SOUTH KOREA
In South Korea, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed in the neck during a visit to the southeastern port city of Busan. He was flown to Seoul for surgery for fear of further bleeding, but his life is not in danger. Lee, who is 59 years old and president of the main opposition party, the Democratic Party (DP), has been at the center of an investigation into corporate donations and favors when he was mayor of Seongnam for a year, which also landed him in prison in last September.
JAPAN
The provisional death toll from the powerful earthquake in Japan, which caused the collapse of houses and triggered a tsunami warning on the central-west coast, has risen to 30 people. The Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, confirmed that the earthquake caused numerous victims and extensive damage. Rescue teams are searching for people thought to still be trapped under rubble in the city of Wajima in Ishikawa Prefecture.
ISRAEL
With a historic decision, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the controversial law on the limitation of reasonableness, annulling for the first time in the country's history a Basic Law, which in a country without a Constitution have the rank of fundamental laws. It was the only provision that approved the justice reform package wanted by Netanyahu's government and which profoundly split Israel. Eight High Court judges voted against the law, while seven would have upheld it. But as many as 13 of the 15 justices wrote in their opinions that the Court has the authority to review the Basic Laws.
BANGLADESH
In Bangladesh, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus was convicted of violating labor laws, in a case that his supporters say is politically motivated. Yunus and three of his colleagues were given a six-month sentence. All were immediately granted bail pending appeal. Yunus, 83, is credited with lifting millions of people out of poverty through the Grameen Bank and its microfinance model. But the country's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accuses him of "sucking the blood" of the poor.
HONG KONG
Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai formally pleaded not guilty to conspiring with foreign forces and publishing "seditious" material at today's hearing in his trial. The 76-year-old founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily addressed the court for the first time on Tuesday since the hearing began on December 18.
RUSSIA
In 2023, the Russian Ministry of Justice exceeded the number of 50 organizations declared "unwelcome" to Russia, a record for recent years, compared to 23 in 2022. In total, 122 associations are reported in the register, without counting the branches, of which only a third have relations with politics; all the others have a cultural, educational and religious profile.
KAZAKHSTAN-AFGHANISTAN
The representative of the Foreign Ministry of Kazakhstan Ajbek Smadijarov stated that the movement of the Taliban of Afghanistan is no longer considered by Astana to be a terrorist group, prohibited in the country, in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council and relations always more collaborative of the Kazakh government with Kabul.
