syria’s conflict, holding considerable sway in the north-west, financing armed groups there and maintaining a working relationship with HTS, which spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad.

In a joint statement after the meeting in Jordan, diplomats from the US, Turkey, the EU and Arab countries “affirmed the full support to the Syrian people at this critical point in their history to build a more hopeful, secure and peaceful future”.

They called for a Syrian-led transition to “produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government formed through a transparent process”, with respect for human rights.

“Syria finally has the chance to end decades of isolation,” the group said.

The head of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in the country’s north-east, on Saturday appealed for Kurds “to adopt a favourable position toward the Syrian dialogue”.

The UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, urged participants in the Jordan talks to provide humanitarian aid and to ensure “that state institutions do not collapse”.

A Qatari diplomat said on Friday that a delegation from the Gulf emirate would visit Syria on Sunday to meet transitional government officials for talks on aid and reopening its embassy.

Unlike other Arab states, Qatar never restored diplomatic ties with Assad after a rupture in 2011.

The EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said in Jordan that the bloc, Syria’s biggest aid provider, was “interested in rebuilding and reconstruction of Syria”.

Assad’s flight from Syria last weekend left Syrians in joyous disbelief at the sudden end to an era in which suspected dissidents were jailed or killed. It capped more than a decade of war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaida and is designated a terrorist organisation by many western governments, but has sought to moderate its rhetoric.

“We appreciate some of the positive words we heard in recent days, but what matters is action – and sustained action,” Blinken said. If a transition moved forward, “we in turn will look at various sanctions and other measures that we have taken”.

Pubs and liquor stores in Damascus initially closed after the rebel victory but have been tentatively reopening.

“You have the right to work and live your life as you did before,” Safi, the landlord of Papa bar in the Old City, said the rebels had told him.

But in Abu Dhabi, Anwar Gargash, a presidential adviser in the UAE, said “we need to be on guard” despite HTS’s talk of unity.

The country’s situation remains highly volatile. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an ambush by “loyalist elements of the former regime” killed at least four rebel fighters near a villa belonging to an Assad relative on the Mediterranean coast.

With Agence France-Presse

South Korea’s conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has reportedly failed to obey a summons from prosecutors investigating him on charges including insurrection as he faces impeachment after declaring martial law.

Yoon, who was sent a summons on Wednesday requesting him to appear for questioning at 10am local time on Sunday, did not show up, according to the Yonhap news agency. Yoon and other senior officials are being investigated on possible charges of insurrection, abuse of authority and obstructing people from exercising their rights.

Yonhap said prosecutors – who are also seeking arrest warrants for senior military officials, including the head of the army special warfare command and the chief of the capital defence command – plan to issue another summons for the president.

The president’s reported failure to appear came a day after South Korean MPs voted to impeach him over the unsuccessful attempt to declare martial law almost two weeks ago that plunged the country into some of its worst political turmoil in decades.

In a late-night emergency television address to the nation on 3 December, Yoon announced he was imposing martial law, accusing the opposition of paralysing the government with “anti-state activities”.

The imposition of martial law – the first of its kind in more than four decades – lasted only six hours, and hundreds of troops and police officers sent by Yoon to the national assembly withdrew after the president’s decree was overturned. No major violence occurred.

Yoon’s powers have been suspended until the constitutional court decides whether to remove him from office or reinstate him. If Yoon is dismissed, a national election to choose his successor must be held within 60 days.

The court will meet to begin considering the case on Monday, and has up to 180 days to issue a ruling. But observers say a ruling could come faster. In the case of parliamentary impeachments of past presidents, Roh Moo-hyun in 2004 and Park Geun-hye in 2016, the court spent 63 days and 91 days respectively before determining to reinstate Roh and dismiss Park.

South Korea’s main opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, has offered to work with the government to ease the political tumult as officials seek to reassure allies and markets after the impeachment vote.

Lee, who leads the Democratic party and who has led the political offensive against Yoon’s embattled government, is seen as the frontrunner to replace him. Lee has urged the constitutional court to rule swiftly on Yoon’s impeachment and proposed a special council for cooperation between the government and parliament.

The opposition leader told a televised news conference that a rapid ruling was the only way to “minimise national confusion and the suffering of people”.

