Comment on News of the day from across the globe, Feb. 23

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is stepping down as the leader of the ruling Liberal Party, following months of pressure from partymates to resign amid increasingly poor public approval ratings. “I intend to resign as party leader as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust, nationwide competitive process,” Trudeau said at a press conference Monday morning outside of his home in Ottawa.

LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday condemned “lies and misinformation” that he said are undermining U. K. democracy, in response to a barrage of attacks on his government from Elon Musk. Read More: Keir Starmer on His Vision for Fixing Britain [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The billionaire Tesla CEO has taken an intense and erratic interest in British politics since the center-left Labour Party was elected in July.

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s new government started an ambitious $28 billion project Monday to feed nearly 90 million children and pregnant women to fight malnutrition and stunting although critics question whether the nationwide program is affordable. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The Free Nutritious Meal program delivers on a campaign promise by President Prabowo Subianto, who was elected last year to lead the nation of more than 282 million people and Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean investigators left the official residence of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol after a near-six-hour standoff on Friday during which he defied their attempt to detain him. It’s the latest confrontation in a political crisis that has paralyzed South Korean politics and seen two heads of state impeached in under a month. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The country’s anti-corruption agency said it withdrew its investigators after the presidential security service blocked them from entering Yoon’s residence for hours, due to concerns about their safety. The agency said its outnumbered investigators had several scuffles with presidential security forces and expressed “serious regret about the attitude of the suspect, who did not comply with the legal process.” It said detaining Yoon would be “virtually impossible” as long as he is protected by the presidential security service.

Ukraine on Wednesday halted Russian gas supplies to European customers through its pipeline network after a prewar transit deal expired at the end of 2024 and almost three years into Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbor. Even as Russian troops and tanks moved into Ukraine in February 2022, Russian natural gas kept flowing through the country’s pipeline network — set up when Ukraine and Russia were both part of the Soviet Union — to Europe, under a five-year agreement. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom earned money from the gas and Ukraine collected transit fees. Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, confirmed Kyiv had stopped the transit “in the interest of national security.” “This is a historic event.

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean officials said Monday they will conduct safety inspections of all Boeing 737-800 aircrafts operated by the country’s airlines, as they struggle to determine what caused a plane crash that killed 179 people a day earlier. Sunday’s crash, the country’s worst aviation disaster in decades, triggered an outpouring of national sympathy.