SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s embattled president apologized Saturday for public anxiety caused by his short-lived attempt to impose martial law hours ahead of a parliamentary vote on impeaching him.

President Yoon Suk Yeol said in a brief televised address Saturday morning he won’t shirk legal or political responsibility for the declaration and promised not to make another attempt to impose it. He said he would leave it to his party to chart a course through the country’s political turmoil, “including matters related to my term in office.”

“The declaration of his martial law was made out of my desperation. But in the course of its implementation, it caused anxiety and inconveniences to the public. I feel very sorry over that and truly apologize to the people who must have been shocked a lot,” Yoon said.

• • PM Barnier resigned after no-confidence vote in parliament

• Macron's standing weakened amid calls for his resignation
• France faces political uncertainty, unnerving markets
• Macron says he will stay until the end of his mandate

PARIS, Dec 5 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron will appoint a new prime minister in the coming days whose top priority will be getting a 2025 budget adopted by parliament, he said on Thursday after the government was toppled by lawmakers.

Michel Barnier, a veteran conservative, became the shortest-serving prime minister in modern French history when he resigned on Thursday after parliament voted him out over his fiscal plans, barely three months after he was appointed.

In a televised address to the nation, Macron said he would name a successor to Barnier "in the coming days."

"The priority will be the budget," Macron said.

A special law to roll over the 2024 budget and avoid any gap will be put forward by mid-December. Then the new government will prepare a full budget early next year, in particular to account for inflation, for a vote by parliament.

Macron, whose ill-fated decision to call a snap ballot in June delivered a much-divided parliament, denied he was responsible for the political crisis.

The president, who represents a centrist party, said the far-right and left-wing parties united in an "anti-republican front" to create "a mess" by ousting Barnier.

Macron has been weakened by the crisis but resisted calls by some in the opposition for him to resign. He reaffirmed that he will stay in office until his term ends in May 2027.

• New role will help reshape U.S. policy on digital currency
  

  Early evangelist for cryptocurrency Move comes after bitcoin soared above $100,000 for first time

Dec 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said he was appointing former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as his "White House A.I. & Crypto Czar," another step towards overhauling U.S. policy.

"He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the U.S.," Trump said in a post on his social-media site Truth Social, without saying whether "czar" was an official title.

The crypto czar and other officials in Trump's incoming administration such as the chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are expected to reshape U.S. policy on digital currency along with a newly created crypto advisory council.

Trump's tech backers generally want to see minimal regulation around artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, saying Washington would throttle growing innovative sectors with excessive rules.

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday he has chosen former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China, tapping a former politician with business experience to help steer relations riven by deep mistrust and trade tensions.

"He will be instrumental in implementing my strategy to maintain Peace in the region, and a productive working relationship with China's leaders," Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, has said he will impose an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop the trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl.

He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60% on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.

Perdue, a Republican from Georgia who served in the Senate from 2015-2021, previously lived in Hong Kong during a 40-year career as a business executive.

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin no longer plans to travel to South Korea, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Thursday, following South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's botched attempt this week to impose martial law.

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said planning had been underway for a trip in the near term but it was determined now was not the appropriate time.

The official said South Korea had been consulted regarding the change in travel plans.

Austin will leave office by Jan. 20, when President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated.

Yoon's declaration of martial law late on Tuesday sought to consolidate power, ban political activity and censor the media. It sparked outrage in the streets and concern among South Korea's international allies.

South Korea's defense minister, who recommended the move, has resigned.

Fighting for his political future, Yoon accepted the resignation of Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun on Thursday and nominated his ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Choi Byung-hyuk, as a replacement.

BEIRUT (AP) — Over the past dozen years, Syrian militant leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani has worked to remake his public image and the insurgency he commands, renouncing longtime ties to al-Qaida and consolidating power before emerging from the shadows.

Now al-Golani, 42, seeks to seize the moment yet again, leading his fighters in a stunning offensive that has put them in control of Syria’s largest city, reigniting the country’s long civil war and raising new questions about President Bashar Assad’s hold on power.

