Asia Pacific

Seoul, South Korea – When Sideny Sim had a chance to visit the United States on business several years ago, it was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream.

Like many South Koreans, Sim had long admired the US as a cultural juggernaut and positive force in the world.

These days, Sim, a 38-year-old engineer living near Seoul, feels no such love towards the country.

As US President Donald Trump threatens to impose a 25 percent tariff on South Korea from August 1, Sim cannot help but feel betrayed.

“If they used to be a country that was known to be a leader in culture, the economy and the perception of being ‘good,’ I feel like the US is now a threat to geopolitical balance,” Sim told Al Jazeera.

South Korea and the US share deep and enduring ties.

South Korea is one of Washington’s closest allies in Asia, hosting about 28,000 US troops as a bulwark against North Korea.

The US is home to a larger South Korean diaspora than any other country.

But with the return of Trump’s “America First” agenda to Washington, DC, those ties are coming under strain.

In a Pew Research Center survey released earlier this month, 61 percent of South Koreans expressed a favourable view of the US, down from 77 percent in 2024.

Like dozens of other US trading partners, South Korea is facing severe economic disruption if it cannot reach a trade deal with the Trump administration by the August deadline.

The Asian country, which is a major producer of electronics, ships and cars, generates more than 40 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) from exports.

In addition to sending a letter to South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung outlining his tariff threats, Trump earlier this month also claimed that Seoul pays “very little” to support the presence of US Forces Korea (USFK).

Trump’s comments reinforced speculation that he could demand that the South Korean government increase its national defence spending or contributions to the costs of the USFK.

After Trump last week told reporters that South Korea “wants to make a deal right now,” Seoul’s top trade envoy said that an “in-principle” agreement was possible by the deadline.

With the clock ticking on a deal, the uncertainty created by Trump’s trade policies has stirred resentment among many South Koreans.

Kim Hyunju, a customer service agent working in Seoul, said that although her company would not be directly affected by the tariffs, Trump’s trade salvoes did not seem fair.

“It would only be fair if they are OK with us raising our tariffs to the same level as well,” Kim told Al Jazeera, adding that the Trump administration’s actions had caused her to feel animosity towards the US.

“I can’t help but see the US as a powerful nation which fulfils its interests with money and sheer power plays,” Kim said.

“I’ve always thought of the US as a friendly ally that is special to us, especially in terms of national defence. I know it is good for us to maintain this friendly status, but I sort of lost faith when Trump also demanded a larger amount of money for the US military presence in our country.”

Kim Chang-chul, an investment strategist in Seoul, expressed a more sanguine view of Trump’s trade policies, even while acknowledging the harm they could do to South Korean businesses.

“The US tariff policy is a burden for our government and businesses, but the move really shows the depth of US decision-making and strategy,” Kim told Al Jazeera.

“Trump wants South Korea to be more involved in the US’s energy ambitions in Alaska. It’s part of the US pushing for geopolitical realignment and economic rebalancing.”

Earlier this year, the US held talks with South Korean officials about boosting US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to South Korea, a major LNG importer.

Keum Hye-yoon, a researcher at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), said it has been difficult for a US ally like South Korea to make sense of Trump’s comments and actions.

“When Trump cites ‘fairness’ in his tariff policy, it’s based on unilateral expectations of improving the US trade balance or restoring economic strength to certain industries,” Keum told Al Jazeera.

“As allies like South Korea share supply chains with the US and work closely with its companies, disregarding these structures and imposing high taxes will likely create burdens on US businesses and consumers as well.”

While Trump’s most severe tariffs have yet to come into effect, South Korean manufacturers have already reported some disruption.

South Korea’s exports dropped 2.2 percent in the first 20 days of July compared with a year earlier, according to preliminary data released by Korea Customs Service on Monday.

Kim Sung-hyeok, the head of research at the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) Labour Institute, said exporters in the auto, steel, semiconductor and pharmaceutical sectors had been especially affected.

“As exports in these fields decreased considerably since the tariff announcements, production orders in domestic factories have declined,” Kim told Al Jazeera.

“Some automotive and steel production lines have closed temporarily, while other manufacturing sites have closed altogether. Voluntary resignations and redeployments have become rampant in some of these workplaces.”

Kim said small companies may face the brunt of the tariffs as they are not capable of “moving their manufacturing plants to the US”, or “diversifying their trade avenues outside of the US”.

“And as major companies face a general decline in exports, these small companies will consequently face a shortage in product delivery volume that will cause employment disputes,” he said.

The Korea Development Institute estimated in May that the number of employed South Koreans would increase by just 90,000 this year, in part due to the economic uncertainties, compared with a rise of 160,000 last year.

Even before Trump’s arrival on the political scene, US-South Korea relations had gone through difficult periods in the past.

In 2002, two South Korean middle-school girls were killed when they were struck by a US Army armoured vehicle.

After the American soldiers involved in the incident were found not guilty of negligent homicide by a US military court, the country saw an explosion in anti-US sentiment and nationwide protests.

In 2008, nationwide protests took place after the South Korean government decided to continue importing US beef despite concerns about the risk of Mad Cow Disease.

More recently, President Lee, who was elected in June, has emphasised the importance of maintaining positive relations with China, Washington’s biggest strategic rival and competitor.

The KIEP’s Keum said the US-South Korea relationship has evolved into a partnership where the US has become a “conditional ally”, where “economic interests take precedence over traditional alliance”.

“The US is increasingly demanding South Korea to cooperate in its containment strategy of China among its other socioeconomic policies,” she said.

Keum said that South Korea will need to seek out alternative markets and diversify its exports to mitigate the fallout of Trump’s agenda.

