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South Korea's President Attends Court Hearing on Extending Detention

A blue van believed to be transporting impeached South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol leaves the Seoul Western District Court after a hearing in Seoul on January 18, 2025, as the court weighs whether to extend the detention of Yoon, after investigators arrested him over a failed martial law bid. (Photo by JUNG Yeon-je / AFP)
A blue van believed to be transporting impeached South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol leaves the Seoul Western District Court after a hearing in Seoul on January 18, 2025, as the court weighs whether to extend the detention of Yoon, after investigators arrested him over a failed martial law bid. (Photo by JUNG Yeon-je / AFP)
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South Korea's President Attends Court Hearing on Extending Detention

A blue van believed to be transporting impeached South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol leaves the Seoul Western District Court after a hearing in Seoul on January 18, 2025, as the court weighs whether to extend the detention of Yoon, after investigators arrested him over a failed martial law bid. (Photo by JUNG Yeon-je / AFP)
A blue van believed to be transporting impeached South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol leaves the Seoul Western District Court after a hearing in Seoul on January 18, 2025, as the court weighs whether to extend the detention of Yoon, after investigators arrested him over a failed martial law bid. (Photo by JUNG Yeon-je / AFP)

South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol attended a court hearing on Saturday to fight a request by investigators to extend his detention on accusations of insurrection.
Yoon on Wednesday became the country's first sitting president to be arrested, in a criminal probe related to his short-lived declaration of martial law on Dec. 3.
Investigators requested a detention warrant on Friday to extend their custody of Yoon for up to 20 days. He has been refusing to talk to investigators and has been held in Seoul Detention Center since his arrest.
After the hearing, Yoon returned to Seoul Detention Center to await the court's decision, which is expected on Saturday or Sunday, Reuters reported.
The hearing at Seoul Western District Court lasted nearly five hours. Yoon spoke for about 40 minutes during the hearing, Yonhap said, citing Yoon's lawyer.
"(Yoon) sincerely explained and answered questions on factual relationships, evidence and legal principles... We will quietly wait for the court to decide," said Yoon's lawyer, Yoon Kab-keun, after the hearing.
Yoon had decided to attend the hearing "to restore his honor by directly explaining the legitimacy of emergency martial law and that insurrection is not established", his lawyer said earlier on Saturday.
TV channels showed a convoy of around a dozen cars and police motorbikes escorting Yoon from the detention center to the court, as well as back to the detention center.
Since police broke up a crowd of Yoon's supporters blocking the court gate in the morning, thousands of supporters surrounded the court after the hearing began at around 2 p.m. (0500 GMT) behind a police barricade chanting "release the president".
"There are so many supporters of President Yoon Suk Yeol around the court, who still believe in the rule of law and are defending the president," said Lee Se-ban, a 30-year-old man.
Multiple people were arrested by police for trying to break into the court grounds, including a young man who tried to escape, according to a Reuters witness.
Insurrection, the crime alleged against Yoon by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, is one of the few that an incumbent South Korean president does not have immunity from.

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World

Indonesia Says Proposed Gaza Peacekeeping Force Could Total 20,000 Troops

Israeli military vehicles drive past destruction in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, January 21, 2026. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israeli military vehicles drive past destruction in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, January 21, 2026. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
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Indonesia Says Proposed Gaza Peacekeeping Force Could Total 20,000 Troops

Israeli military vehicles drive past destruction in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, January 21, 2026. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israeli military vehicles drive past destruction in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, January 21, 2026. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

A proposed multinational peacekeeping force for Gaza could total about 20,000 troops, with Indonesia estimating it could contribute up to 8,000, President Prabowo Subianto’s spokesman said on Tuesday.

The spokesman said, however, that no deployment terms or areas of operation had been agreed.

Prabowo has been invited to Washington later this month for the first meeting of US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace. The Southeast Asian country last year committed to ready 20,000 troops for deployment for a Gaza peacekeeping force, but it has said it is awaiting more details about the force's mandate before confirming deployment.

"The total number is approximately 20,000 (across countries) ... it is not only Indonesia," presidential spokesman Prasetyo Hadi told journalists on Tuesday, adding that the exact number of troops had not been discussed yet but Indonesia estimated it could offer up to 8,000, Reuters reported.