Lee also proposed a national council where the government and the national assembly would work together to stabilise state affairs, and said his party would not seek to impeach the prime minister, Han Duck-soo, a Yoon appointee who is serving as acting president.

“The Democratic party will actively cooperate with all parties to stabilise state affairs and restore international trust,” Lee said. “The national assembly and government will work together to quickly resolve the crisis that has swept across the Republic of Korea.”

On assuming his role as acting leader, Han ordered the military to bolster its security posture against North Korea. He asked the foreign minister to inform other countries that South Korea’s main external policies would remain unchanged, and the finance minister to work to minimise potential negative impacts on the economy from the political turmoil.

On Sunday, Han had a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden, in which they discussed the political situation in South Korea and regional security challenges including the North’s nuclear programme. Biden expressed his appreciation for the resiliency of democracy in South Korea and reaffirmed “the ironclad commitment” of the US, according to both governments.

Opposition parties have accused Yoon of rebellion, saying a president in South Korea is allowed to declare martial law only during wartime or similar emergencies and would have no right to suspend parliament’s operations even in those cases.

Yoon has rejected the charges and vowed to “fight to the end”. He said the deployment of troops to the national assembly was aimed to issue a warning to the Democratic party, which he called an “anti-state force” that abused its control of parliament by holding up the government’s budget bill for next year and repeatedly pushing to impeach top officials.

Law enforcement institutions are investigating possible rebellion and other allegations. They have arrested Yoon’s defence minister and police chief and two other high-level figures.

Yoon has immunity from most criminal prosecution as president, but that does not extend to allegations of rebellion or treason. He has been banned from leaving South Korea, but observers doubt that authorities will detain him because of the potential for clashes with his presidential security service.

With Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the Associated Press

South Korea’s opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, has offered to work with the government to ease political tumult as officials sought to reassure allies and markets – a day after the opposition-controlled parliament voted to impeach the conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, over a short-lived attempt to impose martial law.

South Korea’s central bank vowed on Sunday vowed to keep markets stable, while the South Korean financial regulator said it would expand market-stabilising funds if necessary.

Joe Biden on Sunday called the US alliance with South Korea a “linchpin for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region” after a call on Saturday with Han Duck-soo, the prime minister who has become the acting president while a constitutional court deliberates over whether to permanently remove Yoon from office.

South Korean lawmakers voted on Saturday to impeach Yoon over his brief declaration of martial law, which plunged the country into some of its worst political turmoil in decades.

Lee Jae-myung, the Liberal Democratic party leader whose party holds a majority in the National Assembly, urged the constitutional court to rule swiftly on Yoon’s impeachment and proposed a special council for cooperation between the government and parliament.

Yoon’s powers have been suspended until the court decides whether to remove him from office or reinstate him. If Yoon is dismissed, a national election to choose his successor must be held within 60 days.

Lee, who has led a fierce political offensive against Yoon’s embattled government, is seen as the frontrunner to replace him.

He told a televised news conference that a swift court ruling would be the only way to “minimise national confusion and the suffering of people”.

The court will meet to begin considering the case on Monday, and has up to 180 days to rule. But observers say that a ruling could come faster. In the case of parliamentary impeachments of past presidents, Roh Moo-hyun in 2004 and Park Geun-hye in 2016, the court spent 63 days and 91 days respectively before determining to reinstate Roh and dismiss Park.

Lee also proposed a national council where the government and the National Assembly would work together to stabilise state affairs, and said his party would not seek to impeach the prime minister, a Yoon appointee who is now serving as acting president.

“The Democratic party will actively cooperate with all parties to stabilise state affairs and restore international trust,” Lee said. “The National Assembly and government will work together to quickly resolve the crisis that has swept across the Republic of Korea.”

It was not immediately clear how the governing People Power party would react to Lee’s proposal. Kim Woong, a former PPP lawmaker, accused Lee of attempting to exert power over state affairs.

The Democratic party has used its parliamentary majority to impeach the justice minister and the chief of the national police over the martial law decree, and previously said it was also considering impeaching Han Duck-soo.

There was no immediate response from Han, a seasoned bureaucrat.

Upon assuming his role as acting leader, Han ordered the military to bolster its security posture against North Korea. He asked the foreign minister to inform other countries that South Korea’s major external policies would remain unchanged, and the finance minister to work to minimise potential negative impacts on the economy from the political turmoil.