“South Korea also doesn’t need to act alone. The country can seek joint action with countries such as EU members, Japan and Canada to come up with joint responses to the current predicament,” she said.

Five-day deluge unleashed flash floods and landslides that killed 18 and left nine others missing, authorities say.

Torrential rains that lashed South Korea have killed at least 18 people and left nine others missing, authorities said, as the government lifted advisories for heavy rain and the meteorological agency warned of a return of heatwaves to southern parts of the country.

The toll on Monday came as South Korea’s military also announced dispatching thousands of troops to rain-ravaged areas to assist in recovery efforts.

The downpours began on July 16 and brought some of the heaviest hourly rainfall on record to some of South Korea’s central and southern provinces. The five-day deluge collapsed homes, triggered landslides and unleashed flash floods that swept away cars and campers.

At least 10 people were killed in the southern county of Sancheong, and four others remain missing there, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

Another person was killed when their house collapsed in the town of Gapyeong, northeast of the capital, Seoul, while a man who had been camping near a stream there was found dead after being swept away by rapid currents.

The man’s wife and teenage son remain missing, the South Korean JoongAng Daily reported. Two others, including a man in his 70s who had been buried in a landslide, were listed as missing in the same town.

The rains also forced some 14,166 people to evacuate their homes in 15 cities and provinces, and caused “extensive property damage”, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The agency said 1,999 cases of damage had been recorded at public facilities, and 2,238 cases were recorded at private homes and buildings.

South Korea’s military said it has dispatched some 2,500 personnel to the southwestern city of Gwangju as well as the South Chungcheong and South Gyeongsang provinces to assist in the recovery efforts.

The troops will be overhauling homes and stores affected by the rains, it said.

Hannah June Kim, an associate professor in the Graduate School of International Studies at Sogang University in Seoul, told Al Jazeera that “a lot of people were taken off guard” because monsoonal rains came later than expected this year.

“The expectation was that monsoons would not be appearing during this summer,” she said. “So, when this heavy rain started to fall this past week, a lot of local areas were unprepared.”

“We are seeing the heavy effects of climate change and how it’s affecting different areas,” she added.

South Korea’s Meteorological Administration (KMA) forecast more rainfall in the southern regions on Monday but said that a heatwave would follow. According to the JoongAng Daily, heatwave advisories and warnings have already been issued for parts of South Jeolla, the east coast of Gangwon and Jeju Island.

“From July 24 onward, morning lows will remain between 23 and 26 degrees Celsius [73.4F to 78.8F], and daytime highs will range from 30 to 35 degrees Celsius [86F to 95F], higher than the seasonal averages of 22 to 25 degrees Celsius [71.6F to 77F] in the morning and 29 to 33 degrees Celsius [84.2F to 91.4F] during the day,” it reported, citing the KMA.

Scientists say climate change has made extreme weather events more frequent and intense around the world.

In 2022, South Korea endured record-breaking rains and flooding, which killed at least 11 people.

They included three people who died trapped in a Seoul basement apartment of the kind that became internationally known because of the Oscar-winning Korean film Parasite.

The government said at the time that the rainfall was the heaviest since records began, blaming climate change for the extreme weather.

Development financing to Southeast Asia is expected to fall by more than $2bn in 2026 due to recent cutbacks by Western governments, according to a major Australian think tank.

The Sydney-based Lowy Institute predicted in a new report on Sunday that development assistance to Southeast Asia will drop to $26.5bn next year from $29bn in 2023.

The figures are billions of dollars below the pre-pandemic average of $33bn.

Bilateral funding is also expected to fall by 20 percent from about $11bn in 2023 to $9bn in 2026, the report said.

The cuts will hit poorer countries in the regions hardest, and “social sector priorities such as health, education, and civil society support that rely on bilateral aid funding are likely to lose out the most”, the report said.

Fewer alternatives

Cuts by Europe and the United Kingdom have been made to redirect funds as NATO members plan to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the shadow of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The European Union and seven European governments will cut foreign aid by $17.2bn between 2025 and 2029, while this year, the UK announced it will cut foreign aid spending by $7.6bn annually, the report said.

The greatest upset has come from the United States, where earlier this year, President Donald Trump shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashed nearly $60bn in foreign assistance. More recently, the US Senate took steps to claw back another $8bn in spending.

The Lowy Institute said governments closer to home, like China, will play an increasingly important role in the development landscape.

“The centre of gravity in Southeast Asia’s development finance landscape looks set to drift East, notably to Beijing but also Tokyo and Seoul,” the report said. “Combined with potentially weakening trade ties with the United States, Southeast Asian countries risk finding themselves with fewer alternatives to support their development.”

After experiencing a sharp decline during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese overseas development assistance has started to bounce back, reaching $4.9bn in 2023, according to the report.

Its spending, however, focuses more on infrastructure projects, like railways and ports, rather than social sector issues, the report said. Beijing’s preference for non-concessional loans given at commercial rates benefits Southeast Asia’s middle- and high-income countries, but is less helpful for its poorest, like Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and East Timor.

As China and institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank play a more prominent role in Southeast Asia, less clear is how Japan and South Korea can fill in the blanks, according to experts.

Japan, South Korea

Grace Stanhope, a Lowy Institute research associate and one of the report’s authors, told Al Jazeera that both countries have expanded their development assistance to include civil society projects.

“[While] Japanese and Korean development support is often less overtly ‘values-based’ than traditional Western aid, we’ve been seeing Japan especially move into the governance and civil society sectors, with projects in 2023 that are explicitly focused on democracy and protection of vulnerable migrants, for example,” she said.

“The same is true of [South] Korea, which has recently supported projects for improving the transparency of Vietnamese courts and protection of women from gender-based violence, so the approach of the Japanese and Korean development programmes is evolving beyond just infrastructure.”

