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Iran Says Trump Assassination Plot Claim 'Totally Unfounded'

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla., as Eric Trump, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump and Melania Trump listen. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla., as Eric Trump, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump and Melania Trump listen. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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Iran Says Trump Assassination Plot Claim 'Totally Unfounded'

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla., as Eric Trump, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump and Melania Trump listen. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla., as Eric Trump, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump and Melania Trump listen. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Iran's foreign ministry on Saturday described as "totally unfounded" US accusations of a plot by Tehran to assassinate president-elect Donald Trump.

The foreign ministry "rejects allegations that Iran is implicated in an assassination attempt targeting former or current American officials," spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement, after US prosecutors announced charges over the alleged plot.

The Justice Department on Friday disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Trump, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official before this week's election with planning the assassination of the Republican president-elect.
Investigators were told of the plan to kill Trump by Farhad Shakeri, an accused Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery and who authorities say maintains a network of criminal associates enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots, The Associated Press reported.

Shakeri told the FBI that a contact in Iran's Revolutionary Guard instructed him this past September to set aside other work he was doing and assemble a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.

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S. Korea's Yoon Ignored Cabinet Opposition to Martial Law

Yoon Suk Yeol plunged the country into political chaos on December 3 with the bungled martial law declaration and has since holed up in his residence. Philip FONG / AFP
Yoon Suk Yeol plunged the country into political chaos on December 3 with the bungled martial law declaration and has since holed up in his residence. Philip FONG / AFP
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S. Korea's Yoon Ignored Cabinet Opposition to Martial Law

Yoon Suk Yeol plunged the country into political chaos on December 3 with the bungled martial law declaration and has since holed up in his residence. Philip FONG / AFP
Yoon Suk Yeol plunged the country into political chaos on December 3 with the bungled martial law declaration and has since holed up in his residence. Philip FONG / AFP

South Korea's suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol ignored the objections of key cabinet ministers before his failed martial law bid last month, according to a prosecutors' report seen by AFP on Sunday.
Yoon plunged the country into political chaos on December 3 with the bungled martial law declaration and has since holed up in his residence, surrounded by hundreds of security officers resisting arrest efforts.
The full 83-page prosecution report to indict former defense minister Kim Yong-hyun said the country's then prime minister, foreign minister and finance minister all expressed reservations the night of the decision.
They made their concerns clear about the economic and diplomatic fallout in a cabinet meeting, which Yoon called before his short-lived power grab.
"The economy would face severe difficulties, and I fear a decline in international credibility," then prime minister Han Duck-soo told Yoon, according to the report seen by AFP.
Han became acting president after Yoon was stripped of his duties, but was also impeached by opposition MPs who argued he refused demands to complete Yoon's impeachment process and to bring him to justice.
Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul reportedly said martial law would have "diplomatic repercussions but also destroy the achievements South Korea has built over the past 70 years".
Acting president Choi Sang-mok, also finance minister, argued the decision would have "devastating effects on the economy and the country's credibility".
Despite the objections, Yoon said "there is no turning back", claiming the opposition -- which won a landslide in April's parliamentary election -- would lead the country to collapse.
"Neither the economy nor diplomacy will function," he reportedly said.
An earlier summary of the report provided to the media last month revealed Yoon authorized the military to fire their weapons to enter parliament during the failed bid.
The suspended president's lawyer Yoon Kab-keun dismissed the prosecutors' report.
He told AFP the indictment report alone does not constitute an insurrection and "it doesn't align legally, and there's no evidence either".
Yoon remains under investigation on charges of insurrection and faces arrest, prison or, at worst, the death penalty.
The Constitutional Court slated January 14 for the start of Yoon's impeachment trial, which if he does not attend would continue in his absence.
The court may take the prosecutors' report on Kim -- one of the first indicted over the martial law bid -- into consideration.