News Headlines - 14 October 2019
▽South Korean Justice Minister Cho Kuk quits post amid scandal | The Japan Times
Embattled South Korean Justice Minister Cho Kuk resigned Monday as a scandal swirled over academic privileges allegedly given to his children... Cho’s relatives have been at the center of probes involving educational privileges allegedly granted to his children, and also investments in an equity fund suspected of dubious operations.
Cho’s wife, Chung Kyung-sim, a university professor, has been indicted for allegedly forging a college award for their daughter, with a trial slated to begin Friday.
His two children have also been questioned by prosecutors.
▽SNP holds firm as pressure grows for second independence vote | Financial Times
Leaders of the Scottish National party on Sunday easily fended off a challenge to their strategy for a second independence referendum from SNP members impatient at the lack of progress on the issue amid the UK’s political chaos.
Delegates to the three-day SNP conference in Aberdeen voted overwhelmingly against a highly unusual attempt at its opening session to change its agenda to allow debate on an independence “Plan B”.
Under the proposal, the SNP would treat an election victory for pro-independence parties as a mandate to start negotiating independence with the UK government if Westminster continued to refuse to approve a second Scottish referendum on the issue.
Spain has jailed nine Catalan separatist politicians over a failed 2017 declaration of independence for Catalonia.
The country’s supreme court on Monday sentenced the leaders to between nine and 13 years in prison after finding them guilty of sedition... The longest prison sentence of 13 years went to former Catalan deputy leader Oriol Junqueras. Four of the politicians were also convicted of misuse of public funds.
▽New German rules leave 5G telecoms door open to Huawei - Reuters
Germany has finalised rules for the build-out of 5G mobile networks that, in a snub to the United States, will not exclude China’s Huawei Technologies.
Government officials confirmed that Germany’s so-called security catalogue foresaw an evaluation of technical and other criteria, but that no single vendor would be barred in order to create a level playing field for equipment vendors.
▽5 detained over deadly knife attack at Paris police HQ | The Times of Israel
French police on Monday detained five people linked to a radicalized employee at the Paris police headquarters who killed four colleagues in a knife attack earlier this month, sources said.
Police staged raids at three locations in the northern suburbs of Paris, judicial sources and those close to the investigation said, confirming a report by the broadcaster RTL.
Mickael Harpon, a 45-year-old computer expert, stabbed to death four colleagues at the police headquarters on October 3 before being shot and killed.
