27/03/2025

THURSDAY | MAR 27, 2025

/thesuntelegram FOLLOW / Malaysian Paper

ON TELEGRAM m RAM

8

24 dead in raging wildfires

Comedian sets off free speech debate MUMBAI: Indian stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra faces police scrutiny for a performance seen to have criticised a key politician and ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, fanning concerns about the limits of free speech. The ensuing violence triggered comment on social media and prime time shows, even as Kamra refused to apologise over an accusation that his use of the term “traitor” referenced Eknath Shinde, the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra. “I don’t fear this mob and I will not be hiding under my bed, waiting for this to die down,” said Kamra in a statement on Monday. Kamra’s parody song about a traitor did not identify anyone but angered workers of Shinde’s Shiv Sena party, who ransacked the performance site and complained to police his act had defamed the leader. Media said Kamra declined to appear before police in Mumbai, citing death threats against him by party members, and sought a week’s time to do so. Shinde has said he did not support violence by his party workers, but added that Kamra’s jokes were not in good taste. Over the weekend, his supporters ransacked the Habitat studio in Mumbai where Kamra performed, forcing it to down shutters for the time being. Many lawmakers warned against abuse of freedom of speech. “Your freedom of speech cannot be used to personally attack someone else,” said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. But Kamra garnered support on social media and elsewhere, drawing more than six million views for a YouTube video of the performance. Many viewers donated money to him, backing his no-apology stance. – Reuters Presidency hopeful clears court hurdle SEOUL: A South Korean appeals court reversed yesterday a lower court’s ruling and found main opposition leader Lee Jae-myung not guilty of violating the election law, removing a barrier that could have blocked him from running for president. Following the ruling, Lee said the decision by the Seoul High Court completely vindicated him and proved the case was politically motivated. “It is truly outrageous that all this energy and national resources were spent for what is an obvious outcome,” he said. Lee was handed a one-year prison term suspended for two years by the Seoul Central District Court last year, a penalty that if it had been upheld would have jeopardised his bid to run in the next presidential election. The appeals court reversed the earlier ruling that had found Lee guilty of making a false claim during a parliamentary audit in 2021 while running as a presidential candidate about a land development project in Seongnam where he served as mayor. The court cases have shone a spotlight on Lee since opinion polls show he is the frontrunner to replace President Yoon Suk yeol if the embattled leader’s impeachment is upheld. South Korea will hold a snap election within 60 days if the Constitutional Court upholds the impeachment of Yoon over his short-lived declaration of martial law in December. The leader of the main opposition Democratic Party is regarded as by far the top contender for the next presidential election but faces legal challenges. It was unclear if the prosecution would decide to appeal yesterday’s court decision at the Supreme Court. In addition to the election law violation case, he also faces several other trials on matters ranging from bribery to charges mostly linked to a property development scandal. – Reuters

o South Korea raises crisis alert to highest level

and dry weather had revealed the limitations of conventional firefighting methods. Thousands of firefighters have been deployed, but “strong winds reaching speeds of 25m per second persisted from yesterday afternoon through the night, forcing the suspension of helicopter and drone operations,” Acting President Han said. The fires are “the most devastating” yet in South Korea, Han said. One of the fires was threatening historic Hahoe Folk Village – a Unesco-listed world heritage site popular with tourists but now under an emergency alert. Last year was South Korea’s hottest year on record, with the Korea Meteorological Administration saying that the average annual temperature was 14.5°C, 2° higher than the preceding 30-year average of 12.5°C. The fire-hit region had been experiencing unusually dry weather with below-average precipitation, authorities have said, with the South experiencing more than double the number of fires this year than last. The major fire in Uiseong was reportedly caused by a person tending to a family grave who accidentally ignited the blaze. – AFP

to its highest level and taken the rare step of transferring thousands of inmates out of prisons in the area. “Wildfires burning for a fifth consecutive day are causing unprecedented damage,” Acting President Han Duck-soo said. He told an emergency safety and disaster meeting that the blazes were “developing in a way that is exceeding prediction models and earlier expectations”. “Throughout Tuesday night, chaos continued as power and communication lines were cut in several areas and roads were blocked,” he said. In the city of Andong, some evacuees sheltering in an elementary school gym said they had to flee with only the clothes they were wearing. “The wind was so strong,” said Kwon So han, a 79-year-old resident in Andong. “The fire came from the mountain and fell on my house,” he said. Authorities had been using helicopters to battle the blazes, but suspended all such operations after a helicopter crashed yesterday, killing the pilot. Authorities said changing wind patterns

SEOUL: Wildfires in South Korea have killed 24 people, officials said yesterday, warning that the toll could rise further. “Twenty four people are confirmed dead in the wildfires so far,” and 12 seriously injured, an Interior and Safety Ministry official said. More than a dozen fires broke out over the weekend, scorching wide swathes of the southeast, forcing around 27,000 people to urgently evacuate, with the fire cutting off roads and downing communications lines as residents fled in panic. A pilot in a firefighting helicopter died when his aircraft crashed in a mountainous area, officials said. According to the Interior Ministry, the wildfires have charred 17,398ha, with the blaze in Uiseong county accounting for 87% of the total. The government has raised the crisis alert

A monk looks at a cracked temple bell after most of the buildings were razed at Gounsa Temple in Uiseong yesterday. – AFPPIC

Seoul held responsible for adoption fraud SEOUL: A South Korean official inquiry said yesterday the government was responsible for abuse in international adoptions of local children, including record fabrication and inadequate consent, and recommended an official state apology. It also said numerous cases were identified, in which proper legal consent procedures for South Korean birth parents were “not followed”.

records to make them legally adoptable. Some birth parents and adoptees even claimed their children were kidnapped by agents who sought out unattended children in poor neighbourhoods or that authorities directed lost children towards adoption without trying to reunite them with their families, in some cases intentionally changing the child’s identity. Some adoptees, such as Adam Crapser, were deported to South Korea as adults because their American parents never secured their US citizenship. The commission confirmed human rights violations in only 56 out of 367 complaints, saying there was an overwhelming amount of data to try to verify, and said it would “make efforts” to review the remaining cases before its investigation expires on May 26. Some adoptees were dissatisfied with the outcome, urging the commission to fully recognise violations in all 367 cases. – AFP

The commission also said the government failed to regulate adoption fees, allowing agencies to set them through “internal agreements”, effectively turning it into a profit-driven industry. And despite regulations requiring verification the eligibility of adoptive parents, 99% of inter-country adoption approvals in 1984 alone were granted on the same day or the following day, the commission said, citing its investigation. “These violations should never have occurred, this is a shameful part of our history,” said commission chairperson Park Sun-young. For years, Korean adoptees have advocated their rights, many reporting that their birth mothers were forced to give up their children, leading to the fabrication of

“It was determined that the state neglected its duty, resulting in the violation of the human rights of adoptees protected by the constitution and international agreements during the process of sending a lot of children abroad,”South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in a statement. In a landmark announcement, the commission concluded after a two-year and seven-month probe that human rights violations occurred in international adoptions of South Korean children, including “fraudulent orphan registrations, identity tampering and inadequate vetting of adoptive parents”.