Tokyo and Seoul, however, are facing similar pressures as Europe from the Trump administration to increase their defence budgets, cutting into their development assistance.

Shiga Hiroaki, a professor at the Graduate School of International Social Sciences at Yokohama National University, said he was more “pessimistic” that Japan could step in to fill the gaps left by the West.

He said cuts could even be made as Tokyo ramps up defence spending to a historic high, and a “Japanese-first” right-wing party pressures the government to redirect funds back home.

“Considering Japan’s huge fiscal deficit and public opposition to tax increases, it is highly likely that the aid budget will be sacrificed to fund defence spending,” he said.

Japan’s Sanseito party wins big with ‘Japanese First’ push and anti-immigration rhetoric.

Japan’s far-right Sanseito party has emerged as a major winner in the country’s upper house election, riding a wave of nationalist rhetoric, anti-immigration warnings and populist pledges on tax cuts and social welfare.

Once seen as a fringe movement born on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sanseito was projected on Sunday by national broadcaster NHK to secure up to 22 seats in the 248-member chamber, dramatically expanding its presence beyond the single seat it held previously.

The party, which only holds three seats in the more powerful lower house, has broken into the political mainstream by capitalising on voter frustration over economic decline and rising living costs.

Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya, a 47-year-old former English teacher and supermarket manager, has been at the forefront of this shift. He has stirred controversy with conspiracy theories about vaccines and “globalist elites” and openly credits US President Donald Trump’s “bold political style” as inspiration.

According to an exit poll by local media, Japan’s governing coalition is likely to lose its majority in the upper house where it is forecast to secure 32 to 51 seats.

‘Japan First’ movement

In an interview with Nippon Television after the election, Kamiya defended his “Japanese First” slogan.

“The phrase was meant to express rebuilding Japanese people’s livelihoods by resisting globalism. I am not saying we should completely ban foreigners or that every foreigner should get out of Japan,” he said.

Despite his denial of xenophobia, Sanseito has built its platform on fears of a “silent invasion” by immigrants. Political analysts say this message resonates with many Japanese voters facing a stagnant economy and weakening yen, which has drawn record numbers of tourists and fuelled inflation.

Foreign residents in Japan reached a record 3.8 million last year, only about 3 percent of the population, but concerns about immigration remain present, even if not dominant.

NHK polling before the election showed just 7 percent of respondents cited immigration as their main concern. Far more voters expressed anxiety over the country’s declining birth rate and rising food prices, particularly rice, which has doubled in cost over the past year.

“The buzz around Sanseito, especially here in the United States, stems from its populist and anti-foreign message. But it’s also a reflection of the LDP’s [Liberal Democratic Party] weakness,” said Joshua Walker, president of the US-based Japan Society.

Still, right-wing populism remains a relatively new phenomenon in Japan. While Kamiya and his party draw comparisons with other far-right European groups such as Germany’s AfD and Reform UK, these ideologies have not yet gained the same level of traction in Japan as they have in the West.

Japan’s ruling coalition is likely to lose its majority in the upper house, according to an exit poll by local media, potentially fuelling political instability in the world’s fourth largest economy.

Voters in Japan cast their ballots on Sunday in an upper house election which was seen as a test of the popularity of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and his ruling coalition.

Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and coalition partner Komeito needed 50 seats to retain control of the 248-seat upper chamber in an election where half the seats are up for grabs.

They are forecast to secure 32 to 51 seats, the exit poll by public broadcaster NHK showed on Sunday.

While the ballot does not directly determine whether Ishiba’s shaky minority government falls, it heaps pressure on the embattled leader who also lost control of the more-powerful lower house in October.

Ishiba’s poor performance does not immediately trigger a change of government because the upper house lacks the power to file a no-confidence motion against a leader. However, Ishiba could now face calls from within the LDP to resign or to find another coalition partner.

Polling stations opened nationwide at 7am on Sunday (22:00 GMT, Saturday) and voted continued until 8pm (11:00 GMT, Sunday) in most places, according to NHK.

The rising cost of living, especially for the staple food of rice, is a key issue for many voters, with population decline and foreign policy also on the agenda, NHK reported.

Opinion polls earlier also suggested smaller opposition parties pushing for tax cuts and increased public spending were set to gain.

These parties include right-wing Sanseito, which has promised to curb immigration, oppose foreign capital inflows and reverse gender equality moves. The exit poll projected the party has made strong gains.

“I am attending graduate school, but there are no Japanese [people] around me. All of them are foreigners,” said Yu Nagai, a 25-year-old student who said he voted for Sanseito.

“When I look at the way compensation and money are spent on foreigners, I think that Japanese people are a bit disrespected,” Nagai told the Reuters news agency.

Other voters, meanwhile, voiced concern about escalating xenophobia.

Yuko Tsuji, a 43-year-old consultant, who came to a polling station inside a downtown Tokyo gymnasium with her husband, said they support the LDP for stability and unity and voted “for candidates who won’t fuel division”.

“If the ruling party doesn’t govern properly, the conservative base will drift toward extremes. So I voted with the hope that the ruling party would tighten things up,” she told The Associated Press news agency.

Self-employed Daiichi Nasu, 57, said he hopes for a change towards a more inclusive and diverse society, with more open immigration and gender policies such as allowing married couples to keep separate surnames. “That’s why I voted for the CDPJ,” he said, referring to the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. “I want to see progress on those fronts.”

More than 20 percent of registered voters, some 21 million people, voted early, significantly more than three years ago, NHK reported.

Ishiba, 68, a self-avowed defence “geek” and train enthusiast, became prime minister on his fifth attempt last September before immediately calling snap elections for late October.

