South Korea in turmoil over corruption scandal -BBC

Lee Wan-koo has offered to resign

Sometimes things just don't run right for politicians.

Lee Wan-koo only became prime minister of South Korea in February after a tough parliamentary fight for confirmation, during which a recording of him surfaced in which he boasted of his ability to suppress bad press coverage.

The recording of how he could soften bad news became... bad news.

And then, two months into the job, a construction tycoon, Sung Wan-jong,apparently killed himself amid swirling allegations of corruption.

Mr Sung left a suicide note - a suicide accusation, would be more accurate - in which he named those whom he claimed had taken his tainted money.

The South Korean prime minister's name was on that list.

The resignation came shortly after the prime minister had declared an "all-out war" on corruption, saying the government would mobilise all its resources to root it out.

Mr Lee initially showed no sign of vacating his seat, denying the allegations - and then after a weekend of feverish speculation - he offered his resignation, still denying the allegations.

Damage to president

It should be said that the prime minister is not the most powerful person in the land - that is the president - but the prime minister is her right-hand man.

He recommends ministers and oversees the daily routine of government. He is next in line if she falls in an emergency.

President Park Geun-hye is under pressure

It is as a confidant of President Park Geun-hye that his resignation (should she choose to accept it) causes the damage.

He is in her inner-circle, and so his demise taints her.

She has seemed beleaguered of late, under pressure over demands for an enquiry from the families of children who died when the Sewol ferry sank (and there are some groups that no politician would want to fall foul of, bereaved mothers being one).

The list of names left by the tycoon who killed himself included others close to her in the ruling New Frontier party so whatever the truth (and the allegations have been denied) it creates trouble for her.

Causing trouble

The suicidal tycoon was bent on causing trouble as his death loomed.

Each name on the list had a number alongside it, and the implication inferred by the media is that the figure was the size of the bung.

The Sewol ferry sank days after capsizing in April 2014

Again, to labour the point, all allegations of corruption in this inner government circle have been denied, and it may or may not just be the final mischief of a cornered man to create trouble for those left.

"If you bring me down, I'll take you with me," seemed to be the unspoken thought.

Prime Minister Lee's alleged figure, by the way, was 30 million Korean Won ($27,000) in cash from the late businessman in 2013, when Mr Lee was running for a parliamentary seat.

The force of the allegations had been heightened because the dead tycoon had taken the trouble to go on the radio shortly before taking his own life and naming the prime minister.

"They're talking about reform and rooting out corruption," Mr Sung said shortly before taking his own life, "but the first to be cracked down on should be someone like Lee Wan-koo".

President Park Geun-hye:

Daughter of Park Chung-hee, the third president of South Korea

Served as South Korea's first lady after her mother was murdered by a North Korean gunman in 1974

First woman to be elected as president in South Korea

First South Korean president to have been born a South Korean citizen

Twice chairwoman of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP)

Profile of Park Geun-hye

The president of South Korea looks on from afar. Literally from afar because she was in Peru when her right-hand man announced his intention to resign.

"I feel the agony of the prime minister," she was quoted as saying.

If she accepts the resignation, her own agony might get closer. She would have to find a sixth nominee in scarcely more than two years.

Three people proposed for the job withdrew their candidacies over ethical concerns and Mr Lee's predecessor resigned after the sinking of the Sewol.

Controversial figure

Does this matter outside South Korea? It would if President Park were weakened further.

She is already a controversial figure as the daughter of President Park Chung-hee, the general who took power in a coup and who led the country from 1961 until his assassination in 1979.

Her father was a strongman who also initiated the modernisation of the economy, and she has been accused of overbearing tendencies (though nothing to compare with the toughness of her father's regime).

Politics in this highly important part of the world are changing as China rises and America "pivots towards Asia".

South Korea has been tough in its opposition to North Korea and President Park's opponents would say "too tough".

If she went, they might replace hers with a softer policy for good or ill depending on your point of view.

If the suicide list does end up taking down President Park by dint of association with the names on it, then there will be more uncertainty in already uncertain and dangerous times.

