South Korean and Japanese leaders will meet in Tokyo this week, hoping to resume regular visits after a gap of over a decade and overcome resentments that date back more than 100 years.

The South Korean government of President Yoon Suk Yeol is granting a special pardon to ex-President Lee Myung-bak, who was sentenced to a 17-year prison term for a range of corruption crimes.

For many South Koreans, the former presidential palace in Seoul was a little-visited, heavily secured mountainside landmark.

The rivalry, mudslinging and negative campaigning between the two leading presidential candidates in South Korea are so bad that the loser faces a prospect of going to jail.

FILE - In this Oct. 10, 2017, file photo, former South Korean President Park Geun-hye, left, arrives to attend a hearing on the extension of her detention at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, South Korea. South Koreas top court upheld 20-year prison term for Park over corruption on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021. But the finalizing of her prison term also makes her eligible for a special presidential pardon, a looming possibility as the country’s deeply split electorate approaches the next presidential election in March 2022. Park originally faced a prison term of more than 30 years before the Supreme Court sent her cases back to a lower court in 2019. Prosecutors appealed after the Seoul High Court handed Park a 20-year term in July last year after merging the two cases.

FILE - In this March 14, 2018, file photo, former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak arrives for questioning over bribery allegations at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office in Seoul, South Korea. South Koreas top court on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020, upheld a 17-year prison term imposed on ex-President Lee over a range of high-profile corruption charges, a ruling that will send him back to jail again. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP, File)SEOUL – South Korea’s top court upheld a 17-year prison sentence on former President Lee Myung-bak for a range of corruption crimes in a final ruling Thursday that will send him back to prison soon. The Supreme Court also confirmed a lower court ruling that ordered Lee to pay 13 billion won ($10.9 million) in fines and forfeit another 5.78 billion won ($4.6 million) for his crimes, court officials said. Before being elected president, Lee served as Seoul mayor.