The surge and al-Golani’s place at the head of it are evidence of a remarkable transformation. Al-Golani’s success on the battlefield follows years of maneuvering among extremist organizations while eliminating competitors and former allies.

Along the way he moved to distance himself from al-Qaida, polishing his image and his extremist group’s de-facto “salvation government” in an attempt to win over international governments and the country’s religious and ethnic minorities.

Putting himself forward as a champion of pluralism and tolerance, al-Golani’s rebranding efforts sought to broaden his group’s public support and legitimacy.

Still, it had been years since Syria’s opposition forces, based in the country’s northwest, made any substantial military progress against Assad. The Syrian president’s government, with backing from Iran and Russia, has maintained its control of about 70 percent of the country in a stalemate that had left al-Golani and his jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, out of the spotlight.

BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Syria’s most powerful insurgent group toured the seized city of Aleppo on Wednesday in a surprise visit — the first since the group captured large parts of the city over the weekend as fierce fighting intensifies in the government-led counter-offensive in northern Hama.

Abu Mohammed al-Golani, who heads the jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, greeted crowds of supporters near the city’s iconic citadel as he smiled and waved in dark green military garb. Surrounded by masked gunmen in flak jackets, men and boys chanted “God is great” as he walked through the heart of Syria’s largest city.

The sudden capture of Aleppo, also an ancient business hub, was a stunning prize for Syrian opponents of President Bashar Assad.

It was the first opposition attack on the city since 2016, when a brutal Russian air campaign retook the northwestern city for Assad after rebel forces had initially seized it. Intervention by Russia, Iran and Iranian-allied militant Hezbollah and other groups has allowed Assad to remain in power.

The latest flareup in Syria’s long civil war comes after forces opposed to Assad ousted his troops from Aleppo and seized towns and villages in southern parts of the northwestern Idlib province, likely exploiting the fact that Assad’s main regional and international backers were preoccupied with their own wars.

The offensive is being led by the jihadi HTS as well as an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. For years, both have entrenched themselves in northwest Idlib province and parts of northern Aleppo, as the battered country reeled from years of political and military stalemates.

The war between Assad and his foreign backers and the array of armed opposition forces seeking his overthrow has killed an estimated half-million people over the past 13 years.

Elsewhere, Syrian authorities said their counteroffensive pushed back insurgents attempting to advance to the strategic central city of Hama, while the insurgents said they captured more Syrian troops and Iran-backed militants in fierce battles.

Syrian state SANA news agency on Wednesday said insurgents retreated some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from government-held Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city, as government troops backed by Russian airpower entrenched themselves in the outskirts. Fierce fighting has raged for days as Damascus fears that the insurgents will make their way into Hama as they did over the weekend into Aleppo.

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to change the narrative on his five-month-old government after plummeting approval ratings, business anxiety over tax hikes and protesting farmers clogging London streets.

Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch calls it an “emergency reset” by a floundering administration.

But Starmer’s office says the “Plan for Change” speech the prime minister will deliver on Thursday is not a relaunch or about-face, but “the next phase” in his government plan, intended to persuade voters that the government is making their lives better.

Starmer’s center-left Labour Party was elected in Jul — ending 14 years of Conservative government — on a promise to get Britain’s sluggish economy growing and restore frayed public services such as the state-funded National Health Service. But it has been criticized, including by Labour supporters, for failing to show people how their lives will improve any time soon.

The speech will set out “milestones” for measuring progress on economic growth, clean energy, reforming childcare and education, bolstering the NHS and cutting crime. It includes a pledge of 13,000 more neighborhood police officers within five years.

Starmer’s office said he will say that “hard-working Brits ... reasonably want a stable economy, their country to be safe, their borders secure, more cash in their pocket, safer streets in their town, opportunities for their children, secure British energy in their home, and an NHS that is there when they need it.”

The government hopes to reverse a slew of negative headlines over its economic decisions — taken, it says, because the previous Conservative government left a 22 billion pound ($28 billion) “black hole” in the public finances.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former White House adviser Peter Navarro, who served prison time related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, will return to serve in Donald Trump’s second administration, the president-elect announced Wednesday.