China’s Xi Jinping Launches Investment Deal in Pakistan - WSJ

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Chinese President Xi Jinping kick-started $28 billion in infrastructure projects in Pakistan, in a visit meant to showcase deepening ties between the two countries.

Mr. Xi arrived Monday on his first state visit to Pakistan, where his government unveiled a massive infrastructure development program known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Islamabad and Beijing have been close strategic allies for decades, based on their mutual antagonism toward India, but their economic ties had lagged behind.

On Monday, Mr. Xi finalized agreements or broke ground on $28 billion of advance projects out of the total $46 billion, ranging from upgrading Pakistan’s railways to building power plants, said Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan’s planning minister.

“This is to show the seriousness—the reality—of the economic corridor,” Mr. Iqbal said.

At a ceremony in Islamabad, the two sides signed 51 agreements. From the capital, Mr. Xi and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also performed a remote grounding breaking, via video link to the sites, on five projects, including a $1.4 billion dam close to Islamabad that will deliver 720 megawatts of electricity, and adding 900 megawatts to a solar power park at Bahawalpur, in the center of the country, for $1.5 billion.

“Friendship with China is the cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy,” Mr. Sharif said after the ceremony. “Today, we have planned for the future.”

The program isn't structured as traditional development aid. Chinese companies will carry out the work, which will be financed through either Chinese investment or concessional loans.

“I feel satisfied with the rich deliverables of the visit,” Mr. Xi said, according to a translation provided by Pakistani state television. “The building of the China-Pakistan corridor concerns, and has a bearing on, the national strategy [and] livelihoods of the two countries and their long-term development.”

The proposed economic corridor will connect the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang with the Pakistani port of Gwadar through a network of roads, and provide Pakistan with much-needed economic infrastructure, especially power-generation plants.

Pakistan’s acute electricity shortage leads to hours of daily scheduled power cuts to homes and businesses, holding back economic growth.

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Beijing is concerned that without economic development and stabilization, Pakistan and Afghanistan would undermine security on China’s northwest flank. The economic corridor also aims to help economically develop the predominantly Muslim northwest region of China, by connecting it with Gwadar, a closer outlet than any Chinese coastal port.

A joint statement Monday said that the two sides will “continue working together to resolutely combat the terrorist organization, ETIM”, referring to the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, a militant Chinese Islamist group that has a refuge in Pakistan.

Of the $28 billion in advanced projects, most are expected to be completed by 2018, said Mr. Iqbal, the planning minister. These include a project to provide 1,320 megawatts of power at Port Qasim, in Karachi, 200 megawatts of wind farms in the southern province of Sindh, and coal-mining and coal-fired power plants at Thar, in Sindh.

In total, Mr. Xi’s visit will allow work to begin on providing 8,400 megawatts of power generation, with the construction of another 2,000 megawatts to follow in the short to medium term, said Mr. Iqbal.

ENLARGE

An agreement to build a natural-gas pipeline connected to Iran was also signed Monday.

The Chinese-built power plants, if completed in time, would be enough to plug Pakistan’s existing electricity shortfall ahead of its next election, due in 2018. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif won office in 2013, partially on his promise to solve the country’s electricity crisis.

The Chinese transport projects include a $1.6 billion elevated mass transit railway for the eastern city of Lahore, Mr. Sharif’s hometown.

Mr. Xi will address a special joint sitting of both houses of Pakistan’s parliament Tuesday.

In total, the economic corridor project aims to add some 17,000 megawatts of electricity generation, at a cost of around $34 billion. The rest of the money will be spent on transport infrastructure, including upgrading the railway line between the port megacity of Karachi and the northwest city of Peshawar.

The plan calls for the completion of all the projects by 2030. Pakistan will establish a special security force of several thousand personnel to guard the Chinese projects against attacks by militants.

“Our cooperation in the security and economic fields reinforce each other, and they must be advanced simultaneously,” Mr. Xi said in a statement to the Pakistani media Sunday.

Hong Kong election candidates to be screened, reform proposal says - BBC

Hong Kong's government has unveiled proposed reforms for the next election, which do not concede to pro-democracy demands for a fully free vote.