Those polls marked a significant defeat for the new prime minister’s ruling coalition, which won just 209 seats in the lower house of parliament, down from the 279 it previously held.

In April, Ishiba announced emergency economic measures to alleviate any impact on industries and households affected by new tariffs imposed by the United States on Japanese exports.

The country is still frantically seeking to secure a reprieve from US President Donald Trump’s proposed 25 percent tariffs before a new August 1 deadline touted by Washington.

Ishiba’s centre-right LDP has governed Japan almost continuously since 1955, albeit with frequent changes of leader.

He is the third prime minister to lead the country since former leader Shinzo Abe resigned in September 2020.

Abe was assassinated two years later, leading to revelations and public outrage about ties between the former prime minister, his LDP and the Unification Church.

Video shows people jumping into the sea as fire engulfs a passenger ship, the KM Barcelona VA, in Indonesia. The national search and rescue agency has begun evacuating the burning vessel near Talise Island, in North Sulawesi Province.

Above average rainfall recorded in last five days in Sancheong county, where most deaths took place.

The nationwide death toll from heavy rainfall in South Korea has risen to 14, authorities said, as fears grow of more deaths, with 12 more people missing since the disaster began.

Two people died and four went missing in the resort town of Gapyeong on Sunday after a landslide engulfed houses and flooding swept away vehicles, the AFP news agency reported, citing government officials.

A woman in her 70s was killed when her house collapsed in the landslide, while the body of a man in his 40s was found near a bridge after he drowned, South Korea’s official news agency Yonhap reported.

Close to 170mm (6.7 inches) of rainfall was recorded in the area in Gyeonggi province, about 70km (40 miles) east of Seoul, early on Sunday.

But most of the deaths occurred in the southern county of Sancheong, which has seen nearly 800mm (31.5 inches) of rain since Wednesday.

Two bodies were found there early on Sunday during search and rescue operations, raising the number of deaths in the rural county of 33,000 to eight, with six still missing.

The adjacent county of Hapcheon received 699mm (27.5 inches) of rain, while the nearby county of Hadong got 621.5mm (24.5 inches).

Two of the 12 people reported missing were from the southwestern city of Gwangju, Yonhap said.

Yonhap also quoted authorities as saying they have registered 1,920 cases of flooded roads, soil loss and destroyed public facilities, and 2,234 other cases of damage to private property, such as buildings and farmland.

A total of 12,921 people have taken shelter across 14 major cities and provinces, Yonhap said.

South Korea typically experiences monsoon rains in July and is usually well-prepared. But this week, the country’s southern regions were hit by especially intense downpours, with some of the heaviest hourly rainfall on record, official weather data showed.

Scientists say climate change has made extreme weather events more frequent and intense around the world. In 2022, South Korea endured record-breaking rains and flooding, which killed at least 11 people.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Hong Kong issues its highest tropical cyclone warning and China’s Hainan and Guangdong provinces have been put on high alert.

Hong Kong has issued its highest tropical cyclone warning as Typhoon Wipha batters the city, with authorities cancelling classes and grounding hundreds of flights and other transport services.

Wipha was located about 60km (37 miles) southwest of Hong Kong at around 1pm (05:00 GMT) on Sunday and was moving west towards coastal regions of southern China, according to the latest satellite reports from the United States weather monitor NOAA and Japan’s Himawari.

The Hong Kong observatory issued the T10 hurricane alert, saying “winds with mean speeds of 118kmph (73mph) or more are expected” and pose “considerable threat to Hong Kong”.

“Under the influence of its eyewall, hurricane force winds are affecting the southern part of the territory,” the observatory said, warning the public to “beware of destructive winds”.

Huge waves were spotted off the eastern coast of Hong Kong Island, according to the Reuters news agency.

A representative from Hong Kong’s Airport Authority on Sunday said about 500 flights have been cancelled, while 400 others are scheduled to take off or land later in the day.

China’s Hainan and Guangdong provinces were also put on high alert, according to the state news agency Xinhua. The cities of Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Macao cancelled or delayed all daytime flights on Sunday.

More than 200 people have sought refuge at government-run temporary shelters in Hong Kong. One man sought medical treatment at the emergency room of a public hospital on Sunday morning, with officials receiving more than a dozen reports of fallen trees.

Authorities also suspended Sunday’s classes at all day schools and daycare centres, while trains offered limited services.

Hong Kong last hoisted the T10 warning signal for Super Typhoon Saola in 2023.

Wipha, which in Thai means “splendour”, also passed over the Philippines at tropical storm strength and drenched parts of Taiwan.

The typhoon also intensified seasonal monsoon rains in the Philippines, and two people have been reported missing, according to the country’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

More than 370,000 people in the Philippines were affected by days of stormy weather, including 43,000 who fled to government-run emergency shelters or homes of relatives due to flooding, landslides and fierce winds.

More than 400 houses were damaged in the onslaught, officials in the Philippines said.

The boat carrying 53 people tipped over as Storm Wipha approached the country across the South China Sea.

At least 27 people were killed after a tourist boat capsized in stormy weather in Vietnam‘s Halong Bay.

The boat carrying 53 people tipped over around 2pm local time (07:00 GMT) on Saturday as Storm Wipha approached the country across the South China Sea. Strong winds, heavy rainfall and lightning were reported in the area.

Rescue teams found 11 survivors and recovered 27 bodies, eight of them children, the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported, citing local authorities.

There has been no official announcement on the nationalities of the tourists. Most of those on board were families visiting from the capital Hanoi, with more than 20 children among the passengers, the news outlet VNExpress said.

One of the rescued children, a 10-year-old boy, told state-run VietnamNet: “I took a deep breath, swam through a gap, dived, then swam up. I even shouted for help, then I was pulled up by a boat with soldiers.”

