Author: Disha Mishra

SEOUL, Jan 9 (Reuters) – South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will accept the decision of the Constitutional Court that is trying parliament’s impeachment case against him, even if it decides to remove the suspended leader from office, his lawyer said on Thursday. “So if the decision is ‘removal’, it cannot but be accepted,” Yoon’s lawyer Yoon Kab-keun told a news conference. Rulings by the court, one of the two highest courts in the country along with the Supreme Court, cannot be appealed. Yoon has earlier ignored the Constitutional Court’s requests to submit legal briefs before the court began its…

(Reuters) – A Russian guided bomb attack on Wednesday killed at least 13 people and injured 113 in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, authorities said. The blast left bodies strewn across a road alongside injured residents. Public transport was also damaged in the strike. Prosecutors increased the injury toll from 63 to 113 people on Thursday morning. Rescue work had been completed at the site of the attack the evening before. High-rise apartment blocks were damaged along with an industrial facility and other infrastructure, Ukraine’s prosecutor general office said on Telegram. The debris hit a tram and a bus with…

HYDERABAD, Jan 9 (Reuters) – At least six people were killed and 35 injured in a stampede near one of India’s busiest, and richest, temples, after thousands of devout Hindus flocked to secure free visit passes, authorities said on Thursday. The period from Friday to Jan. 19 is considered auspicious for visits to the deity at the Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple, popularly known as Tirupati, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, the site of Wednesday’s incident. “The stampede took place when the gate was opened,” S. Venkateswar, the district collector, or top revenue official, told reporters on Thursday. “About…

KABUL, Jan 9 (Reuters) – The Taliban’s foreign office said they saw India as a “significant regional and economic partner” after meeting with its most senior foreign ministry official, the highest level talks with Delhi since their takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met acting Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai on Wednesday. Afghanistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement that they had discussed expanding relations with Afghanistan and to boost trade through Chabahar Port in Iran, which India has been developing for goods to bypass the ports of Karachi and Gwadar in its…

CAIRO, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Archaeologists have uncovered intact portions of the foundation wall of pharaonic Queen Hatshepsut’s valley temple in Luxor and the nearby tomb of Queen Teti Sheri, grandmother of Ahmose I, the first pharaoh of Egypt’s golden New Kingdom era. The discovery of more than 1,000 decorated stone blocks on the outskirts of Hatshepsut’s funerary temple above was announced on Wednesday by team leader Zahi Hawass, an Egyptian archaeologist and former minister of antiquities who has been leading excavations at the site since 2022. The 18th dynasty Queen Hatshepsut, who died in about 1458 B.C., was one…

(Forelines): Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stated on Wednesday that the name “Gulf of Mexico” is internationally recognized, responding to comments by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump about renaming the body of water, as per Reuters report. On Tuesday Trump had argued in favor of renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” as per Reuters report. Claudia Sheinbaum then took jabs at Trump, stating he (Trump) was living in the past, Reuters report. “I think they told President (elect) Trump wrong, they told him Felipe Calderon is still president,” Sheinbaum stated, according to Reuters report. Sheinbaum further stated, “But no,…

JERUSALEM, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Three Palestinians, including two children, were killed on Wednesday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian news agency WAFA said, as Israeli strikes persisted following Monday’s killing of three Israelis in the territory. The Israeli military said its air force “struck a terrorist cell in the area of Tamun”, a town northeast of Nablus city. It told Reuters it was looking into reports children had been killed in the strike and would respond shortly. WAFA said two boys, aged nine and ten, were killed by a drone strike which also killed a 23-year-old man. There was…

(Forelines): India’s Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday that India will consider involving in development projects in Afghanistan in the near future, despite the absence of diplomatic ties, reported by Reuters. The statement came after a meeting in Dubai between Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Afghanistan’s Acting Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, as per Reuters report. “In response to the request from the Afghan side, India will provide further material support in the first instance to the health sector and for the rehabilitation of refugees,” said in the statement quoted by Reuters. India has sent multiple shipments to Afghanistan,…

BEIRUT, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Lebanon’s parliament will try to elect a president on Thursday, with officials seeing better chances of success in a political landscape shaken by Israel’s war with Hezbollah and the toppling of the group’s ally Bashar al-Assad in neighbouring Syria. The post, reserved for a Maronite Christian in the country’s sectarian power-sharing system, has been vacant since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October, 2023. None of the political groups in the 128-seat parliament have enough seats to impose their choice, and they have so far been unable to agree on a consensus candidate. The vote marks…

HONG KONG/TAIPEI Jan 8 (Reuters) – The Chinese director of a firm whose vessel Taiwan suspects of having damaged an undersea communications cable said on Wednesday there was no evidence the ship was involved, an incident that has alarmed the government in Taipei. Taiwan’s coast guard said it sent a ship to investigate a report on Friday from telecoms provider Chunghwa Telecom that an undersea communications cable had been damaged off the island’s north coast. Arriving at the scene it found the Chinese-crewed “Shunxin 39”, registered both in Cameroon and Tanzania, which it requested to return to port in Taiwan…