World
South Korea’s President Promises Changes Amid Poor Showing At Polls
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has promised changes to his conservative administration after opposition parties romped to victory in Wednesday’s elections for the National Assembly.
With 99 percent of the votes counted, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and its satellite party appear to have won a combined 175 seats in the 300-seat parliament. The Rebuilding Korea party, considered allied with the DP, was expected to take about 12 seats, projections showed.
Yoon’s ruling People Power Party (PPP) and its satellite party were expected to have won 109 seats.
Turnout was 67 percent, the highest ever recorded for a parliamentary election. The National Elections Commission is expected to confirm the final results later on Thursday.
“When voters chose me, it was your judgement against the Yoon Suk-yeol administration and you are giving the Democratic Party the duty to take responsibility for the livelihood of the people and create a better society,” DP leader Lee Jae-myung said.
Lee defeated a conservative candidate considered a major Yoon ally to win his seat in the city of Incheon to the west of the capital, Seoul.
Wednesday’s election was widely seen as a mid-term confidence vote on Yoon, a former top prosecutor who narrowly beat Lee to take office in 2022 for a single five-year term.
Speaking after the scale of his party’s loss became clear, Yoon promised reform.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and other senior aides all offered their resignations. The PPP leader Han Dong-hoon also quit.
Yoon has suffered low approval ratings for months amid a failure to deliver on his policy agenda and voter upset over rising prices and a series of corruption scandals.
The election setback is likely to further tie his hands domestically.
“Given his likely lame duck status, the temptation for Yoon will be to focus on foreign policy where he will still have statutory power,” said Mason Richey, a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
The UN on Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of the entry into force of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) – the first multilateral disarmament treaty to ban an entire category of weapons of mass destruction
The UN’s High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu. in a statement, said that the world came together 50 years ago to ban biological weapons,.
She noted that in today’s volatile geopolitical climate we can ill-afford to let this moral safeguard “erode”,
Disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu told Member States in Geneva that the BWC “remains a testament to the conscience of humankind”. Yet as technology evolves, so too do potential risks.
“We must ensure the instruments of the 20th century can respond to today’s global 21st century challenges,” Nakamitsu said.
In his message, the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres urged all States parties to actively participate in the Working Group on Strengthening the BWC – which verifies compliance, capacity-building and assistance – and called on the Group to accelerate its efforts in this milestone year.
“These efforts reinforce the commitment in the Pact for the Future, adopted at the United Nations last year, for all countries to pursue a world free of biological weapons,” he said.
Guterres hailed the Convention as a cornerstone of international peace and security, having contributed over five decades to “collective efforts to reject the use of disease as a weapon.”
Today, 188 countries are party to the convention, which effectively prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons.
The BWC stands as a safeguard, ensuring that advances in biology and biotechnology are used solely for “peaceful purposes” – and not to trigger artificial epidemics that threaten us all.
While the vast majority of UN Member States have joined the convention, nine countries remain outside.
The secretary-general called on those governments to ratify the treaty without delay.
UN disarmament affairs office, UNODA, is working to support the convention’s implementation – especially in Africa where it has engaged 100 young scientists through the Youth for Biosecurity Fellowship in the last five years.
“Together, let us stand united against biological weapons,” the secretary-general said.
As the world grapples with new global health challenges and geopolitical uncertainty, the BWC remains a vital barrier against the misuse of science.
Reinforcing it, the UN chief said, is essential to prevent biological weapons from ever being used again – whether in conflict, acts of terror, or by accident.
NAN reports that the BWC currently has 187 states-parties, including Palestine, and four signatories (Egypt, Haiti, Somalia, and Syria).
The 10 states that have neither signed nor ratified the BWC are Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Israel, Kiribati, Micronesia, Namibia, South Sudan, and Tuvalu.
Kirsty Coventry hopes her election as the first female and African president of the International Olympic Committee, IOC, beating six male candidates including Britain’s Lord Coe, sends a powerful signal.
The 41-year-old former swimmer, who won two Olympic gold medals, secured a majority of 49 of the 97 available votes in the first round of yesterday’s election, while World Athletics boss Coe won just eight.
Zimbabwe’s sports minister Coventry will replace Thomas Bach, who has led the IOC since 2013, on 23 June and be the youngest president in the organisation’s 130-year history.
Her first Olympics will be the Milan-Cortina Winter Games in February 2026.
“It’s a really powerful signal. It’s a signal that we’re truly global and that we have evolved into an organisation that is truly open to diversity and we’re going to continue walking that road in the next eight years,” Coventry said.
Runner-up Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr won 28 votes while France’s David Lappartient and Japan’s Morinari Watanabe earned four votes each. Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan and Sweden’s Johan Eliasch both took two.
Coventry, who already sits on the IOC executive board and was said to be Bach’s preferred candidate, is the 10th person to hold the highest office in sport and will be in post for at least the next eight years.
Coventry has won seven of Zimbabwe’s eight Olympic medals – including gold in the 200m backstroke at both the 2004 and 2008 Games.
“The young girl who first started swimming in Zimbabwe all those years ago could never have dreamed of this moment,” said Coventry.
“I am particularly proud to be the first female IOC president, and also the first from Africa.
Cameroon were held to a shock draw away to unfancied Eswatini as African qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup resumed on Wednesday.
Bryan Mbeumo came closest to breaking the deadlock for the Indomitable Lions when the Brentford forward hit the woodwork with a curling effort from distance in the first half.
Eswatini are ranked 159th in the world, 110 places below the central Africans, but were able to hold on in the second half, with Mlamuli Makhanya tipping a header from Cameroon captain Vincent Aboubakar over the crossbar.
Cameroon remain unbeaten after five games but could be replaced as Group D leaders before they host Libya on Tuesday next week.
Elsewhere, Tunisia continued their unbeaten start with a hard-fought 1-0 win away against Liberia to move five points clear at the top of Group H.
Madagascar moved to the summit of Group I after coming from behind to win 4-1 away against Central African Republic (CAR) in Corentin Martins’ first match in charge.
The islanders lead Comoros and Ghana by a point.
There were nine qualifiers yesterday, with Comoros having a chance to regain top spot in Group I when they hosted Mali.
Qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup finals resumed after a nine-month hiatus, with the final six rounds of group matches spread across March, September and October.
The nine group winners are guaranteed a place in the World Cup finals, hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Cameroon have appeared at an African-record eight editions of the tournament but their task has got trickier after dropping two points in neutral Mbombela.
Mbeumo also had a shot deflected wide in the first half while Aboubakar was wasteful with efforts either side of the break.