News in Brief
S. Korean president tells ministry to be less soft on North
REUTERS – Having appointed a new unification minister days earlier, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Sunday that the ministry had focused too much on providing aid for North Korea in the past and needed to change.
“The Unification Ministry has been acting like the ministry of North Korea aid and it is wrong,” Yoon was quoted as telling staff in a statement issued by his press secretary. “It’s time for the unification ministry to change.”
Protesters keep pressure on Netanyahu over reform plan
AFP – Israelis protested again on Saturday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reform plans, days after he said he had dropped a key provision in the controversial project.
The demonstrators have kept up the pressure with weekly rallies against Netanyahu, who returned to power last December at the head of a coalition with ultra-Orthodox Jewish and extreme-right parties.
As they have done every Saturday for months, protesters thronged the heart of Tel Aviv to demonstrate against his cabinet’s judicial overhaul proposals.
OIC: Measures needed ...
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The body’s secretary general, Hissein Brahim Taha, “stressed the need to send a clear message that acts of desecration” of the Qur’an are “not mere ordinary Islamophobia incidents,” the statement said.
“We must send constant reminders to the international community regarding the urgent application of international law, which clearly prohibits any advocacy of religious hatred.”
The act outside the Stockholm Central Mosque prompted international condemnation.
Several Muslim countries have also summoned Swedish ambassadors in protest.
Swedish police had granted Momika a permit in line with free speech protections, but authorities later said they had opened an investigation over “agitation”.