South Korea’s Yoon says martial law decree will be lifted

South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Dec 4 he would lift martial law, just hours after imposing it in a bid to quell what he called “anti-state forces”.

Mr Yoon backed down after lawmakers voted to oppose the unexpected declaration, which caught even South Korea’s closest allies around the world off guard.

Earlier, the National Assembly was sealed and troops entered the building for a short time, while hundreds of protesters gathered outside and faced off with security forces.

Yonhap news agency reported that Mr Yoon’s Cabinet approved the motion to lift the order.

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Syria rebels advance on central city of Hama

Islamist-led rebels advanced on Dec 3 on Syria’s fourth-largest city Hama, buoyed by their lightning capture of swathes of the north in an offensive that ended four years of relative calm.

The sudden flare-up in the more than decade-old civil war in Syria drew appeals for de-escalation from across the international community.

Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies met much tougher resistance in the countryside north of Hama than they did in the Aleppo region on Nov 29 and 30, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

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19-year manhunt for Singaporean tycoon ends in JB