SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared an “emergency martial law,” Tuesday accusing the country’s opposition of controlling the parliament, sympathizing with North Korea and paralyzing the government with anti-state activities. Yoon’s conservative People Power Party had been locked in an impasse with the liberal opposition Democratic Party over next year’s budget bill. He has also been dismissing calls for independent investigations into scandals involving his wife and top officials, drawing quick, strong rebukes from his political rivals. The Democratic Party reportedly called an emergency meeting of its lawmakers following Yoon’s announcement.

 

*** 

BERLIN (AP) — Finnish police said Tuesday that “there is no reason to suspect any criminal activity” in connection with damage to two data cables running across the land border between Sweden and Finland, saying the damage was created by excavation work. The two cables were repaired Tuesday, a day after they were damaged, affecting 6,000 private customers and 100 businesses, a company providing digital infrastructure and data communication in Northern Europe said. Global Connect said the internet cables were damaged in two separate places in southern Finland on Monday. The incident comes after the rupture of two data cables on the Baltic Sea bed last month. The two, one running from Finland to Germany and the other from Lithuania to Sweden, were both damaged in Swedish waters.  Germany’s defense minister said at the time the damage appeared to have been caused by sabotage, though there is no proof at present. Last week, Sweden formally asked China to cooperate in explaining the rupture of the Baltic Sea data cables where a China-flagged vessel had been sighted.

 

*** 

LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Reuters) -- An unknown disease killed 143 people in Democratic Republic of the Congo’s southwestern province in November, local authorities told Reuters. Infected people had flu-like symptoms, including high fever and severe headaches, Remy Saki, deputy governor of Kwango province, and Apollinaire Yumba, provincial minister of health, said. A medical team has been sent to the Panzi health zone to collect samples and carry out an analysis in order to identify the disease. The situation is extremely worrying as the number of infected people continues to rise, civil society leader Cephorien Manzanza told Reuters. A local epidemiologist said women and children were the most seriously affected by the disease.

 

*** 

TAIPEI (Reuters) -- Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Tuesday it is watching the movements of a Chinese aircraft carrier and assessing China’s military activities as security sources said Beijing could launch new war games as soon as this weekend. China has a strong dislike of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, whom it calls a “separatist”, and sources have told Reuters it could launch new drills to coincide with his trip to the Pacific this week which includes visits to Hawaii and Guam. A north bound Russian naval fleet, which included three frigates and one supply vessel, on Monday approached close to Taiwan’s contiguous zone 24 nautical miles (45 km) off its southeastern coasts and conducted joint simulated attacks on “foreign vessels and aircraft” with a Chinese destroyer nearby, the source said. The Russian fleet entered the East China Sea early on Tuesday, and the source said it was expected to continue joint military maneuvers with its Chinese counterparts as it heads north. Meanwhile, China has deployed close to 40 vessels in the region, including a Chinese aircraft carrier group led by Liaoning in the East China Sea as well as other naval and coast guard boats in the South China Sea.

 

*** 

HANOI (Reuters) -- A court in Vietnam on Tuesday upheld a death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan after rejecting her appeal against a conviction for embezzlement and bribery in a high-profile $12 billion fraud case, state media reported. Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to death in April for her role in what was Vietnam’s biggest financial fraud case on record. The High People’s Court in southern Ho Chi Minh City determined there was no basis to reduce Lan’s death sentence, reported online newspaper VnExpress. She is one of the most famous business executives and state officials jailed in the communist country’s lengthy anti-graft campaign known as “Blazing Furnace”. State media cited Lan’s lawyer as saying she had many mitigating circumstances, including “having admitted guilt, showing remorse and paying back part of the amount of money embezzled”, but prosecutors said that was insufficient. 

 

*** 

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -- India and China will consider “other aspects” of their bilateral ties in a calibrated manner now that they have completed pulling back their troops from the last two face-off points on their Himalayan border, India’s foreign minister said on Tuesday. The comments came six weeks after New Delhi and Beijing reached a deal to resolve a four-year military stand-off that had damaged the relationship between the Asian giants, indicating that India is willing to improve business ties that were also hurt. Relations between the world’s two most populous nations - both nuclear powers - have been strained since clashes between their troops on the frontier in the western Himalayas left 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead in 2020.