On Sunday, Han had a phone call with the US president, Joe Biden, discussing the political situation in South Korea and regional security challenges including North Korea’s nuclear programme. Biden expressed his appreciation for the resiliency of democracy in South Korea and reaffirmed “the ironclad commitment” of the US, according to both governments.

Yoon’s 3 December imposition of martial law, the first of its kind in more than four decades, lasted only six hours. Yoon sent hundreds of troops and police officers to the parliament in an effort to stop the vote, but they withdrew after the parliament overturned Yoon’s decree. No major violence occurred.

Opposition parties have accused Yoon of rebellion, saying a president in South Korea is allowed to declare martial law only during wartime or similar emergencies and would have no right to suspend parliament’s operations even in those cases.

Yoon has rejected the charges and vowed to “fight to the end”. He said the deployment of troops to parliament was aimed to issue a warning to the Democratic party, which he called an “anti-state force” that abused its control of parliament by holding up the government’s budget bill for next year and repeatedly pushing to impeach top officials.

Law enforcement institutions are investigating possible rebellion and other allegations. They have arrested Yoon’s defence minister and police chief and two other high-level figures.

Yoon has immunity from most criminal prosecution as president, but that does not extend to allegations of rebellion or treason. He has been banned from leaving South Korea, but observers doubt that authorities will detain him because of the potential for clashes with his presidential security service.

Lee called for authorities to speed up their probes and said that an independent investigation by a special prosecutor should be launched as soon as possible. Last week, the National Assembly passed a law calling for an investigation led by a special prosecutor.

“Individuals and institutions involved in this act of rebellion should fully cooperate with the investigations,” Lee said.

With Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the Associated Press

Two Russian tankers carrying more than 4,000 tonnes of oil products have sunk in the Black Sea amid stormy conditions, threatening an ecological disaster.

The cargo ship Volgoneft-212 snapped in half on Sunday after being hit by a large wave. Video showed its bow end sticking vertically out of the water. The boat got into difficulties off the east coast of occupied Crimea, 5 miles (8km) from the Kerch strait, Russian media reported.

The tanker was carrying 4,300 tonnes of low-grade heavy fuel oil, known as mazut. Russia’s emergency service launched a rescue operation involving tugboats and a Mil Mi-8 helicopter. Thirteen crew members were onboard.

Shortly afterwards, another cargo transporter, the Volgoneft-239, got into difficulties in the same area. It was carrying 4 tonnes of fuel oil. The vessel also reportedly sank. “Another ship is going down. Holy shit!” a sailor said, filming from a nearby boat.

Ukrainian officials accused Moscow of recklessness. Dmytro Pletenchuk, Ukraine’s navy spokesperson, said: “These are quite old Russian tankers. You can’t go to sea in such a storm. The Russians violated the operating rules. The result is an accident.”

Commentators pointed out that the oil products, if spilled into the Black Sea, would cause serious ecological damage to a marine environment already badly affected by war.

The Volgoneft-212 was 55 years old, registered in St Petersburg and recently refitted. The centre was cut out and the stern and bow were welded together, forming a huge seam in the middle. It is this section that appears to have broken.

Crew members watched as the helpless ship was wrecked. Video footage showed men standing in the bridge wearing orange lifejackets. A black slick could be seen floating on the surface, next to a parabolic upturned bow. Waves crashed over the stricken hull.

The accident involving decrepit Russian boats is the latest marine catastrophe to take place near the coast of southern Ukraine. The Black Sea has been a zone of intense military conflict since the start of Vladimir Putin’s 2022 full-scale invasion of the country.

Ukraine has used sea drones and other missiles to sink some of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. It has been forced to leave the Crimean port of Sevastopol and to relocate to the safer Russian harbour of Novorossiysk.

In June 2023, Russian troops blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam over the Dnipro River, in occupied territory, in order to hamper a Ukrainian military attack. The explosion released 18bn tonnes of water held upstream in a giant reservoir.

The floodwater swept away dozens of villages. Water contaminated with fuel, sewage and fertilisers cascaded into the Black Sea. According to biologists, the pollution wiped out mussels and other molluscs, as well as fish and crustaceans.