Rescue efforts continued into the night to find people still missing.

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh sent his condolences to the families of the deceased.

Authorities will “investigate and clarify the cause of the incident and strictly handle violations”, a statement on the government’s website said.

Halong Bay is one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist destinations, with millions of people visiting its blue-green waters and rainforest-topped limestone islands each year.

Last year, 30 vessels sank at boat lock areas in coastal Quang Ninh province along Halong Bay after Typhoon Yagi brought strong winds and waves.

Weather linked to Storm Wipha also knocked down several trees in Hanoi, 175km (110 miles) away from Halong Bay, and disrupted air travel.

Noi Bai Airport said nine arriving flights were diverted to other airports, and three departing flights were temporarily grounded on Saturday.

Former president has been indicted on additional charges as a special prosecutor continues investigations.

Disgraced former South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has been indicted over his declaration of martial law last year as investigators widened an insurrection probe.

The prosecution indicted Yoon on charges including abuse of power and obstruction of special official duties, prosecutor Park Ji-young told reporters on Saturday.

Park said Yoon also did not follow the required procedure to declare martial law, including holding a meeting with all government cabinet members.

He was also charged with “drafting and discarding a false document” that stated the prime minister and defence minister endorsed martial law.

Yoon has denied all wrongdoing.

He plunged South Korea into a political crisis when he sought to subvert civilian rule in December, sending troops to parliament in a bid to prevent lawmakers from voting down his declaration of martial law.

Yoon became the first sitting president in the country to be taken into custody when he was detained in January after resisting arrest for weeks, using his presidential security detail to thwart investigators.

He was released on procedural grounds in March even as his trial on insurrection charges continued.

Last week, he was detained again after an arrest warrant was issued over concerns he might destroy evidence in the case.

Yoon appeared in court on Friday at a hearing to argue for his arrest warrant to be cancelled.

The ex-president’s legal team told reporters Yoon defended himself for more than 30 minutes and noted his “limited physical mobility and the challenges he was facing”.

The court denied the request.

State prosecutors have already indicted Yoon on other criminal charges, including masterminding a rebellion, a charge with conviction carrying only two sentences — capital punishment or life imprisonment.

Meanwhile, a demonstration with thousands attending took place in the South Korean capital, Seoul, as well as other parts of the country against the policies of current President Lee Jae-myung.

Lee won a snap election in June after Yoon was removed from office.

Many South Koreans are angry because they believe the new government has not addressed their concerns in its reform plans.

Japan’s shaky minority government looks poised for another setback in a crucial upper house vote this weekend, in the first national election since Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba took office last year.

Half of the 248 seats in Japan’s Upper House of Parliament will be contested on Sunday. Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), along with its longtime junior coalition partner Komeito, need to win 50 of its 66 seats up for re-election to hold on to its majority.

But polling suggests the coalition will fail to do so, in a potential repeat of October’s disastrous election, when the LDP-Komeito coalition lost its parliamentary majority in Japan’s more powerful lower house – the worst result since briefly losing power in 2009.

The LDP has ruled Japan for almost all of the country’s post-war history.

Inflation has been a killer issue for Ishiba, with the price of rice – which has doubled since last year due to poor harvests and government policies – becoming a lightning rod for voter discontent.

In response, opposition parties have promised tax cuts and welfare spending to soften the blow of Japan’s long-running economic stagnation.

While locals face a rising cost of living, the country’s weak Yen has attracted significant numbers of foreign tourists. Concerns about over-tourism and a lack of respect for local customs have fed local discontent, which has been capitalised on by upstart populist party Sanseito.

Initially launched on YouTube by streamer Kazuya Kyoumoto, politician Sohei Kamiya, and political analyst Yuuya Watase in 2019, the party rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic as it peddled conspiracy theories and far-right talking points.

In the years since, Sanseito has successfully appealed to a small but growing section of Japan’s electorate with its “Japanese First” campaign and anti-immigration stance, rallying against what it describes as a “silent invasion” of immigrants.

While foreigners still only make up a small fraction of Japan’s population, at about 3 percent, the country has taken in about a million immigrant workers over the past three years to fill jobs left vacant by its ageing population.

Kamiya, the party’s 47-year-old leader, said Sanseito is forcing the government to address growing concerns about foreigners in Japan, as it drags rhetoric once confined to the political fringe into the mainstream.

“In the past, anyone who brought up immigration would be attacked by the left. We are getting bashed too, but are also gaining support,” Kamiya told the Reuters news agency this week.

“The LDP and Komeito can’t stay silent if they want to keep their support,” Kamiya added.

While polls show Sanseito may only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs in this vote, each loss is crucial for Prime Minister Ishiba’s shaky minority government – increasingly beholden to opposition parties to cling to power.

Should the LDP’s seat share be eroded, as expected, Ishiba will almost certainly seek to broaden his coalition or strike informal deals with opposition parties.

But doing so with Sanseito could prove problematic for the LDP, which owes much of its longevity to its broad appeal and centrist image.

“If the party [LDP] goes too far right, it loses the centrists,” Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation think tank in Tokyo, told Reuters.

In a worst-case election outcome for the LDP, David Boling, director for Japan and Asian trade at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, says he believes Ishiba may be forced out of office.

“If he had an overwhelming loss, I think he would have to resign,” Boling said.

But a move such as that would unleash political turmoil, at a time when Japan is frantically seeking to secure a reprieve from Donald Trump’s proposed 25 percent tariffs before an August 1 deadline touted by the US president.

Illustrating the urgency of the issue, on Friday Ishiba took a break from campaigning to urge Washington’s chief tariff negotiator and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to continue talks with Japan’s top tariff negotiator Ryosei Akazawa.

