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People celebrate after President Yoon Suk-yeol's impeachment was accepted, near the Constitutional Court in Seoul, South Korea, on April 4, 2025.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Friday voted unanimously to oust impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol over his decision to declare martial law in December. Supporters of Yoon who gathered near the presidential residence in Seoul reportedly cried out in disappointment as the court’s 8-0 decision was announced. Others cheered the ruling. The center-right leader is now the second South Korean president to be ousted.
South Korean authorities deployed a whopping 14,000 officers and 210 riot units throughout the capital to deal with expected mass protests and potential violence. Yoon did not attend the reading of the verdict, reportedly due to security concerns, but he accepted the decision. He expressed remorse for the way his time in office ended.
“I deeply regret not being able to live up to your hopes and expectations,” the former prosecutor said in a statement.
Yoon’s ouster caps a tumultuous period for South Korea. His martial law declaration marked the first time since 1980 that a South Korean leader had used such powers, and it triggered dark memories of the country’s military rule. Even though the declaration lasted just six hours, the National Assembly impeached Yoon in a bipartisan vote on the grounds that he violated his constitutional duty.
Friday’s ruling starts the clock for a presidential election within 60 days, during which time Han Duck-soo,prime minister and acting president, will remain at the helm.
Yoon faces more legal woes. The former president now faces criminal charges for alleged treason, marking the latest battle between the judicial branch and a political leader — and echoing similar clashes in Brazil, France, Israel, Romania, and the United States. Even if the Constitutional Court had ruled in Yoon’s favor, he still would have faced these charges, but the decision against him makes the case much more likely to proceed.President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he leaves the White House for a trip to Florida on April 3, 2025.
The reviews are in: US President Donald Trump’s widespread tariff plan isn’t most loved, especially not with the markets. Stocks have plummeted, layoffs have begun, and confusion has metastasized about the bizarre method the United States used to calculate its tariff formula. And, of course, there’s a lawsuit.
The reaction from countries affected by the tariffs, though, was relatively muted. The European Union threatened to retaliate if the Trump administration didn’t withdraw these new duties but hasn’t explicitly made any moves yet. The United Kingdom drew up a list of potential US products it could tariff but hasn’t yet taken any specific actions. Australia outright won’t retaliate.
One exception. China introduced a 34% retaliatory tariff on US goods on Friday, matching what the White House imposed on them. The move turns the simmering tensions between the two superpowers into a full-fledged trade war.
Big bully. These major economies will take a hit, but it could be the smallest countries that suffer the most. Due to the tariff formula — which ostensibly involves dividing the US trade deficit with a country by the total amount of imports from it, and then halving this number — nations like Lesotho, Myanmar, and Nauru must deal with new duties approaching 50%. Their humble economies rely on producing for the mammoth US market, so these huge price hikes could devastate them.
Totally chill meeting. The new tariffs overshadowed a NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday, one that was supposed to focus on reaffirming the military alliance between the United States and its European allies. Despite US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s conciliatory tone, leaders across the pond expressed dismay at the new levies, with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arguing that economic security was linked to “overall security.”
Whatever the complaints from Europe, Trump is unlikely to reverse course, says Eurasia Group trade and global supply chain expert Nancy Wei.
“The newly introduced tariffs under President Trump’s administration are designed to be a lasting ‘tariff wall’ around the US,” Wei said. “It is improbable that negotiations will lead to major tariff reductions or complete removal.”
While some thought Trump might reverse course in the face of market volatility, the US president didn’t seem too fazed by the chaos. He told reporters on Thursday that he thought it was “going very well” and likened the situation to a patient having surgery. “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country's going to boom,” he added.
Orania town sign in front of local shopping centre is pictured in whites-only town of Orania, South Africa, April 1, 2025.
3,000: The 3,000 residents of Orania, an all-white separatist enclave in South Africa, are calling on Donald Trump to help their cause. Representatives of Orania, which formed in opposition to the end of apartheid 30 years ago and already enjoys some local autonomy, recently visited Washington, DC, to drum up support. In February, the Trump administration blasted the current South African government for what it said was discrimination against white South Africans.
14 billion: On Thursday, India’s parliament passed a controversial law on the governance of lands donated to Muslim charities. The organizations, known as waqfs (or awqāf, if you’re a stickler for the original Arabic grammar), control a million acres of territory worth more than $14 billion. The new law permits non-Muslims to join the management boards that manage these properties. Supporters say the law promotes inclusivity and transparency, but opponents say it weakens the rights of India’s Muslim minority at a time when government-backed Hindu nationalist groups are trying to seize and destroy mosques they argue are located atop earlier Hindu temples.
6: In the United States, door-knocking Jehovah’s Witnesses can be seen as a blessing or a nuisance, but in Russia, they are “extremists.” A Russian court in the city of Chelyabinsk on Thursday sentenced a Jehovah’s Witness to six years in prison for organizing group activities. Since banning the group in 2017, Russia has jailed hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a community of about 175,000 people who are viewed with suspicion because of their dissidence from the Russian Orthodox Church and their ties to the US.