Scientists have recorded a rise in deaths among dolphins and porpoises since the Kremlin’s all-out attack. About 1,000 cetaceans were killed in 2022. Populations of bottlenose and white-sided dolphins suffered.

The UK home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has admitted the government has a “complex arrangement” with China because of the need for economic cooperation, against the backdrop of the exclusion of an alleged Chinese spy with links to Prince Andrew.

The man – who was banned from Britain by the government on national security grounds – was invited to Andrew’s birthday party and visited Buckingham Palace twice as well as St James’s Palace and Windsor Castle at the invitation of the prince, according to the Times.

It was reported by the Sunday Times that the man also met David Cameron and Theresa May and kept pictures of his meetings with the two prime ministers on the desk in his office. Both said they did not recall meeting him.

Cooper was asked on the BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme what her message was to China. “Well, we will continue to take a very strong approach to our national security, that includes to any challenge to our national security including to our economic security from China, from other countries around the world, that will always be the approach that we will take.

“Of course, with China we also need to make sure we have that economic interaction, economic cooperation in place as well. So it’s a complex arrangement.”

The former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has said he will raise an urgent question about the man in the Commons on Monday, raising the possibility he could be named under parliamentary privilege.

On Friday, the Duke of York said he had “ceased all contact” with the businessman when concerns were first raised about him. A statement from the prince’s office said Andrew met the individual through “official channels”, with “nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed”.

The businessman, referred to as H6, brought his case to the special immigration appeals commission (Siac), which upheld a ruling that he should be excluded from the UK.

The shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, said proven instances of Chinese interference needed to be publicly exposed in order to keep the public and government vigilant.

“This question of Chinese influence is not a new one. It’s been around for years, or even decades,” he told the BBC. “They’ve been systematically trying to infiltrate universities, to steal intellectual property businesses for the same reason, and also influence government institutions. We need to be super-vigilant and publicly expose Chinese infiltration where it happens. Everybody in academia, in business, in government needs to be alert. If anyone has the slightest concern, they should contact the security services immediately.”

In the letter from the home secretary excluding the businessman in July last year, it said: “We have reason to believe you are engaging, or have previously engaged, in covert and deceptive activity on behalf of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) which is an arm of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) state apparatus.”

The alleged spy was initially stopped at an airport in November 2021 where his phone was seized. Communication on the phone, which is set out in the hand down from Siac, suggests there was high-level contact between the businessman and the prince.

In a message from the duke’s adviser, Dominic Hampshire, it said: “Outside of his closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.”

It also contained a message from the duke’s adviser to the businessman, which said that since their first meeting “we have wisely navigated our way around former private secretaries and we have found a way to carefully remove those people who we don’t completely trust … we found away to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor”.

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has been discharged from hospital after spending six days recovering from emergency surgery to drain a haematoma in his brain.

The announcement – made on Sunday by the medical team at the Sírio-Libanês hospital in São Paulo – was interrupted near the end by the president himself, who entered the room walking alongside the first lady, Rosângela da Silva, known as Janja.

Wearing a panama hat – “so you don’t see the dressing on my head” the president joked – Lula spoke for 13 minutes and, at one point, became emotional as he recalled the shock of discovering the haematoma, 52 days after a fall in the bathroom of the presidential residence on 19 October.

“Since I thought I was already cured, I must admit I was a bit alarmed at how much [the haematoma] had grown and the amount of fluid in my head. I was worried,” the president said, pausing to take a sip of water as the first lady affectionately touched his arm.

“I only became fully aware of the seriousness of what had happened to me after the surgery,” Lula said.

In the early hours of Tuesday, he underwent a trepanation – a procedure in which a small hole is made in the skull to drain blood – and, on Thursday, had a non-surgical procedure known as a middle meningeal artery embolisation to reduce the risk of further bleeding in the future.

Lula, 79, said he was still experiencing headaches from the emergency surgery but felt well enough to return to work. “I feel fine, I’m calm, and you all know that I claim the right to live until I’m 120,” said the leftist, serving his third term as Brazilian president.