Following his meeting with Ishiba, Bessent said “a good deal is more important than a rushed deal.

“A mutually beneficial trade agreement between the United States and Japan remains within the realm of possibility,” he added.

Record rainfall is expected to continue hammering parts of South Korea until Monday as more warnings are issued to the public.

Four people have been confirmed dead and at least two others missing as torrential rains continue to batter South Korea for a fourth consecutive day, forcing thousands of people from their homes and stranding livestock in rising floodwaters, authorities said.

Authorities warned on Saturday that up to 250mm (9.8 inches) of additional rain could fall throughout the day, raising concerns of further damage and casualties, the country’s official Yonhap news agency reports.

Rain is forecast to last until Monday in some areas, and weather officials have urged extreme caution against the risk of landslides and flooding, with warnings issued for most of South Korea.

More than 2,800 people are still unable to return to their homes out of a total of more than 7,000 people evacuated in recent days, the Ministry of Interior said.

Rainfall since Wednesday reached a record of more than 500mm (almost 20 inches) in South Chungcheong province’s Seosan, located to the south of the capital, Seoul, the ministry added.

According to Yonhap, areas of the country have received 40 percent of their annual average rainfall in just the past four days.

Among those reported dead was a person who suffered a cardiac arrest inside a flooded vehicle on a road in Seosan. The man was taken to a nearby hospital but died later, officials were quoted by Yonhap as saying.

A man in his 80s was found dead in the flooded basement of his home, while a third person died when a retaining wall collapsed onto a moving vehicle. Another person was also found dead in a stream, officials said. Two people remain missing in the southwest city of Gwangju.

In the province of Chungcheong, cows were desperately trying to keep their heads above water after sheds and stables were flooded by the rainwater.

Yonhap also reported a total of 729 cases of damage to public infrastructure, including flooded roads and the collapse of river facilities. Cases of private property damage have reached more than 1,000, including 64 flooded buildings and 59 submerged farmlands, it added.

Rains were also expected in neighbouring North Korea.

In July 2024, torrential rains also hammered parts of South Korea’s southern regions, killing at least four people and causing travel chaos.

Crisis compounded after United States, which provided 40 percent of UNHCR funding last year, slashed its contribution.

More than 11 million refugees risk losing access to humanitarian aid owing to a “dramatic” funding crisis, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

The extent of UNHCR’s funding shortfall was revealed in a report released on Friday, which said it had so far received only 23 percent of this year’s goal of $10.6bn, projecting an overall budget of only $3.5bn by the end of the year to meet the needs of 122 million people.

“Our funding situation is dramatic,” Dominique Hyde, director of external relations for UNHCR, said.

“We fear that up to 11.6 million refugees and people forced to flee are losing access to humanitarian assistance provided by UNHCR.”

While countries that have slashed contributions were not named in the report, the crisis has been compounded by a major reduction in funding from the United States, which provided 40 percent – more than $2bn – of the agency’s total donations last year.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump’s administration has made funding cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its aid programmes worldwide in what it says is part of its broader plan to remove wasteful spending.

UNHCR said it has had to stop or suspend about $1.4bn worth of aid programmes, including a 60 percent reduction in financial aid and emergency relief supplies in many countries, including Sudan, Myanmar and Afghanistan.

Critical areas such as medical aid, education, shelter, nutrition, and protection are among the services suffering deep cuts, said the report, entitled “On the Brink: The devastating toll of aid cuts on people forced to flee”.

In Bangladesh, where Rohingya refugees have lived for years in overcrowded camps, education for some 230,000 children is at risk of being suspended.

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by UNHCR funding cuts, with the agency having to cut one quarter of its support for programmes on gender-based violence.

Women and girls in Afghanistan are the hardest hit by cuts, according to the report.

“Protection activities have been slashed by over 50 percent, undermining programmes on women’s empowerment, mental health and prevention and response to gender-based violence,” said Hyde.

Globally, UNHCR is downsizing by a third, cutting 3,500 staff positions at its Geneva headquarters and in regional offices.

The report comes after the UN’s 2025 Global AIDS Update warned last week that Trump’s halt to foreign funding could reverse “decades of progress” on HIV/AIDS. If funding is not replaced, the world could see six million extra HIV infections and four million more AIDS-related deaths by 2029, it said.

Felix Baumgartner’s fatal paragliding crash was preceded by large boom as it spun to the ground, according to witnesses.

Beachgoers knew something was wrong when they heard a loud boom ring out as a paraglider spun out of control, before killing its only occupant, extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner, when it crashed next to a swimming pool near the Adriatic Sea.

A 30-year-old mother watched the deadly descent unfold Thursday afternoon from nearby with her two young children, who were entranced by the constant traffic of paragliders above the beach town of Porto Sant’Elipido in central Italy’s Marche region.

“Everything was normal, then it started to spin like a top,’’ Mirella Ivanov said on Friday. “It went down and we heard a roar. In fact, I turned around because I thought it crashed on the rocks. Then I saw two lifeguards running, people who were running toward” the crash site.

When she saw people trying to revive the occupant, she hustled her two children away.

The city’s mayor confirmed the death of 56-year-old Baumgartner, who was renowned as the first skydiver to fall faster than the speed of sound. The cause of the paragliding accident was under investigation. Police did not return calls asking for comment.

“It is a destiny that is very hard to comprehend for a man who has broken all kinds of records, who has been an icon of flight, and who travelled through space,” Mayor Massimiliano Ciarpella told The Associated Press.

Ciarpella said that Baumgartner had been in the area on vacation, and that investigators believed he may have fallen ill during the fatal flight.

