29/01/2026

THURSDAY | JAN 29, 2026

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South Korea ex-first lady jailed 20 months for graft

Veteran Indian politician dies in air crash NEW DELHI: The deputy chief minister of India’s wealthiest state of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar (pic) , died yesterday, along with four other people on board, when his charter aircraft went down and burst into flames, the aviation regulator said. Pawar, who hailed from a top political family, was en route to his home region to canvass in local body elections. Two of his staff and two crew were also on board the VSR Ventures-operated Learjet 45 aircraft, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said. “No person on board has survived,” it said. V.K. Singh, the director of VSR Ventures, told broadcaster India Today that the plane crashed during its approach to the city of Baramati, but the cause was not clear. “The aircraft is 100% safe. The crew was fairly experienced,” he said. Video images showed smoke billowing from some of the burning wreckage of the plane, scattered across an open field. “At first, it was on fire. After that, there were four or five more explosions,” an unidentified witness told the ANI news agency. “But the flames were too fierce to pull anyone out,” he said. Pawar backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in the state government, leading a faction that split in 2023 from the opposition Nationalist Congress Party. Modi said Pawar’s death was “shocking and saddening”. Media said Pawar’s aircraft, travelling from Mumbai, tried to make an emergency landing in the family stronghold of Baramati, 250km away, where he was set to canvass in the elections. – Reuters Australia set on retaking Darwin port SYDNEY: Australia was committed to returning a key northern port leased for 99 years to a Chinese company to Australian ownership, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said yesterday after Beijing’s envoy to Canberra warned of trade reprisals. The Northern Territory government sold Darwin Port to Landbridge for A$506 million (RM1.4 billion) in 2015, a move criticised by the United States. The awarding of the contract came just a few years after the United States posted the first of a rotating group of US Marines in Darwin. The US and Australia are expanding air bases in Australia’s north to host US bombers. Speaking in East Timor on an official visit yesterday, Albanese said his government had made it clear it wanted the port returned to Australian ownership. “We are committed to making sure that that port goes back into Australian hands because that is in our national interest,” he said. The port’s owner, Landbridge Australia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but said in November the port was in a strong financial position. China’s ambassador in Canberra, Xiao Qian, told an annual press briefing yesterday that Beijing would “take measures to protect the company’s interests” if a sale was forced. “Should Landbridge be forced to leave that port, I think it might also affect the substantive investment, cooperation and trade between Chinese companies and that part of Australia,” the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported Xiao as saying. – Reuters

o Acquitted by Seoul court of other charges

But she has also apologised for “causing trouble despite being a person of no importance”. “When I consider my role and the responsibilities entrusted to me, it seems clear that I have made many mistakes,” she said last month. A self-professed animal lover known internationally for her work campaigning for South Korea to ban dog meat, Kim’s scandals frequently overshadowed her husband’s domestic political agenda. In 2023, hidden camera footage appeared to show Kim accepting a US$2,200 luxury handbag in what was later dubbed the “Dior bag scandal”, further dragging down Yoon’s already dismal approval ratings. The scandal contributed to a stinging defeat for Yoon’s party in general elections in April 2024, as it failed to win back a parliamentary majority. Yoon vetoed three opposition-backed Bills to investigate allegations against Kim, including the Dior bag case, with the last veto in November 2024. A week later, he declared martial law. – AFP

necklace from the leader of the sect. Judge Woo In-sung of the Seoul Central District Court found her guilty of corruption and sentenced her to 20 months in prison. However, she was found not guilty of stock

manipulation and violations of South Korea’s campaign financing laws. Kim sat in the court as the sentence was read out, wearing a black suit, a white face mask and glasses. Prosecutors last month said Kim had “stood above the law” and colluded with the Unification Church to undermine “the constitutionally mandated

SEOUL: A judge here yesterday handed the country’s former first lady Kim Keon Hee (pic) a 20-month jail sentence for corruption, but acquitted her for alleged stock manipulation and other charges. Controversy has long surrounded 53-year-old Kim and accusations of corruption, influence peddling and even academic fraud dominated her husband Yoon Suk Yeol’s time in office. Both are in custody, Yoon for actions taken during his declaration of martial law in December 2024 and its chaotic aftermath, and Kim for alleged stock manipulation and receiving gifts from the cult-like Unification Church. She was also accused of accepting lavish bribes from businesses and politicians totalling more than US$200,000 (RM783,019), including two Chanel bags and a Graff

separation of religion and state”. Prosecutor Min Joong-ki also said South Korea’s institutions were “severely undermined by abuses of power” committed by Kim. She has also been accused of meddling in parliamentary elections. She has denied all the charges, claiming in her final testimony last month that the allegations were “deeply unjust”.

An assailant with a syringe is tackled by a security guard after spraying an unknown substance at Omar. – AFPPIC

US lawmaker attacked at town hall meeting MINNEAPOLIS: As the White House worked to “de-escalate” tensions in Minneapolis on Tuesday, a man sprayed Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (pic) with a syringe of unknown liquid at a town hall meeting, where she called for curbing the Trump administration’s anti-immigration crackdown. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and demanded that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “resign or face impeachment”, when a man sprang up from the front row, made a remark and sprayed the lawmaker, as security leapt to grab him.

and was doing a “very good job”. But after days of protests following 37-year old Alex Pretti’s death, Trump told Fox News “we’re going to de-escalate a little bit”, while adding that it was not a “pullback”. Trump also admitted that Gregory Bovino, a hardline Border Patrol commander who is now expected to leave Minneapolis, was “a pretty out there kind of a guy” whose presence may not have helped the situation, and sent top US border security official Tom Homan to meet officials in the city. After meeting Homan on Tuesday, Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement they discussed the “serious negative impacts this operation has had on Minneapolis”, and the city “will not enforce federal immigration laws”. – AFP

Omar raised a fist and stepped toward the attacker before returning to the podium to say: “Here’s the reality that people like this ugly man don’t understand, we are Minnesota strong. And we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw on us.”

The White House is also evaluating whether the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who gunned down a nurse failed to follow “clear guidance” to “create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors”, said deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. “We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol,” Miller said in a statement. At the town hall on Tuesday night, Omar had just spoken about the abolition of

Omar is a frequent target of President Donald Trump, who continues to defend Noem despite her oversight of federal agents who shot and killed two US citizens this month, saying Noem would not step down