Although his discharge came earlier than expected – it was initially planned for Monday or Tuesday – Lula will not immediately return to the capital, Brasília. According to his medical team, he will remain in São Paulo until at least Thursday, when he is due to undergo a follow-up CT scan. If the results are satisfactory, he may then take the roughly two-hour flight back to Brasília. However, international travel, due to its longer duration, has been “prohibited until further notice”, said the president’s personal doctor, the cardiologist Dr Roberto Kalil Filho.

Journalists were not permitted to ask Lula questions, but in his impromptu speech he addressed the arrest on Saturday of one of the closest allies of the former president Jair Bolsonaro – ex-defence minister Gen Walter Braga Netto – who was detained by federal police in connection with an alleged plot to stage a military coup.

“As I know you’re going to ask,” said Lula, “what happened this week with the arrest warrant issued against Gen Braga, I’ll show that I have more patience and am a democrat. I believe he is entitled to the presumption of innocence, something I didn’t have,” said Lula, who spent 580 days in prison during his second term due to a conviction that was later annulled.

However, the president stressed that if the accusations were proven, “these individuals […] must be severely punished”. He added that it was unacceptable for “high-ranking military officers to plot the murder of a president, his vice-president, and a supreme court judge”, referring to what federal police claim was an assassination plan devised by Bolsonaro’s allies after his 2022 electoral defeat.

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has been discharged from hospital after spending six days recovering from emergency surgery to drain a haematoma in his brain.

The announcement – made on Sunday by the medical team at the Sírio-Libanês hospital in São Paulo – was interrupted near the end by the president himself, who entered the room walking alongside the first lady, Rosângela da Silva, known as Janja.

Wearing a panama hat – “so you don’t see the dressing on my head” the president joked – Lula spoke for 13 minutes and, at one point, became emotional as he recalled the shock of discovering the haematoma, 52 days after a fall in the bathroom of the presidential residence on 19 October.

“Since I thought I was already cured, I must admit I was a bit alarmed at how much [the haematoma] had grown and the amount of fluid in my head. I was worried,” the president said, pausing to take a sip of water as the first lady affectionately touched his arm.

“I only became fully aware of the seriousness of what had happened to me after the surgery,” Lula said.

In the early hours of Tuesday, he underwent a trepanation – a procedure in which a small hole is made in the skull to drain blood – and, on Thursday, had a non-surgical procedure known as a middle meningeal artery embolisation to reduce the risk of further bleeding in the future.

Lula, 79, said he was still experiencing headaches from the emergency surgery but felt well enough to return to work. “I feel fine, I’m calm, and you all know that I claim the right to live until I’m 120,” said the leftist, serving his third term as Brazilian president.

Although his discharge came earlier than expected – it was initially planned for Monday or Tuesday – Lula will not immediately return to the capital, Brasília. According to his medical team, he will remain in São Paulo until at least Thursday, when he is due to undergo a follow-up CT scan. If the results are satisfactory, he may then take the roughly two-hour flight back to Brasília. However, international travel, due to its longer duration, has been “prohibited until further notice”, said the president’s personal doctor, the cardiologist Dr Roberto Kalil Filho.

Journalists were not permitted to ask Lula questions, but in his impromptu speech he addressed the arrest on Saturday of one of the closest allies of the former president Jair Bolsonaro – ex-defence minister Gen Walter Braga Netto – who was detained by federal police in connection with an alleged plot to stage a military coup.

“As I know you’re going to ask,” said Lula, “what happened this week with the arrest warrant issued against Gen Braga, I’ll show that I have more patience and am a democrat. I believe he is entitled to the presumption of innocence, something I didn’t have,” said Lula, who spent 580 days in prison during his second term due to a conviction that was later annulled.

However, the president stressed that if the accusations were proven, “these individuals […] must be severely punished”. He added that it was unacceptable for “high-ranking military officers to plot the murder of a president, his vice-president, and a supreme court judge”, referring to what federal police claim was an assassination plan devised by Bolsonaro’s allies after his 2022 electoral defeat.

The five remaining members of the Bali Nine jailed for life over a drug smuggling plot have returned to Australia under a deal negotiated with the Indonesian government.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, confirmed that Scott Rush, Matthew Norman, Si-Yi Chen, Martin Stephens and Michael Czugaj returned to Australia from Indonesia on Sunday afternoon.

