Foreign News
South Korea’s Ex-first Lady Jailed for 20 Months for Bribery
The wife of South Korea’s ousted former president has been sentenced to 20 months in jail for accepting bribes from the controversial Unification Church.
However, the court cleared 52-year-old Kim Keon Hee on charges of stock price manipulation and receiving free opinion polls from a political broker before the 2022 presidential election, which her husband Yoon Suk Yeol won.
Yoon has already been sentenced to five years’ in jail for abusing power and obstructing justice in relation to his failed martial law bid in 2024.
This marks the first time in South Korea’s history that a former presidential couple are convicted at the same time.
On Wednesday, Judge Woo In-sung at the Seoul Central District Court ruled that Kim had “misused her position as a means of pursuing personal gain”.
“The higher [one’s] position, the more consciously one must guard against such conduct… The defendant failed to reject solicitations and was preoccupied with self-adornment,” the judge said.
In a statement after the verdict, Kim said: “I humbly accept the court’s sterm admonition and will not take its weight lightly”.
“Once again, I sincerely apologise to everyone for the concern I have caused,” she added. Kim had previously denied all charges.
A special counsel team appointed to the case said Kim received 80m won ($56,000; £40,600) of gifts, which include a Graff diamond necklace and several Chanel handbags, from the Unification Church between April and July 2022, in exchange for business and political favours.
The team had sought a 15-year jail term and a fine of 2bn won for all three charges heard on Wednesday – for which Kim was convicted of one – but the judge noted that Kim was not the one who demanded or solicited the bribes, and that she had “no significant criminal record”.
She was however ordered to pay back 12.85m won in cash and the court also ordered the confiscation of the diamond necklace.
Kim has also been charged over her alleged involvement in a scheme to recruit Unification Church followers to the conservative People Power Party that her husband was part of, and accepting gifts in exchange for government job appointments. The court has yet to hear those cases.
The former first lady had denied all charges, saying they were “deeply unjust”, although she did admit to receiving Chanel bags, which she said she later returned without using.
She made a public apology when she appeared for questioning last August. “I am truly sorry that a nobody like me has caused concern to the people,” she said.
Investigations into Kim’s dealings with the Unification Church had also led to the arrest of church leader Han Hak-ja.
Apart from the criminal allegations, Kim has also been the subject of other controversies. Last year, Sookmyung Women’s University annulled an art education degree she graduated with in 1999, after an ethics panel found she had plagiarised her master’s thesis.
US President Donald Trump announced he will be seeking $1bn (£730m) in damages from Harvard University in his administration’s ongoing feud with the institution.
The news comes after the New York Times reported that the Trump administration had to backtrack from its demand for a $200m payment in negotiations with the university.
Trump cited the story in a Truth Social post late on Monday, blaming Harvard for “feeding a lot of nonsense” to the New York Times.
Trump officials have accused Harvard of not doing enough to tackle antisemitism during pro-Palestinian protests. Harvard has rejected the accusation.
Harvard has been a central target in the White House’s campaign to stamp out what it calls “woke” and “radical left” ideologies on American campuses.
In April last year, Trump revoked around $2bn in research grants to Harvard and froze federal funding.
The university sued the Trump administration over the move, saying no government “should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”.
A US federal court later overturned the billions in funding cuts, ruling the government had violated university’s free speech rights.
The White House vowed to immediately challenge the “egregious decision”, saying Harvard remains “ineligible for grants in the future”.
Before Monday’s announcement, the government had been in discussions with Harvard over a potential deal to unfreeze federal funding.
“We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University,” Trump wrote on Monday.
He accused Harvard of “serious and heinous illegalities”, but did not clarify how he believed it had broken the law.
Trump has previously threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status and take control of the university’s patents stemming from federally funded research.
Three other Ivy League universities, Columbia, Penn and Brown, struck deals with Trump to preserve funding that was at risk due to similar claims by the administration, rather than go to court.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s Prime Minister, said on Tuesday at the World Government Summit in Dubai that access to social media for minors under 16 would be banned.
Sanchez added that all platforms will be required to implement age verification systems.
“Our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone.
“We will no longer accept that.
We will protect them from the digital Wild West. ”He added that his government would also introduce a new bill next week to hold social media executives accountable for illegal and hateful content.
Australia in December became the first country to ban social media for children under 16.
It’s a move being closely watched by other countries considering similar age-based measures, such as Britain and France.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to sue Grammys host, Trevor Noah after a joke he made about disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein on stage.
Trump blasted the comedian as a “total loser,” adding: “It looks like I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.
C., and suing him for plenty of dollars. ”Trump criticised Noah’s joke, made after the song of the year gong was handed out at the ceremony on Sunday night.
Writing on Truth Social, in a post strewn with uppercase words, Trump said: “Noah said, INCORRECTLY about me, that Donald Trump and Bill Clinton spent time on Epstein Island. WRONG!!!
“I can’t speak for Bill, but I have never been to Epstein Island, nor anywhere close, and until tonight’s false and defamatory statement, have never been accused of being there, not even by the Fake News Media.
“Noah, a total loser, better get his facts straight, and get them straight fast.”
He added: “Get ready Noah, I’m going to have some fun with you!”
Trump also blasted the ceremony saying: “The Grammy Awards are the WORST, virtually unwatchable! CBS is lucky not to have this garbage litter their airwaves any longer.”
This was an apparent reference to Disney taking over the broadcast rights for the award ceremony starting in 2027.
He has also engaged in legal action with the New York Times, Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal.
Last July, U.S. media giant Paramount, which owns CBS, agreed to pay Trump 16 million dollars to settle a lawsuit over a 2024 CBS interview with Kamala Harris, the former vice-president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.
Noah, 41, is a South African-born comedian and TV personality who hosted “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central in the U.S. for seven years.
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