Briefly

SOUTH KOREA

Former president granted pardon

South Korean President Yoon Sukyeol on Tuesday granted a special pardon to former president Lee Myung-bak as well as some other politicians and former government officials, the Ministry of Justice said. Lee, who had served a single five-year presidency until February 2013, was sentenced in October 2020 to 17 years in prison for bribery and embezzlement, but his sentence has been put on hold since June for health problems. With the special pardon to be effective on Wednesday, Lee will be exempted from the remaining 15 years in prison. It marked the second presidential pardon that Yoon has granted since he took office in May.

FRANCE

Suspect charged over deadly shooting

France charged a suspected gunman on Monday with last week's killing of three Kurds in Paris, as hundreds of people marched in the French capital to pay tribute to the victims. The 69-year-old suspect had confessed to a "pathological "hatred for foreigners and spent nearly a day in a psychiatric facility before being returned to police custody on Sunday, authorities said. The judge charged the man with murder and attempted murder for race, ethnicity, nationality or religion as well as for the unauthorized procurement and possession of a weapon, a judicial source said.

UNITED NATIONS

100m displaced globally in 2022

One hundred million people across the world were forced to leave their homes in 2022 and the United Nations is continuing to help those in need in myriad ways, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Monday. Filippo Grandi, head of the agency, described the figure as "a record that should never have been set", UN News said. The comparable figure last year was 90 million. Outbreaks of violence, or protracted conflicts, were key migration factors in many parts of the world, including Ukraine, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Syria and Myanmar. Thousands of desperate migrants looked to Europe as a preferred destination, putting their lives in the hands of human traffickers, and setting off on perilous journeys across the Mediterranean, UN News warned.

Agencies via Xinhua