Having served almost 20 years in jail in Indonesia, the men have had the rest of their life sentences commuted on humanitarian grounds on the condition that they continue rehabilitation in Australia. They are now free but are banned from returning to Indonesia. There was no diplomatic quid pro quo, Guardian Australia understands.

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“We would like to convey our deep appreciation to the government of Indonesia for its cooperation to facilitate the men’s return to Australia on humanitarian grounds,” Albanese said in a statement, adding his thanks to the president, Prabowo Subianto, for his “act of compassion”.

“This reflects the strong bilateral relationship and mutual respect between Indonesia and Australia. These Australians served more than 19 years in prison in Indonesia. It was time for them to come home.

“They will now have the opportunity to continue their rehabilitation and reintegration here in Australia.”

The Bali Nine were charged and convicted with trying to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin out of Indonesia in April 2005.

The ringleaders of the drug-smuggling operation, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, were sentenced to death and executed by firing squad in Indonesia in 2015. Another member, Tan Duc Than Nguyen, died of cancer in 2018.

The only female member of the group, Renae Lawrence, had her sentence commuted in 2018 and was returned to Australia.

Albanese said on Sunday that Australia shared Indonesia’s concern about “the serious problem illicit drugs represents” and the two nations would continue to work together to combat it.

Guardian Australia has been told the federal government would provide short-term accommodation for the five men who returned on Sunday. They would have access to medical and other support.

Their life sentences were effectively converted to 20 years, meaning they are considered to have been completed. The Australian government hopes the agreement with Indonesia might serve as a model for future cases.

Australia’s home affairs minister, Tony Burke, signed a ministerial agreement with his Indonesian counterpart to seal the arrangement, which was not a prisoner transfer because the countries’ respective legal systems did not allow for that. The deal was signed after to Burke’s visit to Indonesia this month.

Australian government officials declined to provide details of the men’s location for privacy reasons. They are understood to have returned by commercial aircraft, accompanied by Australian consular officials, and have undertaken voluntarily to continue a rehabilitation program – the details of which were unavailable.

The Australian government consistently raised the case of the Bali Nine with Indonesia. In November Albanese discussed it with Subianto on the sidelines of the Apec summit in Lima.

Since then there has been speculation that an agreement was imminent that would return the five men to Australia.

Tributes have been paid to Isak Andic, the billionaire founder of the Spanish high-street fashion chain Mango, after his death in a hiking accident in Catalonia on Saturday.

According to media reports, Andic, who was 71, died after slipping and falling 100 metres down a ravine while hiking in the Montserrat caves near Barcelona with several family members.

Mango confirmed his death in a statement on Saturday, describing Andic as “an example to us all” and a committed and inspiring leader.

“His legacy reflects the achievements of a business project marked by success, and also by his human quality, his proximity, and the care and affection that he always had and at all times conveyed to the entire organisation,” the statement said.

“His departure leaves a huge void, but all of us are, in some way, his legacy and the testimony of his achievements. It is up to us, and this is the best tribute we can make to Isak and which we will fulfil, to ensure that Mango continues to be the project that Isak aspired to and of which he would feel proud.”

Born to a Sephardic Jewish family in Istanbul in 1953, Andic emigrated to Catalonia with his relatives in the late 1960s, where he started selling T-shirts to fellow students at Barcelona’s American high school.

The young entrepreneur subsequently progressed to running a wholesale business, selling clothes in Barcelona’s street markets, but realised there was more money in retail and opened the first Mango store in the Catalan capital in 1984 as Spain was still emerging from the shadow of the Franco dictatorship.

“He saw that we needed colour, style,” the company’s global retail director, César de Vicente, said in an interview with Agence France-Presse in March 2024.

Andic quickly opened dozens of more stores in Spain and then abroad, starting in neighbouring Portugal and France, all under the name Mango.

He “realised that having the same name, having the same brand in all the shops, would make the concept much stronger”, said De Vicente.

Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish prime minister, led the tributes after Andic’s death was announced on Saturday afternoon.

“My condolences to the family of Isak Andic, the founder of Mango, after his tragic death in an accident,” Sánchez wrote on X, adding that Andic’s “great work and entrepreneurial vision” had made the company he had left behind “a global fashion leader”.

