Ruling triggers unprecedented snap election to elect new leader

SEOUL: South Korea’s Constitutional Court removed President Park Geun-hye from office over a graft scandal involving South Korea’s conglomerates at a time of rising tensions with North Korea and China.

Park becomes South Korea’s first democratically elected leader to be forced from office, capping months of paralysis and turmoil as hundreds of thousands crammed the streets to protest a corruption scandal that has also landed the head of the Samsung conglomerate in a jail cell.