K-pop star held on drug charges in latest scandal

SEOUL, South Korea - K-pop and drama star Park Yoo-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.

Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.

Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around 5 times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.

Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.

Park's contract with his management agency had been cancelled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park's management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.

Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.

A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes, and secret chat about rape led at least 4 other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.

The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.

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Jim Paredes' daughter takes break from social media

MANILA – Amid the controversy her father is currently embroiled in, the daughter of Jim Paredes has decided to temporarily leave social media.

In a series of posts on her Instagram Stories, Erica Paredes said she is taking a break from it because there has been “too much toxic energy” on social media lately, adding that “it’s not as fun as it used to be” anymore.

She also left a message to her followers.

“See y’all soon! Friends, you can still DM me. In the meantime, be nice. Mind ya business. Post things that will actually benefit society. Check on your loved ones often,” she wrote.

Erica likewise thanked those who sent her messages of support.

“I had an outpour of love and support in my inbox this morning. We are dealing with it. Just want life to go back to normal already. Whatever that really means in my not normal life,” she said. “Just wanted to say thank you. Means a lot.”

On Tuesday, Paredes confirmed the authenticity of his viral sex video but said it was not meant for public consumption.

"The video was real. It was private, and not meant for public consumption. I do not know how it became public," he wrote on his blog "Writing on Air."

The APO Hiking Society member said he was in a quandary after seeing the video leaked to social media but decided to come clean after praying about it. 

"There are already too many lies and liars in this world. I do not wish to be a part of that cabal. I have chosen to be truthful because I know that painful as the truth can be, it will eventually set me free," he said. 

The 67-year-old musician, known for being a vocal critic of the current administration, suspects the incident as politically motivated.

He also admitted he is "a flawed person, a human being, much like everyone else." He also begged for forgiveness from his family who are affected by the scandal.

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British interior minister Rudd resigns after immigration scandal

LONDON - Britain's interior minister resigned on Sunday after Prime Minister Theresa May's government faced an outpouring of indignation over its treatment of some long-term Caribbean residents who were wrongly labelled illegal immigrants.

The resignation of one of May’s closest allies is a blow as she navigates the final year of negotiations ahead of Britain's exit from the European Union in March 2019. It also deprives the cabinet of one of its most outspoken pro-European members.

In a resignation letter to May, Amber Rudd said she had inadvertently misled a parliamentary committee last Wednesday by denying the government had targets for the deportation of illegal migrants. May accepted her resignation.

For 2 weeks, British ministers have been struggling to explain why some descendants of the so-called "Windrush generation", invited to Britain to plug labor shortfalls between 1948 and 1971, had been denied basic rights.

The Windrush scandal overshadowed the Commonwealth summit in London and has raised questions about May's 6-year stint as interior minister before she became prime minister in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

"The Windrush scandal has rightly shone a light on an important issue for our country," Rudd said in a resignation letter to May.

Rudd, who was appointed Home Secretary in 2016, said voters wanted those who had the right to reside in Britain to be treated fairly and humanely but also that illegal immigrants be removed.

The opposition Labor Party, which had repeatedly called on Rudd to resign, said May was responsible and should explain her own role in the government's immigration policies.

"The architect of this crisis, Theresa May, must now step forward to give an immediate, full and honest account of how this inexcusable situation happened on her watch," said Diane Abbott, Labor's spokeswoman on interior affairs.

Abbott called on May to give a statement to the House of Commons explaining whether she knew that Rudd was misleading parliament about the deportation targets.

Facing questions over the Windrush scandal, Rudd, 54, told lawmakers on Wednesday that Britain did not have targets for the removal of immigrants, but was forced to clarify her words after leaked documents showed some targets did exist.

The Guardian newspaper on Sunday reported a letter from Rudd to May last year in which she stated an "ambitious but deliverable" aim for an increase in the enforced deportation of immigrants.

After repeated challenges to her testimony on the deportation of immigrants, Rudd telephoned May on Sunday and offered her resignation.

"I feel it is necessary to do so because I inadvertently misled the Home Affairs Select Committee over targets for removal of illegal immigrants," Rudd told May.

A replacement is not likely to be announced overnight.

WINDRUSH CRISIS

The government has apologized for the fiasco, promised citizenship and compensation to those affected, including to people who have lost their jobs, been threatened with deportation and denied benefits because of the errors.

But the controversy over policies which May is closely associated with has raised awkward questions about how the pursuit of lower immigration after Brexit sits alongside the desire to be an outward-looking global economy.

The immigrants are named after the Empire Windrush, one of the first ships to bring Caribbean migrants to Britain in 1948, when Commonwealth citizens were invited to fill labor shortages and help rebuild the economy after World War 2.