The electoral blueprint complies with guidelines from China's legislature that candidates for the 2017 election will be screened.

Democracy activists said this amounted to a "fake democracy".

When the guidelines were announced last August there were weeks of street protests and some violent clashes.

Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's second highest government official, put forward the reform package.

"These proposals are in strict compliance with the Basic Law [Hong Kong's constitution] and the relevant decisions of [China's] standing committee of the National People's Congress," Ms Lam said.

"At the same time they fully take into account the views expressed by various sectors of the community," she said.

Chief Secretary Carrie Lam announced that candidates will first be voted on by the nominating committee

Hong Kong's leader will be chosen by the general population of more than five million eligible voters in the 2017 elections for the first time.

However, the process prior to that was outlined by Ms Lam:

• A primary vote will take place where the 1,200 members of the largely pro-Beijing nominating committee will get one vote each.
• A candidate will have to win at least 120 votes which will result in a shortlist of between five and 10 candidates.
• These candidates will then be put to a second round of voting by members of the nominating committee.
• Each member will cast at least two approval votes.
• The two or three candidates who win more than 600 votes each will then be eligible to run in the public election.

Pro-democracy protesters have said this process allows Beijing to eliminate unwanted candidates and does not amount to universal suffrage.

Hong Kong protests: Has Beijing won?

Hong Kong's democracy debate

Thousands of people barricaded parts of Hong Kong for more than two months in protest when the guidelines were first announced last year.

But China has repeatedly made it clear that no concessions will be given. In December, Hong Kong police dismantled the last of the protest camps.

'Two systems'

The electoral proposal is due to be voted on in the legislature in the summer, and needs a two-thirds majority in the 70-member Legislative Council to be passed.

Pro-democracy lawmakers left the chamber in protest after the proposal was read out

The 27 pan-democratic lawmakers have mostly vowed to veto it. Many of them walked out of the chamber after the proposal was announced.

"We will launch a campaign to oppose the proposal and we will ask the Hong Kong public to continue to seek true universal suffrage," Civic Party lawmaker Alan Leong said.

The government will have to win over at least four of them to get the proposal through.

Speaking beforehand, the city's leader, Chief executive CY Leung, warned that if the proposal was vetoed this time, it would be a number of years before it was discussed again.

That would mean the current system, under which the chief executive is elected by a 1,200-member election committee, would remain in place.

China governs Hong Kong, a former British colony, under the "one country, two systems" principle.

The system has allowed the city a high degree of autonomy and civil rights, including freedom of assembly and free speech.

Hong Kong's mini-constitution says the ultimate aim is to elect the chief executive "by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee".

Former Chinese official goes on trial for corruption

Still unclear whether President Xi Jinping aims to upend graft — or his political enemies

April 23, 2015 10:00AM ET

by Massoud Hayoun   @mhayoun  Google+

Li Chuncheng stands trial in China's Xianning City on Thursday.

Xianning City Intermediate People’s Court / Sina Weibo

A former Chinese official — with ties to other fallen political stars — went on trial Thursday on charges of bribery and abuse of power, amid suggestions by some China analysts that Beijing’s current anti-corruption campaign is a pretext to sideline the ruling administration’s perceived adversaries.

The Xianning City Intermediate People’s Court, in the central Chinese province of Hubei, published photos from the trial of former Deputy Communist Party Chief for southern Sichuan province Li Chuncheng to its account on Sina Weibo, a website often described as a Chinese version of Twitter. The government’s push to publicize such trials has been hailed by some as a move toward transparency, and derided by others as a return to the show trials of China’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s.

Mayweather-Pacquiao fight tickets sell out in minutes

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao's fight sold out within minutes and tickets immediately appeared on websites for as much as £94,000 ($141,000).

Only 1,000 tickets were made available to the public for the fight on 2 May at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The remaining 15,500 seats will go to fighters, sponsors and promoters.

The cheapest ticket for the bout cost £1,000 ($1,500), rising to about £5,000 ($7,500).

