South Korean investigators have entered the home of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol to enforce an arrest warrant for him, Yonhap News Agency reported on Friday morning local time.

The embattled president is wanted for questioning in multiple investigations, including accusations of leading an insurrection – a crime punishable by life imprisonment or even the death penalty – after he suddenly declared martial law in early December.

A court on Tuesday approved the warrant for Yoon – the first time such a move has been taken toward a sitting president, deepening a dramatic showdown between investigators and the president. In response, the presidential security team said that “(s)ecurity measures will be taken in accordance with due process for matters related to the execution of warrants.”

Yoon, himself a former prosecutor, has refused to answer three summonses by investigators in recent weeks asking for his cooperation, according to South Korea’s Corruption Investigation Office (CIO).

A large police presence could be seen around the presidential residence in Seoul on Friday, many officers wearing jackets and face masks in the cold weather while flanked by police vans. Retractable gates were also set up, blocking pedestrians from entering the area around Yoon’s home.

The leader was stripped of his presidential powers last month by a parliamentary vote to impeach him, which came after some members of his own ruling party turned on him following his refusal to resign over his short-lived decree.

But the suspended president has remained defiant in the face of investigations and an impeachment trial underway by one of the country’s highest courts, vowing to “fight to the end” for the country.

The statement, which was shared with supporters gathered outside his residence earlier this week, was his first public comment in weeks after largely staying away from public light in the fallout of his widely condemned decree.

Yoon declared martial law in a surprise late night address on December 3, claiming opposition lawmakers had “paralyzed state affairs” and that the move was necessary to “safeguard a liberal South Korea” from the threats posed by “anti-state elements.”

Members of the National Assembly, including some of Yoon’s own party members, voted to reverse the martial law some six hours later. Yoon’s order faced fierce backlash from the public and lawmakers across the political spectrum, reviving painful memories of the country’s authoritarian past.

In the weeks since, the country has been embroiled in political disarray with parliament also voting to impeach its prime minister and acting president Han Duck-soo, just weeks after it voted to impeach Yoon. The finance minister Choi Sang-mok is now acting president.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The Dominican Republic deported more than 276,000 Haitians in 2024, the country’s Immigration Directorate said Wednesday.

In the last three months of the year alone, over 94,000 people were deported under a new operation aiming to remove up to 10,000 undocumented Haitians per week, ordered by the Dominican Republic’s National Security and Defense Council headed by President Luis Abinader.

Dominican authorities also deported 48,344 Haitians during the January-March quarter, 62,446 between April-June, and 71,414 from July to September, according to the statement.

Government spokesman Homero Figueroa told reporters in October that the government ramped up deportations to address an “excess” of Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, which shares an island with Haiti. The two countries have long seen an informal flow of people across their shared border.

Haiti’s then-Foreign Minister Dominique Dupuy condemned “brutal scenes of raids and deportations,” and demanded justice for “dehumanizing acts” against her compatriots. Dominican authorities maintain that the deportations are carried out in compliance with human rights.

In October, Reuters footage captured dozens of migrants crammed into caged Dominican Republic law enforcement trucks heading to Haiti. Aid organizations have rushed assistance to the Haitian side of the border to assist the thousands of deportees.

The mass deportations come amid worsening political and social crisis in Haiti; gangs are estimated to control more than 80% of the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

A huge red-hot object fell from the sky into a Kenyan village on Monday afternoon according to local residents cited by Kenya’s National Broadcaster, prompting an immediate investigation by the country’s national space agency.

The object has since been identified as a “fragment of a space object,” Kenya’s Space Agency (KSA) said in a statement Wednesday.

KSA said it has taken custody of the object that landed in the remote Mukuku Village, describing it as apparent space junk measuring 2.5 meters (about 8 feet) wide and weighing 500 kg (about 1,100 pounds).

“The Agency wishes to clarify that the object, a metallic ring measuring approximately 2.5 meters in diameter and weighing about 500 kg is a fragment of a space object,” KSA said.

Preliminary assessments suggest it is a separation ring from a rocket, KSA said, noting that space debris more typically falls into the ocean or burns up before entering the earth’s atmosphere.

The fallen object is likely an isolated case and is still under investigation, KSA also said.

Julius Rotich, Mbooni Sub County Police Commander told Kenya’s National Broadcaster that the object was still hot when officers arrived Monday, and that residents had to be cordoned off from the area until it cooled down.

The broadcaster showed images of police tape wrapped around the ring that had fallen into some trees and brush, as residents gathered around.

KSA is analyzing the object and working to confirm where exactly it came from, it said.

A human rights group has filed a petition with Israel’s top court demanding to know the whereabouts of a prominent Palestinian hospital director detained by the Israeli military.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya has not been seen publicly since he was arrested during an Israeli raid late last month that closed Kamal Adwan Hospital – the last major functioning health facility in northern Gaza.

Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI) said in a statement Thursday that it filed the petition with the High Court after receiving a response to an inquiry from the Israeli military claiming that it had “found no indication of the arrest or detention of the individual in question.”

It made similar allegations about the hospital and its director around the time of the raid on the facility, without providing evidence for the claims.

Israeli forces launched an aerial and ground incursion in several parts of northern Gaza in early October, saying they were targeting Hamas’ renewed presence there. The onslaught has razed streets into carpets of debris, killed entire families, and severely depleted food, water and medical stocks.

‘Great risk of torture’

On Thursday, UN experts said they were “gravely concerned” about the fate of Dr. Abu Safiya, and called on Israeli authorities, as the occupying power in Gaza, to “respect and protect the right to life.”

“The heroic actions of Palestinian medical colleagues in Gaza, teach us what it means to have taken the medical oath. They are also a clear signal of a depraved humanity that has allowed a genocide to continue for well over a year,” the experts said in a statement.

More than 1,057 Palestinian health and medical professionals have been killed in Gaza, according to the statement.

PHRI said it “highlighted [to the High Court] that this case is part of a broader pattern of non-disclosure and unreliable information provided by the Israeli military and prison authorities regarding Palestinian detainees.”

Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard said on X on Thursday that the rights group is “extremely alarmed by the latest information we have received regarding the whereabouts of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyyah.”

She added that he is “at great risk of torture and ill-treatment,” demanding that Israel reveal where he is.