Almost half a million people left their homes in the West Indies to live in Britain between 1948 and 1970, according to Britain's National Archives.

A week before local elections, May apologized to the black community on Thursday in a letter to The Voice, Britain's national Afro-Caribbean newspaper.

"We have let you down and I am deeply sorry," she said. "But apologies alone are not good enough. We must urgently right this historic wrong."

The crisis has focused attention on May, who as interior minister set out to create a "really hostile environment" for illegal immigrants, imposing tough new requirements in 2012 for people to prove their legal status.

Rudd's resignation comes 4 months after another close ally and her then most senior minister, Damian Green, was forced out of his job for lying about whether he knew pornography had been found on computers in his parliamentary office.

Anna Soubry, a Conservative lawmaker, predicted Rudd may one day return to a senior job in government.

"She is a woman of great courage & immense ability," Soubry said. "If there is any justice she will soon return to the highest of office."

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Porn star says she was threatened to keep silence on Trump - TV interview

WASHINGTON - An adult-film actress who claims she had sex with Donald Trump before he was president said on Sunday she had been threatened in 2011 while in a parking lot with her infant daughter to discourage her from discussing the relationship.

Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, told CBS News' "60 Minutes" that she was on her way to a fitness class with her child when an unknown man approached her, according to a transcript of the interview released on Sunday.

"And a guy walked up on me and said to me, 'Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.' And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, 'That’s a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom.' And then he was gone," Daniels said.

Daniels sued the president on March 6, stating Trump never signed an agreement for her to keep quiet about an "intimate" relationship between them.

Daniels' appearance represented back to back trouble for Trump after an interview broadcast last week on CNN with former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who described a 10-month long affair with Trump starting in 2006.

Trump would have been married to his wife, Melania, during both the alleged extramarital relationships. The first lady accompanied him this weekend to his Florida golf club. Trump returned to the White House on Sunday but a White House spokeswoman said Melania stayed behind as is her tradition during their son's school holiday.

NOT ATTRACTED

Daniels told "60 Minutes" that she and Trump had had sexual relations only once, but that she had seen him other occasions and he had kept in touch with her.

She said she was not attracted to Trump, who was 60, to Daniels' 27, in 2006.

The White House has denied he had an affair with Daniels, although Trump lawyer Michael Cohen said he paid her $130,000 of his own money during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

Trump did not respond to reporters' shouted questions about whether he would watch the interview when he returned to the White House from Florida.

Cohen, who has denied that there was an affair, has not explained why he made the payment or said whether Trump was aware of it.

Daniels and her attorney would not discuss in the interview whether they had text messages or other materials that might verify her story.

She was asked why she repeatedly signed statements denying the relationship with Trump, and acknowledged that there could be questions about her credibility.

"I felt intimidated and ... honestly bullied. And I didn't know what to do. And so I signed it," Daniels said.

Asked why viewers could be confident now that she was telling the truth, she said, "Cause I have no reason to lie. I'm opening myself up for, you know, possible danger, and definitely a whole lot of s***," she said.

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Oxfam investigates new sexual misconduct cases as MPs grill bosses

LONDON - Oxfam revealed Tuesday it was investigating 26 new cases of sexual misconduct since the crisis erupted over its handling of a 2011 prostitution scandal in Haiti, which the British charity called a "wake-up call."

Chief executive Mark Goldring told a parliamentary committee in London that the cases varied in their seriousness, while 16 related to its international operation.

"They range in time frame from more recent events to long historic events where people did not report them at the time," he said.

Goldring added he believed the latest cases had emerged as "a direct response to the publicity" around the Haitian scandal. 

"We really want people to come forward," he added.

The Oxfam chief was unable to provide further details on the cases when pressed by British lawmakers. 

The committee said it would be conducting its own inquiry into abuses in the foreign aid sector.

Three of Oxfam's most senior leaders repeatedly apologized for the charity's handling of an internal investigation into the use of prostitutes by staff in Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake. 

Caroline Thomson, chair of trustees, said: "It's right to admit this has been a real wake-up call."

The charity revealed 7,000 regular donors had been lost since the scandal emerged following reporting by The Times newspaper.

It said safeguards had been put in place following the 2011 probe, but admitted they had not gone far enough.

Thomson vowed to take "personal responsibility" for ongoing reform: "I have decided that we need to have more focus on safeguarding."

Last week, Oxfam unveiled an action plan to tackle sexual harassment and abuse, including creating a new vetting system for staff.

The charity formally also apologised to Haiti on Monday over the scandal and for failing to report the matter adequately. 

"Oxfam should have reported the matter to the Haitian authorities," Goldring told lawmakers.

"It was not for Oxfam to decide whether a crime had been committed... that was the wrong decision."