The contest between the two has been set since February, but a ticket contract was only finalised this week.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/boxing/32442583

Bali Nine: Indonesia orders 'execution preparations'

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were sentenced to death in 2006 for drug smuggling

Indonesia has ordered preparations for the execution of two Australian drug smugglers on death row.

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the leaders of the "Bali Nine" group of heroin smugglers, were sentenced to death in 2006.

A spokesman for Indonesia's attorney general said that prosecutors had been told to begin preparations but did not set a final date.

The men must be given 72 hours notice of their execution.

"This order has been issued so that the officials make preparations concerning their role," said Tony Spontana, spokesman for the attorney general's office.

Imminent execution

A lawyer for the prisoners has expressed concern over the latest development.

Peter Morrisey told ABC News that the legal process was not yet finished but that it looked as though "the attorney-general's office is determined to press ahead and hustle through."

Both men have already had clemency appeals rejected by Indonesian President Joko Widodo earlier this year.

Mr Widodo, who took office in 2014, has a policy of denying clemency to drug offenders, saying the drug trade has caused huge damage to Indonesia.

Ten prisoners on death row are facing imminent execution for drug-related offences, including people from Brazil, France, Nigeria and the Philippines.

Appeals for clemency have already been rejected by the courts in Indonesia

Local media report that embassy officials representing some of the prisoners have been summoned to meet Indonesian officials on Saturday.

Mr Spontana also confirmed that another death row prisoner, Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, will be moved on Friday to Nusakambangan prison, where executions take place.

The Australian pair are already being held there.

Chan and Sukumaran were arrested in Bali in 2005 while attempting to smuggle heroin to Australia. A court ruled that they had organised a nine-member smuggling operation.

But their families have argued that they are reformed characters and should be shown mercy. Australia has also mounted a strong diplomatic campaign on their behalf.

Indonesia has faced heavy criticism from other countries whose nationals are facing execution.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-32443037

Australia's refugee policy: Should Europe emulate it? (DW)

In the wake of the drowning of several hundred asylum seekers in the Mediterranean, Australian PM Tony Abbott has advised European politicians to follow Canberra's refugee policy. Would it be a wise move? DW examines.

Japan’s Abe expresses ‘remorse,’ no apology over wartime record  (france 24)

© AFP

Text by NEWS WIRES

Latest update : 2015-04-22

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed "deep remorse" Wednesday for Japan's World War II aggression at a summit attended by Asian leaders, but stopped short of repeating previous apologies in a move that risks angering Beijing and Seoul.

Australia and Iran will share intelligence to fight IS  BBC news

• 20 April 2015
 
• From the section Australia

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop met with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday

Australia and Iran have agreed to share intelligence about Australians fighting with militant groups in Iraq. 

Thailand seizes 4 tonnes of ivory in record bust

More than 700 tusks confiscated days before amnesty for ivory owners to register goods comes into effect.

21 Apr 2015

Poachers have killed tens of thousands of African elephants for their tusks in recent years to meet demand in Asia [AP]

Thailand says it has seized four tonnes of ivory hidden in bean sacks tracked from the Democratic Republic of Congo in what authorities called the biggest bust in the country's history.

Jakarta warned of ‘consequences’ if Frenchman executed

·         © AFP | Serge Atlaoui at his appeal hearing at Indonesia's Supreme Court in March 2015

France’s ambassador to Jakarta warned Indonesia Friday that there would be “consequences” if a Frenchman on death row for drug charges is executed.

"If the execution is carried out, it will not be without consequence for our bilateral relationship," ambassador Corinne Breuze told reporters, adding that France, which abolished the death penalty in 1981, was opposed to capital punishment in all circumstances.

Five Australian teenagers were arrested Saturday on suspicion of plotting an Islamic State group-inspired terrorist attack at a Veterans’ Day ceremony that included targeting police officers, officials said.

The suspects included two 18-year-olds who are alleged to have been preparing an attack at the ANZAC Day ceremony in Melbourne, Australian Federal Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan told reporters.

Another 18-year-old was arrested on weapons charges and two other men, aged 18 and 19, were in custody and assisting police. All the arrests took place in Melbourne.

ANZAC stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and commemorates the World War I battle in Turkey on April 25.