A former South Korean defence minister charged with insurrection over his role in a short-lived martial law declaration has praised protesters who stormed a court over last month's decision to extend President Yoon Suk Yeol's detention. Kim Yong-hyun, who resigned after the Dec. 3 martial law and is now in prison, called those who stormed the court "patriotic warriors", his lawyer said on Wednesday. Hundreds of angry supporters of the arrested president stormed the Seoul Western District Court on Jan. 19, smashing windows and equipment inside while some live-streamed the scene.
Poland's government at the time was embroiled in a row with Brussels over judicial reforms that critics said undermined the independence of Polish courts. The dispute had blocked billions of euros in EU funds to Warsaw and also triggered the fines.
Thailand has cut electricity, internet and fuel supplies to five border areas in Myanmar, a senior Thai minister said on Wednesday, as the Southeast Asian nation steps up efforts to choke scam centres that have become a growing security concern. "They may face challenges of lower power supply, but we are at the point now where no one can blame Thailand for being part of or play a part in supporting illegal acts," Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters. "They may turn to other sources of power supply or generate their own electricity."
A U.S. military plane carrying 104 deported Indian migrants arrived in a northern Indian city on Wednesday, the first such flight to the country as part of a crackdown ordered by the Trump administration, airport officials said. The move came ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington, which is expected next week. U.S. President Donald Trump and Modi discussed immigration in a phone call last week and Trump stressed the importance of India buying more American-made security equipment and fair bilateral trade.
The development comes a day after China announced a wide range of measures targeting U.S. businesses including Google, farm equipment makers and the owner of fashion brand Calvin Klein, minutes after new U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods took effect. The country's State Administration for Market Regulation is reviewing Apple's policies, including its up to 30% commission on in-app purchases and restrictions on external payment services and App Stores, the report said.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are eager to leave miserable tent camps and return to their homes if a long-awaited ceasefire agreement in the Israel-Hamas war holds, but many will find there is nothing left and no way to rebuild. Israeli bombardment and ground operations have transformed entire neighborhoods in several cities into rubble-strewn wastelands, with blackened shells of buildings and mounds of debris stretching away in all directions. The agreement for the phased ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas-led militants does not say who will govern Gaza after the war, or whether Israel and Egypt will lift a blockade limiting the movement of people and goods that they imposed when Hamas seized power in 2007.
A team of doctors and nurses battled to revive Adabi, an 86-year-old Myanmar refugee fighting long-standing heart problems and pneumonia, as her daughter watched tearfully in a hospital in northwestern Thailand. "My mother has suffered heart disease for many years," said 39-year-old Lay Nge, who was too distraught to say more. Adabi's plight followed a decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to freeze most foreign aid, bringing healthcare services to a halt in her mountainside refugee camp, forcing seriously ill residents to turn to government facilities for treatment.
Annual Gallup survey shows a declining majority of Americans are satisfied with acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the U.S.
Philippine lawmakers on Wednesday voted to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte, who has fallen out spectacularly with the country's leader, paving the way for a Senate trial that could see her removed from office.The fate of Duterte, daughter of the former president, now lies in the hands of the Philippines' 24 senators, two-thirds of whom must vote for her impeachment to remove her from office and disqualify her from future public positions.
Sweden reeled Wednesday from the deadliest mass shooting in its history after 10 people plus the suspected gunman were killed in a shooting at an adult education centre in the central city of Orebro.School attacks are relatively rare in Sweden, but the country has suffered shootings and bombings linked to gang violence that kill dozens of people each year.
Texas is set to execute Steven Nelson by lethal injection on Wednesday for the 2011 murder of beloved pastor Clint Dobson, who was just beginning his ministerial career.
Sen. Todd Young didn’t back Donald Trump in 2024. But that didn’t stop Young from calling the president this past weekend as he was wavering over Trump’s pick for the country’s top intelligence official, Tulsi Gabbard.
Russia welcomes U.S. President Donald Trump's view that drawing Ukraine towards the NATO military alliance was an issue of concern to Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday. Trump said in January that he sympathized with the Russian position that Ukraine should not be part of NATO and blamed outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden for allegedly changing the U.S. position on NATO membership for Ukraine.
Japanese police said they have arrested seven people suspected of running an illegal sex business that reportedly targeted tourists in Tokyo's busy red-light district.A Tokyo police spokesman told AFP on Wednesday that seven people, including a Brazilian national, had been arrested for running prostitution businesses under the guise of massage parlours for men in the central Kabukicho red-light district.
The governor of Russia's Astrakhan region told residents not to panic on Wednesday after its main city, close to a huge gas chemical complex that was attacked by Ukrainian drones this week, was enveloped in a cloud of natural gas. Governor Igor Babushkin said the gas that people could smell was the result of work to restart production at the plant near the southern city of Astrakhan, which has a population of about 475,000 people. "Dear citizens, this morning the city was covered by a cloud of natural gas, which has a specific smell that appears after processing," he wrote on Telegram.
Huawei's chairman said on Wednesday that the tech company's annual revenue exceeded 860 billion yuan ($118.27 billion) last year, as it continued to shake off the impact of U.S. sanctions and its consumer business returned to growth. Liang Hua made the remarks at a forum in Guangzhou, according to a report by the Shenzhen Business Daily, which was confirmed by a Huawei spokesperson. Annual revenue of 860 billion yuan would mark 22% year-on-year-growth from 2023, when Huawei reported 704.2 billion yuan in revenue.
Vaishnaw said in a post on X that he had a "super cool discussion" with Altman on India's "strategy of creating the entire AI stack - GPUs, model, and apps" and that OpenAI was willing to collaborate on all three. Altman's India visit, his first since 2023, comes at a time when the company faces legal challenges in the country, its second-largest market by number of users. "Our country sent a mission to the moon at a friction of the cost that many other countries did right, why can't we do a model that will be a fraction of the cost that many others do?" Vaishnaw said in a video of part of the discussion with Altman that he posted.
Nissan shares plunged on Wednesday as reports said the struggling Japanese carmaker was walking away from merger talks with rival Honda.But the smaller automaker's chief said this week it would make a final decision on whether to join the Honda-Nissan merger talks in mid-February or later.
Palestinians will mark this year the 77th anniversary of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel, an event that is at the core of their national struggle. Palestinians refer to their 1948 expulsion as the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe.
The US Postal Service (USPS) has said it is temporarily suspending inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong, evoking an angry accusation of "unreasonable suppression" from Beijing on Wednesday. "For now we are not affected, because (the suspension) only affects parcels from mainland China and Hong Kong," he said.
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