Baumgartner’s social media feed features videos of him in recent days flying on a motorised paraglider – known as paramotoring – above seaside towns, and taking off from a nearby airfield surrounded by cornfields.

The Clube de Sole Le Mimose beachside resort where the crash occurred said in a statement that an employee who was “slightly injured” in the accident was in good condition. No guests were injured, and the pool has been reopened.

In 2012, Baumgartner, known as “Fearless Felix,” became the first human to break the sound barrier with only his body. He wore a pressurised suit and jumped from a capsule hoisted more than 24 miles (39 kilometres) above Earth by a giant helium balloon over New Mexico.

The Austrian, who was part of the Red Bull Stratos team, topped out at 843.6 mph (1,357.6km/h) – the equivalent of 1.25 times the speed of sound – during a nine-minute descent. At one point, he went into a potentially dangerous flat spin while still supersonic, spinning for 13 seconds, his crew later said.

In 2012, millions watched YouTube’s livestream as Baumgartner coolly flashed a thumbs-up when he came out of the capsule high above Earth and then activated his parachute as he neared the ground, lifting his arms in victory after he landed.

Baumgartner’s altitude record stood for two years until Google executive Alan Eustace set new marks for the highest free-fall jump and greatest free-fall distance.

Baumgartner, a former Austrian military parachutist, made thousands of jumps from planes, bridges, skyscrapers and famed landmarks, including the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil.

In 2003, he flew across the English Channel in a carbon fibre wing after being dropped from a plane.

In recent years, he performed with The Flying Bulls, an aviation team owned and operated by Red Bull, as a helicopter stunt pilot in shows across Europe.

Red Bull paid Baumgartner tribute in a post Friday, calling him “precise, demanding and critical. With others, but above all toward yourself.”

The statement underlined the research and courage with which Baumgartner confronted “the greatest challenges.”

“No detail was too small, no risk too great, because you were capable of calculating it,’’ Red Bull said.

Ta’ang National Liberation Army rebels did not acknowledge the loss of Nawnghkio town to the military, saying they moved to ‘safe locations’.

Myanmar’s military government has claimed to have removed rebel fighters and recaptured a town after a yearlong battle near the country’s main army training academy, marking a rare turnaround for the regime in the northeast region of the country.

The country’s ruling military announced on Thursday that it made the advance in Shan State’s town of Nawnghkio, which had been under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA).

The rebel group, part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, had seized the strategically important town, which sits on a key highway linking central Myanmar to China, in July 2024.

In a statement published in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, the military government said it had retaken Nawnghkio after “566 armed engagements within 11 operational months”. A rare one-page spread in the newspaper showed soldiers holding rifles aloft in celebration. It detailed the battle, admitting initial attacks led to officers and enlisted men “sacrificing their lives”.

But “by combining strategic ground and air military tactics”, the military captured “the whole Nawnghkio area” by Wednesday, it said.

Nawnghkio is located about 40km (25 miles) from Pyin Oo Lwin, the town that hosts the country’s main military officer training academy, and some 80km (50 miles) from Myanmar’s second-most populous city, Mandalay.

In a statement, the TNLA did not acknowledge the military government’s claim of victory, saying only that “it has been difficult to continue administrative work in the town due to the heavy offensive”. The TNLA added that it had “moved civil administration services to safe locations”.

While the combined rebel offensive against government forces has inflicted sweeping losses since it was launched in October 2023, analysts say the military government’s control over large population centres is secure as it wields an air force capable of staving off large-scale rebel advances.

Northeastern Lashio city was also captured by the rebels but was handed back to the ruling military in April after a deal brokered by China.

Since a 2021 military coup toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and ignited a civil war in Myanmar, a myriad of pro-democracy armed groups and ethnic rebel armies have joined forces to fight against military rule.

The groups in the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which also include the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army, have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. The alliance is also loosely allied with the People’s Defence Force, a pro-democracy resistance group that has emerged to fight the military regime.

More than 140,000 children had been sent overseas by Seoul following the devastating 1950-53 Korean War.

South Korea is set to end the decades-old practice of outsourcing adoptions to private agencies, after a damaging investigation concluded the country’s government-endorsed foreign adoption programme violated the fundamental human rights of adoptees.

On Saturday, South Korea will introduce a “newly restructured public adoption system, under which the state and local governments take full responsibility for the entire adoption process”, South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare said.

South Korea sent more than 140,000 children overseas following the devastating 1950-53 Korean War, when intercountry adoption was encouraged as a solution.

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigation concluded earlier this year that the international adoption process had been riddled with irregularities, including “fraudulent orphan registrations, identity tampering, and inadequate vetting of adoptive parents”.

The new change is a “significant step towards ensuring the safety and promoting the rights of adopted children”, the Health Ministry added.

Under the new system, key procedures – such as assessing prospective adoptive parents and matching them with children – will be deliberated by a ministry committee, under the principle of the “best interests of the child”.

Previously, this had been done by major adoption agencies with minimal oversight from the state. The commission blamed the government for the issues, particularly a failure to regulate adoption fees, which turned the industry into a profit-driven one.

“With this restructuring of the public adoption system, the state now takes full responsibility for ensuring the safety and rights of all adopted children,” said Kim Sang-hee, director of population and child policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

International adoption began after the Korean War as a way to remove mixed-race children, born to Korean mothers and American soldier fathers, from a country that emphasised ethnic homogeneity.

It became big business in the 1970s to 1980s, bringing international adoption agencies millions of dollars as the country overcame post-war poverty and faced rapid and aggressive economic development.

Activists say the new measure is only a starting point and warn it is far from sufficient.

“While I think it’s high time that Korea close down all private adoption agencies, I don’t believe … having the state handle new adoptions is enough,” said writer Lisa Wool-Rim Sjoblom, a Korean adoptee who grew up in Sweden.

