FP Morning Brief: South Korea elects first femal president

Thursday, December 20, 2012

South Korea elects first female president

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Top news: Park Geun-hye, daughter of former authoritarian leader Park Chung-hee, was elected president of South Korea. She will be the country's first female president and is expected to take office in February.
Park pledged to work for reconciliation and to "reflect various opinions of the people" after a divisive race. Though, with 51.6 percent of the vote, she is the first democratically elected president to win an outright majority in South Korea, she is widely mistrusted who remember her father's 33 years of autocratic rule. Park has apologized for her father's repression of students and democracy activists but credits him with modernizing South Korea's economy.
Though her father was an anti-communist hardliner and her mother was killed by a North Korean sympathizer during an assassination attempt on him, Park has pledged to reach out to Pyongyang and increase humanitarian aid to the North.
Benghazi: Four U.S. State Department officials were removed from their positions after an independent report criticized the security arrangements in Benghazi, Libya as "grossly inadequate."

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Middle East A new U.N. Human Rights Council report warns of widening sectarian conflict in Syria. Iraqi president Jalal Talabani was flown to Germany for treatment after suffering a stroke. An Egyptian court ordered a retrial of two policemen in the Khaled Said case. Europe A report criticized BBC leaders for their handling of the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse crisis. Russia's State Duma approved a bill to ban the adoption of Russian children by U.S. parents. The Irish government is introducing a law that would allow abortion when the mother's life is in danger. Africa The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote in favor of deploying a multinational security force to Mali. Armed gunmen abducted a French engineer in Northern Nigeria. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda issued a conviction in its final case. Americas 18 Mexicans were convicted of money laundering in Nicaragua. The Argentine Navy ship impounded in Ghana last October is now heading home. A prison in Northern Mexico was closed after 24 people were killed in a jailbreak. Asia Pakistan reported a ninth death from attacks on U.N.-backed anti-polio teams. China arrested 1,000 members of a doomsday cult. Widespread demonstrations have been held in India demanding government action over the gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a New Delhi bus.

-By Joshua Keating

JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images

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