"We are just preparing ourselves in case an agreement is reached and we have to send peacekeeping forces," he said.

Prasetyo also said there would be negotiations before Indonesia paid the $1 billion being asked for permanent membership of the Board of Peace. He did not clarify who the negotiations would be with, and said Indonesia had not yet confirmed Prabowo's attendance at the board meeting.

Separately, Indonesia's defense ministry also denied reports in Israeli media that the deployment of Indonesian troops would be in Gaza's Rafah and Khan Younis.

"Indonesia's plans to contribute to peace and humanitarian support in Gaza are still in the preparation and coordination stages," defence ministry spokesman Rico Ricardo Sirat told Reuters in a message.

"Operational matters (deployment location, number of personnel, schedule, mechanism) have not yet been finalised and will be announced once an official decision has been made and the necessary international mandate has been clarified," he added.

World

Iran Offers Clemency to over 2,000 Convicts, Excludes Protest-related Cases

FILE - In this photo obtained by The Associated Press, Iranians attend an anti-government protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP, File)
FILE - In this photo obtained by The Associated Press, Iranians attend an anti-government protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP, File)
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Iran Offers Clemency to over 2,000 Convicts, Excludes Protest-related Cases

FILE - In this photo obtained by The Associated Press, Iranians attend an anti-government protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP, File)
FILE - In this photo obtained by The Associated Press, Iranians attend an anti-government protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP, File)

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei granted pardons or reduced sentences on Tuesday to more than 2,000 people, the judiciary said, adding that none of those involved in recent protests were on the list.

The decision comes ahead of the anniversary of the Iranian revolution, which along with other important occasions in Iran has traditionally seen the supreme leader sign off on similar pardons over the years.

"The leader of the Islamic revolution agreed to the request by the head of the judiciary to pardon or reduce or commute the sentences of 2,108 convicts," the judiciary's Mizan Online website said.

The list however does not include "the defendants and convicts from the recent riots", it said, quoting the judiciary's deputy chief Ali Mozaffari.

Protests against the rising cost of living broke out in Iran in late December before morphing into nationwide anti-government demonstrations that peaked on January 8 and 9.

Tehran has acknowledged that more than 3,000 people died during the unrest, including members of the security forces and innocent bystanders, and attributed the violence to "terrorist acts".

Iranian authorities said the protests began as peaceful demonstrations before turning into "foreign-instigated riots" involving killings and vandalism.

International organizations have put the toll far higher.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has verified 6,964 deaths, mostly protesters.

World

Macron Says Wants ‘European Approach’ in Dialogue with Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia February 9, 2026. (Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia February 9, 2026. (Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via Reuters)
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Macron Says Wants ‘European Approach’ in Dialogue with Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia February 9, 2026. (Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia February 9, 2026. (Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via Reuters)

French President Emmanuel Macron has said he wants to include European partners in a resumption of dialogue with Russian leader Vladimir Putin nearly four years after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

He spoke after dispatching a top adviser to Moscow last week, in the first such meeting since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

"What did I gain? Confirmation that Russia does not want peace right now," he said in an interview with several European newspapers including Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung.

"But above all, we have rebuilt those channels of discussion at a technical level," he said in the interview released on Tuesday.

"My wish is to share this with my European partners and to have a well-organized European approach," he added.

Dialogue with Putin should take place without "too many interlocutors, with a given mandate", he said.

Macron said last year he believed Europe should reach back out to Putin, rather than leaving the United States alone to take the lead in negotiations to end Russia's war against Ukraine.

"Whether we like Russia or not, Russia will still be there tomorrow," Suddeutsche Zeitung quoted the French president as saying.

"It is therefore important that we structure the resumption of a European discussion with the Russians, without naivety, without putting pressure on the Ukrainians -- but also so as not to depend on third parties in this discussion."

After Macron sent his adviser Emmanuel Bonne to the Kremlin last week, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday said Putin was ready to receive the French leader's call.

"If you want to call and discuss something seriously, then call," he said in an interview to state-run broadcaster RT.

The two presidents last spoke in July, in their first known phone talks in over two-and-a-half years.

The French leader tried in a series of phone calls in 2022 to warn Putin against invading Ukraine and travelled to Moscow early that year.

He kept up phone contact with Putin after the invasion but talks had ceased after a September 2022 phone call.