KATHMANDU: The 14th International Open Friendship Taekwondo Championship is going to be held in Seoul of South Korea next year. Organizing a press conference, Championship Coordinator Raju Chhetri shared the information in Kathmandu today. The IOFTC at Portland in the US organizes this championship every two years. It organizes one edition in the US and […]
Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye was set free Friday under a special pardon granted by the incumbent President Moon Jae-in, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Park, who had been imprisoned for 57 months over corruption charges, reportedly received the certificate of pardon at a hospital in Seoul, where she has been treated for over one month due to her chronic shoulder and waist pain.
The 69-year-old, after receiving shoulder surgery in 2019, allegedly planned to get treatment at the hospital until Feb. 2 next year.
A week earlier, the justice ministry announced that Park was included in the list of Moon's special amnesty for the new year.
Park was sentenced to a combined 22-year prison term and had served the sentence since 2017 after being impeached and removed from office over corruption charges.
According to the presidential Blue House, Park's deteriorating health was considered to make the pardon decision.
Park will be protected by the presidential security service, but she will not be subject to other privileges as a former president, including the provision of special pensions and personal secretaries, for her conviction.
HONG KONG, August 26: Asian markets mostly fell Thursday as hopes for the global recovery and signs of a possible slowdown in new virus infections play off against the prospect of an end to Federal Reserve largesse and China's regulatory clampdown.
Equities and oil have by and large enjoyed a positive week, helped by US full approval of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine and speculation the Fed will take its time in removing its ultra-loose monetary policy whenever it begins to do so.
However, while Wall Street continued to chalk up new records, Asian investors shifted a little more cautiously as they assessed the outlook.
Top of the agenda this week is Fed boss Jerome Powell's speech Friday to the Jackson Hole symposium of central bankers and economists, which will be closely followed for any indication about its policy plans in light of rising inflation and the economic rebound.
The bank is widely expected to begin easing back on its vast bond-buying programme by the end of the year, though the spread of the Delta variant and its impact on growth has some observers and even hawkish Fed members rethinking the wisdom of doing so.
Analysts said the speed and timing of a pullback could be crucial. "When the Fed actually announces the taper, it will likely also give some degree of information on what pace it will take and how flexible or inflexible they want to be with the process," Guneet Dhingra, at Morgan Stanley, said.
"That could provide a key signal for the rate-hike cycle -- particularly with regard to the pace of the hikes."
However, some warn that starting to taper too late could cause problems. "It would be dangerous for the Fed to do this because it needs to be in a position -- from the middle of next year -- to start putting out the rhetoric that they may be raising rates," said Steven Barrow, of Standard Bank Group.
"And we know it's not out of the realm of possibilities that the Fed could lift rates some time around the end of next year. So I'm focused more on the end point for Fed tapering than the starting point."
Asian investors struggled to maintain Wall Street's rally. Hong Kong led losses as tech firms were dragged down by weak earnings results that came as China embarked on its crackdown on the industry, while Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Wellington, Manila and Jakarta also fell. However, Tokyo, Taipei, Mumbai and Bangkok eked out gains.
Seoul was also in the red after South Korea became one of the first major economies to start lifting interest rates since they were cut to record lows last year to battle the coronavirus impact.
The central bank move came as it looks to tackle surging household debt and sharp rises in property prices. The won jumped against the dollar after the announcement.
London, Paris and Frankfurt all fell soon after opening. Traders are also keeping a keen eye on China after it rattled world markets in recent weeks with a wave of regulations aimed at winding in private firms -- particularly in the tech sector -- it considered to have become too powerful and posed security risks.
While there has been little noise out of Beijing lately, the state-backed People's Daily reported that Xi Jinping had said China should try to achieve key economic and social development objectives this year.
While it did not set out specifics, the president has embarked on a mission to rein in the country's tycoons and powerful organisations, instead focusing on "common prosperity".