The government should prioritise implementing the findings of the truth commission, issue an official apology, and work to help the tens of thousands of Koreans who were sent abroad for adoption, Sjoblom told the AFP news agency.

“The government urgently needs to acknowledge all the human rights violations it enabled, encouraged, and systematically participated in, and, as soon as possible, begin reparations.”

Medan, Indonesia – After graduating from university with a law degree two years ago, Andreas Hutapea assumed he would not have much difficulty finding a stable career.

In reality, Hutapea found himself facing one rejection after another.

Hutapea first failed to make it through Indonesia’s notoriously difficult civil service exams, which lead to a job for only about 3 percent of applicants, and was similarly unsuccessful in his bid to become a trainee prosecutor.

Before law school, Hutapea had dreamed of joining the army, but he could not meet the height requirement.

Eventually, with his money running out, Hutapea left the student accommodation he was renting to move back in with his parents, who run a simple shop selling oil, eggs, rice and other groceries.

Hutapea has been working at his parents’ shop, in a town on the outskirts of Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, ever since.

“I open the shop for them in the morning, sit there throughout the day serving customers and then help close at night,” Hutapea, who graduated from high school in 2020, told Al Jazeera.

“My parents don’t pay me a wage for my work, but I can’t blame them for that. They are giving me free food and lodging.”

Hutapea is far from alone in his struggles to find stable, well-paying work.

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in Asia.

About 16 percent of the more than 44 million Indonesians aged 15-24 are out of work, according to government statistics – more than double the youth unemployment rate of neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam.

In a survey published by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore in January, young Indonesians expressed far more pessimistic attitudes about the economy and the government than their peers in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Only about 58 percent of Indonesian youth said they were optimistic about the government’s economic plans, according to the survey, compared with an average of 75 percent across the six countries.

In February, some of this angst spilled onto the streets when university students formed the Indonesia Gelap, or Dark Indonesia, movement to protest government plans to trim spending on public services.

Economists point to a range of factors for the high rate of jobless youth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, from rigid labour laws that make hiring difficult to poor wages that fail to attract capable workers.

“Many people choose to be outside the labour market rather than having to work for a salary below expectations,” Adinova Fauri, an economist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Indonesia, in Jakarta, told Al Jazeera.

“Good jobs are also not widely available, so people turn to the informal sector, which has lower productivity and protection.”

Indonesia, which is home to more than 280 million people, has long struggled with chronic youth unemployment.

While still high compared with the rest of the region, governments have, through the years, made some progress in getting more young people into work – as recently as a decade ago, one-quarter of young Indonesians were estimated to be without a job.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, a retired army general who oversaw crackdowns on the 1998 student protests that precipitated the fall of former President Soeharto, has acknowledged the need to create more jobs, establishing task forces to tackle unemployment and negotiate on trade with United States President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, Prabowo hailed the beginning of “a new era of mutual benefit” for Indonesia and the US, after Trump announced a deal to lower tariffs on Indonesian goods from 32 to 19 percent.

Though older adults are less at risk of being unemployed – Indonesia’s overall jobless rate is about 5 percent – much of the work that is available is unstable and poorly compensated.

About 56 percent of the Indonesian workforce is employed in the informal sector, according to 2024 figures from the Bureau of Statistics, leaving millions in vulnerable conditions and without social security protections.

“The decline in the open unemployment rate does not necessarily reflect good performance in the labour market,” Deniey Adi Purwanto, a lecturer at the Department of Economics at IPB University in Bogor, told Al Jazeera.

“The quality of jobs and informal employment are still major problems.”

But for young people, the mismatch between the number of job seekers and jobs is particularly severe.

“Firstly, graduates of secondary and tertiary education do not always match the needs of the labour market, and there is also a high proportion of informality,” Purwanto said.

“Indonesia has a very large number of young people, so the pressure on the labour market is much higher.

“We also have rapidly increasing levels of secondary and higher education,” he added.

“Many young college graduates avoid informal or low-paid jobs, so they choose to wait for suitable jobs, which leads to unemployment.”

Purwanto said there was also a lack of effective vocational training and apprenticeship programmes in Indonesia, compared with neighbours such as Vietnam or Malaysia.

“In Malaysia, for example, there are more industry-university linkage schemes and graduate employability programmes,” he said.

Stark regional disparities in Indonesia, which is made up of some 17,000 islands, compound the problem, with young people in remote and rural areas finding it especially difficult to access good jobs.

This is particularly true in areas outside the island of Java, which is home to the capital Jakarta and more than half of Indonesia’s population.

Hutapea experienced this firsthand when he moved back with his parents, who live about two hours out of Medan.

Despite having a law degree, Hutapea, who is desperate to no longer work in his parents’ shop, has found job opportunities thin on the ground.

Hutapea, who also has a side gig setting up sound systems for weddings and parties, recently attended an interview for a job replenishing banknotes in ATMs.

But even though he thought the interview went well, he never heard back from the recruiter.

For Hutapea, who completed some of his law school modules during the summer holidays so he could graduate a year early, it is hard not to feel like his efforts have not been in vain.

“I didn’t want to be a burden to my parents, who were paying all my university fees,” Hutapea said.

“But look at me now.”

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” killed thousands of people.

For years, Catholic priest Flaviano Villanueva has gathered evidence of alleged extrajudicial killings.

He exhumed victims’ bodies for forensic examination and protected a key witness who claims he worked as a contract killer for Duterte.

In March 2025, the priest’s persistence paid off when Duterte was arrested and extradited to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court.

101 East follows Father Villanueva’s fight for justice for the victims of Duterte’s brutal crackdown.