75: On Thursday, Portuguese anti-corruption investigators carried out 75 separate raids in three cities, targeting the Bank of Portugal as well as private accounting firms, homes, and other public institutions. They allege a massive, eight-year corruption scheme amounting to nearly $20 million in IT service contracts.
27: An Israeli airstrike hit a school in northern Gaza on Thursday, killing at least 27 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The attack was part of the IDF’s latest military operation in Gaza, one that leading government officials have pledged to expand.
African National Congress (ANC) members of parliament react after South African lawmakers passed the budget's fiscal framework in Cape Town, South Africa, April 2, 2025.
The second largest party in South Africa’s coalition, the business-friendly Democratic Alliance, launched a legal challenge on Thursday to block a 0.5% VAT increase in the country’s new budget, raising concerns that the fragile government could collapse.
The background: Absent the support of their coalition partner, the ruling African National Congress on Wednesday relied instead on support from smaller parties to narrowly pass a budget framework.
The ANC and the center-right DA, historical rivals, agreed to work together after last year’s elections, when the ANC failed to win a majority for the first time since it entered government in 1994, after the fall of apartheid.
Your call, DA. The lawsuit is unlikely to derail the budget, so the party must decide if it wants to stay in government despite its misgivings. Without the DA, the ANC would hold exactly half of the legislature’s 400 seats. Investors view the DA as a key source of market-friendly policy discipline.
It’s a dilemma. Experts say that if the DA bolts, it will lose the chance to shape key legislation, such as the controversial Expropriation Act, a land reform bill, but staying would mean facing political humiliation after they voted against the budget.
The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Thursday, targeting a building in the Mashrou Dummar area of Damascus. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed Israel's responsibility for the attack, which resulted in one fatality.
As we wrote in February, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has big plans for Syria. Erdogan’s government was a crucial backer of the HTS militia, an Islamist rebel group that ousted longtime Syrian strongman Bashar Assad in December, and it now wants Turkey’s military to take over some air bases on Syrian territory in exchange for Turkish training of Syria’s new army.
This, Erdogan hopes, will allow Turkey to greatly expand its regional influence, return many of the millions of Syrian refugees still living inside Turkey back home, and clamp down on Kurdish militants who have used Syria as a base of operations against Turkey’s military.
That’s the backdrop for a wave of Israeli airstrikes on military targets inside Syria early Thursday. The Syrian government called the attacks a “deliberate attempt to destabilize Syria” and “a blatant violation of international law and Syrian sovereignty.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz quickly fired back at Syria’s president: “If you allow forces hostile to Israel to enter Syria and endanger Israeli security interests, you will pay a very heavy price.” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar warned that Erdogan is doing his “utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate.”
Syria’s fledgling military is no match for its neighbors, and its new government remains at the mercy of outside players. This dangerous competition to fill the vacuum in Syria created by the ouster of Assad is just beginning.
A man leaves the U.S. headquarters of the social media company TikTok in Culver City, California, U.S. January 17, 2025.
On Friday, Donald Trump announced that he is signing an executive order allowing TikTok to continue operating in the US for an additional 75 days, giving his administration more time to negotiate a deal to transfer the social media platform into American ownership. The app has so far courted high-profile bidders across industries, from Amazon to Andreessen Horowitz to OnlyFans.
Recap: Congress last year passed a law — upheld by the Supreme Court — ordering ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent company, to divest from its US operations or face a nationwide ban over national security concerns. Trump, who vowed to protect the app, told the Justice Department to postpone its enforcement until Saturday and is scrambling to find an American buyer.
Can Trump save TikTok? The app insists it’s not for sale, saying China would block a deal. If no deal can be reached, Trump could keep instructing the Justice Department to ignore the law, effectively reassuring Apple and Google that they won’t face penalties for allowing downloads and rendering the law largely ineffective.National Security Advisor Mike Waltz looks on as he sits next to US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the Oval Office on March 13, 2025.
Someone needs to take Michael Waltz’s phone out of his hand. The National Security Advisor’s tech scandal continues, as documents shared with the Washington Post revealed on Tuesday that he was conducting government business on his personal Gmail account, and Politico learned on Wednesday that he created at least 20 Signal group chats to discuss various foreign policy issues. These revelations follow the Signal chat scandal from last week and the discovery of Waltz’s public Venmo account. Penny for your thoughts, Hillary Clinton?
Apples and oranges. Whereas Clinton’s communications emerged following an FOIA request from a right-wing nonprofit, it’s unclear how the former Florida congressman’s emails and information about the other Signal chats got to journalists. One GOP strategist familiar with FOIA requests argued that the way these stories were characterized — the Washington Post said it had “reviewed” the documents — reveals they were leaks.
His last Waltz? The White House isn’t happy with the former Army officer. Though US President Donald Trump spared him after the Houthi chat debacle, Waltz has faced questions about his relationship with Jeffrey Goldberg,the journalist he inadvertently added to the chat.His responses have been awkward, and his position now looks to be under threat. To make matters worse, Trump fired three members of Waltz’s team on Thursday, seemingly leaving Waltz on the brink.