Navarro, a trade adviser during Trump’s first term, will be a senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, Trump said on Truth Social. The position, Trump wrote, “leverages Peter’s broad range of White House experience, while harnessing his extensive Policy analytic and Media skills.”

The appointment was only the first in a flurry of announcements that Trump made on Wednesday as his presidential transition faced controversy over Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice for Pentagon chief. Hegseth faces allegations of sexual misconduct, excessive drinking and financial mismanagement, and Trump has considered replacing him with another potential nominee.

As he works to fill out his team, Trump said he wanted Paul Atkins, a financial industry veteran and an advocate for cryptocurrency, to serve as the next chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He wrote on Truth Social that Atkins “recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.”

Trump also said he was changing course on his choice for White House counsel. He said his original pick, William McGinley, will work with the Department of Government Efficiency, which will be run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy with the goal of cutting federal spending. Now David Warrington, who has worked as Trump’s personal lawyer and a lawyer for his campaign, will serve as White House counsel.

In addition, Trump announced the selections of former Rep. Billy Long of Missouri as IRS commissioner; the CEO of financial technology company Fiserv, Frank Bisignano, as Social Security Administration commissioner; former Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia to lead the Small Business Administration; Daniel Driscoll, an Army veteran who was a senior adviser to Vice President-elect JD Vance, as Army secretary; Jared Isaacman, a tech billionaire who conducted the first private spacewalk on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket, as NASA administrator; and Adam Boehler, a lead negotiator on the Abraham Accords team, as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.

MIAMI (AP) — One of Colombia’s legendary drug lords and a key operator of the Medellin cocaine cartel has been released from a U.S. prison and is expected to be deported back home.

Records from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons show Fabio Ochoa Vásquez was released Tuesday after completing 25 years of a 30-year prison sentence.

Ochoa, 67, and his older brothers amassed a fortune when cocaine started flooding the U.S. in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to U.S. authorities, to the point that in 1987 they were included in the Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires. Living in Miami, Ochoa ran a distribution center for the cocaine cartel once headed by Pablo Escobar.

Although somewhat faded from memory as the center of the drug trade shifted from Colombia to Mexico, he resurfaced in the hit Netflix series “Narcos” true to form as the youngest son of an elite Medellin family into ranching and horse breeding that cut a sharp contrast with Escobar, who came from more humble roots.

Ochoa was first indicted in the U.S. for his alleged role in the 1986 killing of Drug Enforcement Administration informant Barry Seal — whose life was popularized in the 2017 film “American Made” starring Tom Cruise.

One of the soldiers mobilized during the martial law declared on Tuesday was seen apologizing to citizens, in a YouTube video posted by a local journalist early Wednesday.

Heo Jae-hyeon, an investigative reporter, posted a video of the South Korean troops leaving the National Assembly in the early hours of Wednesday. One of the soldiers who crossed paths with Heo and others gathered at the building -- most of whom were there to protest President Yoon Suk Yeol's martial law -- bowed his head repeatedly and said, "I'm sorry."

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgian police on Wednesday raided the offices of an opposition party and arrested its leader in an apparent attempt to squelch a wave of mass protests triggered by the governing party’s decision to suspend negotiations on joining the European Union.

During the past six nights, riot police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, who threw fireworks at police officers and built barricades on the Georgian capital’s central boulevard. More than 300 protesters have been detained since Thursday and over 100 people have been treated for injuries.

On Wednesday, the Coalition for Change opposition party said that police raided its offices and detained its leader, Nika Gvaramia. It shared a video showing several officers dragging Gvaramia into a car.

Georgian media reported that police also raided the offices of several other opposition groups and non-government organizations.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze of the Georgian Dream party said the raids targeted those who encouraged violence during protests in an attempt to topple his government. “I wouldn’t call this repression; it is more of a preventive measure than repression,” he said.

The ruling Georgian Dream retained control of parliament in the disputed Oct. 26 election, which was widely seen as a referendum on Georgia’s EU aspirations. The opposition and the pro-Western president have accused the governing party of rigging the vote with neighboring Russia’s help and boycotted parliament sessions.