Salvador Illa, the Catalan president, hailed a “a committed businessman who, with his leadership, has contributed to making Catalonia great and projecting it to the world”. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of Spain’s conservative People’s party, said Andic had built “a Spanish business that was a world leader in the textile and fashion sector”.

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain said it had been “deeply saddened to hear of the unexpected death of one of the bulwarks of the Spanish Jewish community”.

In a statement, it said: “He was a man of the finest human qualities, generous and always ready to help those most in need. His many contributions have brought about huge advances for Spanish Judaism. The gap he leaves cannot be filled.”

Writing in La Vanguardia on Sunday, the journalist Joana Bonet recalled an “audacious and creative” man who had travelled an enormous distance from his humble beginnings and first forays into the markets of Barcelona.

“If Tommy Hilfiger started out selling jeans from the boot of his car, Andic, a Turkish immigrant who was still a child when he and his family arrived in Barcelona in the 60s … took his first steps in the hippie flea markets,” she wrote. “Andic was a visionary who also possessed a gift: he could go into a shop and know which item would sell out. He never got it wrong.”

Forbes put the entrepreneur’s net worth at $4.5bn (£3.6bn), and he was non-executive chair of the company when he died.

Mango had a turnover of €3.1bn (£2.6bn) in 2023, with 33% of its business online and a presence in more than 120 countries.

The brand’s first UK store opened in 1999 and there are now more than 60 branches across the country.

At least 11 people were killed after a cyclone slammed into Mayotte, the most intense storm to hit the French Indian Ocean archipelago north of Madagascar in nearly a century, French weather forecasters and authorities have said.

Cyclone Chido swept through Mayotte overnight, Meteo-France said, bringing winds of more than 124 miles (200km) an hour and damaging makeshift housing, government buildings and a hospital. It was the strongest storm in more than 90 years to hit the islands, the forecaster said.

It was difficult to ascertain the precise death toll after the cyclone, which also raised concerns about access to food, water and sanitation, authorities said.

“For the toll, it’s going to be complicated, because Mayotte is a Muslim land where the dead are buried within 24 hours,” a French interior ministry official said.

Mayotte is significantly poorer than the rest of France and has grappled with gang violence and social unrest for decades. Tensions were stoked earlier this year by a water shortage.

Spain’s culture ministry has begun to fulfil its promise to return more than 5,000 works of art that were taken by the Franco regime after restoring a painting seized by the dictatorship 84 years ago to its rightful owners.

In June, the ministry published an online list of more than 5,126 items plundered by the regime – including paintings, sculptures, jewellery, furniture and religious ornaments – to help people reclaim their family property almost a century after it was taken for safekeeping after the outbreak of the civil war.

Most of the pieces on the list were originally gathered and put into protective storage by the Republican government after Franco’s military coup in July 1936 triggered the Spanish civil war. But when the war ended with Franco’s victory in April 1939, many of the pieces were seized and scattered among different museums, collections and institutions.

Earlier this week, the first of the looted works was finally returned to its owners during a ceremony at the National Library of Spain. The piece – a painting of the Spanish educator and philosopher Francisco Giner de los Ríos as a boy – was confiscated in 1940 when the dictatorship outlawed the pioneering and influential Free Institution of Education that Giner de los Ríos had co-founded. It was then stored in the national library.

On Thursday, the culture minister, Ernest Urtasun, formally restored the painting to the foundation, which exists to safeguard the legacy of the Free Institution of Education.

“The return of items that were seized under Francoism – such as the portrait of Giner de los Ríos that we have today given back to its true owner, the Free Institution of Education – is not just a legal obligation,” said Urtasun. “It is an act of reparation that holds deep meaning for the culture ministry … and [shows] our commitment to the memories of all the victims of the Franco dictatorship in our country.”

José García-Velasco García, the president of the Francisco Giner de los Ríos Foundation, described the painting’s return as “the proof that dreams come true and that some fights can be won”.

Urtasun has said the publication of the list is about education and restitution as well as fulfilling his department’s obligations to the 2022 Democratic Memory law, which is intended to bring justice to Franco-era victims.

“We’re offering a space in which people can learn about our history,” he said in June. “We’re also opening the door to returning those pieces that can be identified to their rightful owners.”

Applications for the return of the lost items are being considered by the ministry on a case-by-case basis.