TIP OF THE ICEBERG?

Oxfam had made public Monday its 2011 report into the episode, revealing that three staff had physically threatened a witness in the prostitution investigation.

The report, compiled in the year after the workers were deployed to Haiti, found that a total of seven staff were accused of using prostitutes at an Oxfam-funded residence.

Four staff were fired for gross misconduct and three others, including then country director Roland Van Hauwermeiren, were allowed to quit.

Stephen Twigg, chair of the international aid committee hearing the testimony Tuesday, was blunt in his assessment. 

"Demonstrably, you have got to get your house in order," he told its leadership.

As part of its broader probe into sexual misconduct in the sector, the panel also questioned Kevin Watkins, chief executive of Save the Children UK.

He revealed tentative figures that the charity dealt with 193 cases of "child safeguarding" issues in 2016, leading to 53 full investigations, 20 case referrals to police and 11 staff dismissals.

"The difficult thing to know in these circumstances is whether you're catching the tip of the iceberg or whether you're catching the iceberg itself," Watkins said.

The BBC reported on Tuesday that one of Watkins' predecessors left the charity while facing three complaints of inappropriate behavior towards female staff.

Former CEO Justin Forsyth was accused in 2015 of sending inappropriate texts and making comments on what female staff were wearing.

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'Fake job' scandal deepens for France's Fillon

A scandal surrounding French presidential hopeful Francois Fillon deepened on Tuesday with allegations that he obtained jobs for his children as well as his wife that paid around one million euros.

The new claims in the Canard Enchaine came as investigators raided parliament and seized documents as part of a preliminary probe into a first set of charges levelled against the conservative candidate by the weekly paper last week.

The Canard alleged in its new issue to be published Wednesday that it had unearthed proof Penelope Fillon was paid as a parliamentary aide out of public funds available to MPs for an additional seven years, nicknaming her "Miss Moneypenny".

In another new allegation, the paper said two of the couple's five children, Charles and Marie, had earned 84,000 euros ($91,000) working as parliamentary assistants.

Fillon, 62, was the long-time frontrunner in the presidential race and had been widely forecast to face far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the runoff in May, but the claims have hit his support.

The Canard Enchaine alleged last week that Welsh-born Penelope earned around 500,000 euros as a parliamentary aide over eight years from 1998 to 2007.

The new allegations bring to more than 830,000 euros the total sum she allegedly made.

The Canard said it could find no witnesses who could recall her working at parliament and Le Parisien newspaper reported she did not have an accreditation badge or an official email account at the National Assembly.

- Support slipping -

Fillon responded Tuesday by repeating his claim that he is the target of a dirty tricks campaign designed to knock him out of the presidential contest.

"Such a large-scale and professional campaign has been mounted just to eliminate a candidate by other means than the democratic route," he told a business conference.

Fillon has argued that his wife has "always" worked for him, doing tasks such as editing his speeches and meeting people in his constituency.

In addition to the parliamentary job, Penelope worked at a literary review owned by a billionaire friend of her husband's where she allegedly earned another 100,000 euros.

The couple were quizzed separately by investigators for several hours on Monday.

Sources close to the investigation said Fillon's staff had voluntarily handed over documents in the raid at parliament on Tuesday.

Lawmakers are entitled to employ family members, and it is a common practice in many countries, but questions have focused on what work was actually done.

Investigators have also quizzed the former editor and owner of the literary review, La Revue des deux Mondes.

The claims are damaging for Fillon, a devout Catholic who has campaigned on his "clean" record and has vowed to cut 500,000 civil servants' jobs, slash welfare benefits and increase working hours.

The former prime minister swept past scandal-tainted ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy and ex-premier Alain Juppe in November's Republicans primary.

But Fillon has lost momentum since the allegations first emerged.

An opinion poll published on Sunday showed Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration and anti-EU National Front (FN), would score 25 percent in the first round of the election on April 23, with Fillon slipping to second place and virtually neck-and-neck with the fast-rising centrist Emmanuel Macron.

- Low-key wife -

Fillon has insisted that his wife, also 62, has played a real, if discreet, role in his long political career.

He says that when he was an MP in Paris his wife did a lot of constituency work but was based at their 12th-century chateau near Le Mans in northern France.

Penelope, who has not spoken publicly about the accusations, has always styled herself as a low-key political wife.

A trained lawyer, she told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper after her husband became prime minister in 2007 that she preferred staying at home than in glitzy Paris.

"I'm just a country peasant, this is not my natural habitat," she joked.

In 2008, when her husband was prime minister, she told French TV her role amounted to "accompanying him (on some functions), and it is limited to that".

The Republicans group in the French parliament on Monday closed ranks around Fillon, expressing "unanimous support".

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