North Korea's Kim Jong Un Attends New Year's Celebrations with Daughter

This photo provided on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, by the North Korean government, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, with his daughter, second left, attend a New Year celebration in Pyongyang, North Korea on Dec. 31, 2024. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
This photo provided on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, by the North Korean government, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, with his daughter, second left, attend a New Year celebration in Pyongyang, North Korea on Dec. 31, 2024. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
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North Korea's Kim Jong Un Attends New Year's Celebrations with Daughter

This photo provided on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, by the North Korean government, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, with his daughter, second left, attend a New Year celebration in Pyongyang, North Korea on Dec. 31, 2024. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
This photo provided on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, by the North Korean government, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, with his daughter, second left, attend a New Year celebration in Pyongyang, North Korea on Dec. 31, 2024. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter Ju Ae attended New Year's celebrations including fireworks and an ice dancing display, state media KCNA reported on Wednesday.
Senior North Korean officials joined them in watching the events, state media photos showed. There was no mention of any speech by Kim.
KCNA said on the previous day that Kim had pledged to solidify the country's comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia in a letter to President Vladimir Putin.
In the message, Kim sent New Year greetings to Putin and all Russians, including their troops and expressed his willingness to further step up bilateral ties, which he said the two leaders have elevated to a new height this year, through new projects, KCNA said.
Kim "wished that the New Year 2025 would be recorded as the first year of victory in the 21st century when the Russian army and people would defeat neo-Nazism and achieve a great victory," KCNA said.

Kim and Putin signed a mutual defense treaty at a summit in June, which calls for each side to come to the other's aid in case of an armed attack.
North Korea has since dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine, and Seoul and Washington said that more than a thousand of them have been killed or wounded.



Lawyer: South Korea's Yoon to Accept Court Decision Even if it Ends Presidency

Yoon Kab-keun, lawyer for South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, attends a press conference in Seoul on January 9, 2025. (Photo by JUNG YEON-JE / AFP)
Yoon Kab-keun, lawyer for South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, attends a press conference in Seoul on January 9, 2025. (Photo by JUNG YEON-JE / AFP)
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Lawyer: South Korea's Yoon to Accept Court Decision Even if it Ends Presidency

Yoon Kab-keun, lawyer for South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, attends a press conference in Seoul on January 9, 2025. (Photo by JUNG YEON-JE / AFP)
Yoon Kab-keun, lawyer for South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, attends a press conference in Seoul on January 9, 2025. (Photo by JUNG YEON-JE / AFP)

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will accept the decision of the Constitutional Court that is trying parliament's impeachment case against him, even if it decides to remove the suspended leader from office, his lawyer said on Thursday.
"So if the decision is 'removal', it cannot but be accepted," Yoon Kab-keun, the lawyer for Yoon, told a news conference, when asked if Yoon would accept whatever the outcome of trial was.
Yoon has earlier defied the court's requests to submit legal briefs before the court began its hearing on Dec. 27, but his lawyers have said he was willing to appear in person to argue his case.
The suspended president has defied repeated summons in a separate criminal investigation into allegations he masterminded insurrection with his Dec. 3 martial law bid.
Yoon, the lawyer, said the president is currently at his official residence and appeared healthy, amid speculation over the suspended leader's whereabouts.
Presidential security guards resisted an initial effort to arrest Yoon last week though he faces another attempt after a top investigator vowed to do whatever it takes to break a security blockade and take in the embattled leader.
Seok Dong-hyeon, another lawyer advising Yoon, said Yoon viewed the attempts to arrest him as politically motivated and aimed at humiliating him by bringing him out in public wearing handcuffs.