Briefly

SOUTH KOREA

Court to hold Yoon's 1st pretrial hearing

South Korea's Constitutional Court said on Monday that it will hold the first pretrial hearing over President Yoon Suk-yeol's impeachment on Friday as scheduled. A court official told a televised news conference that the first preliminary hearing would be held on Dec 27 as planned as the court deemed the impeachment notice delivered to Yoon, who repeatedly defied the delivery. The official said the delivery was already effective on Friday when all relevant documents arrived.

RUSSIA

Putin meets prime minister of Slovakia

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was on a working visit in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday. The meeting was planned several days ago, and the two leaders held talks in a one-on-one meeting, Peskov said during an interview with Pavel Zarubin, a journalist of Russia's state TV and radio company VGTRK, adding the two sides were expected to discuss international issues and the transit of Russian gas. On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv will not extend its five-year gas transportation deal with Russia, which expires at the end of 2024.

BRAZIL

Plane crash kills 10 members of family

Ten members of a family died early Sunday when their small plane slammed into a commercial district in the city of Gramado in southern Brazil, the civil defense authorities said. The plane, a Piper Cheyenne 400 turboprop, was being flown by a businessman named Luiz Claudio Salgueiro Galeazzi, police confirmed to AFP, and the passengers were all his family members.

Xinhua - Agencies