South Korea’s President Yoon impeached over martial law bid

This handout photo taken on December 14, 2024 and released by the South Korean Presidential Office shows President Yoon Suk Yeol giving a public address from his official residence in Seoul. (Photo by Handout / South Korean Presidential Office / AFP)
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Updated 14 December 2024
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South Korea’s President Yoon impeached over martial law bid

  • Hundreds of thousands of people took to streets of the capital Seoul in rival rallies for and against Yoon on Saturday
  • In a televised address, Yoon said he would ‘step aside’ but did not apologize for his botched bid to impose martial law

Seoul: South Korean lawmakers on Saturday impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law bid, with the opposition declaring a “victory of the people.”
The vote capped over a week of intense political drama in the democratic South following Yoon’s failed attempt to impose martial law on December 3.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of the capital Seoul in rival rallies for and against Yoon on Saturday.
In a televised address following the parliamentary vote, the impeached Yoon said he would “step aside” but did not apologize for his botched bid to impose martial law.
Out of 300 lawmakers, 204 voted to impeach the president on allegations of insurrection while 85 voted against.
Three abstained, with eight votes nullified.
With the impeachment, Yoon has been suspended from office while South Korea’s Constitutional Court deliberates on the vote.
The court has 180 days to rule on Yoon’s future.
Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae vowed to hold “a swift and fair trial.”
If the court backs his removal, Yoon will become the second president in South Korean history to be successfully impeached.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo — now the nation’s interim leader — told reporters he would “devote all my strength and efforts to ensure stable governance.”
Two hundred votes were needed for the impeachment to pass, and opposition lawmakers needed to convince at least eight parliamentarians from Yoon’s conservative People Power Party (PPP) to switch sides.
“Today’s impeachment is the great victory of the people,” opposition Democratic Party floor leader Park Chan-dae said following the vote.




Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party and lawmakers of the party bow after the South Korean parliament passed a second impeachment motion against President Yoon Suk Yeol, at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, December 14, 2024. (Yonhap via REUTERS)

PPP lawmaker Kim Sang-wook told broadcaster JTBC that Yoon had “completely betrayed the values of conservatism.”
“That is why we, as ruling party lawmakers, have decided to remove him ourselves,” he said.
A Seoul police official told AFP at least 200,000 people had massed outside parliament in support of removing the president.
Choi Jung-ha, 52, danced in the street after the vote.
“Isn’t it amazing that we, the people, have pulled this off together?” she told AFP.
“I am 100 percent certain the Constitutional Court will side with the impeachment.”
On the other side of Seoul near Gwanghwamun square, police estimated 30,000 had rallied in support of Yoon, blasting patriotic songs and waving South Korean and American flags.
“Yoon had no choice but to declare martial law. I approve of every decision he has made as president,” supporter Choi Hee-sun, 62, told AFP before the vote.
The Democratic Party said ahead of the vote that impeachment was the “only way” to “safeguard the Constitution, the rule of law, democracy and South Korea’s future.”
“We can no longer endure Yoon’s madness,” spokeswoman Hwang Jung-a said.
At the rally outside parliament supporting impeachment, volunteers gave out free hand warmers on Saturday morning to fight the subzero temperatures, as well as coffee and food.
K-pop singer Yuri of the band Girls’ Generation — whose song “Into the New World” has become a protest anthem — said she had prepaid for food for fans attending the demonstration.
“Stay safe and take care of your health!” she said on a superfan chat platform.
One protester said she had rented a bus so parents at the rally would have a place to change diapers and feed their babies.
Another said they had initially planned to spend their Saturday hiking.
“But I came here instead to support my fellow citizens,” Kim Deuk-yun, 58, told AFP.
Yoon’s future will now be determined by the court, which has previously blocked an impeachment.
In 2004, then-president Roh Moo-hyun was removed by parliament for alleged election law violations and incompetence, but the Constitutional Court later reinstated him.
The court currently only has six judges, meaning their decision must be unanimous.
Following Saturday’s vote, parliament speaker Woo Won-shik said the National Assembly would seek to nominate three more judges to the court as soon as possible.
“The future of South Korea lies within its people,” he said.
Yoon remained unapologetic and defiant as the fallout from his disastrous martial law declaration deepened and an investigation into his inner circle has widened.
His approval rating — never very high — plummeted to 11 percent, according to a Gallup Korea poll released Friday.
The same poll showed that 75 percent supported his impeachment.
Following Yoon’s impeachment on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the European Union called for a “swift and orderly resolution” to the political crisis in South Korea in line with the country’s constitution.
 


Pentagon is sending up to 1,500 active duty troops to help secure US-Mexico border

Updated 5 sec ago
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Pentagon is sending up to 1,500 active duty troops to help secure US-Mexico border

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon said Wednesday it has begun deploying 1,500 active duty troops to help secure the southern border in the coming days, putting in motion plans President Donald Trump laid out in executive orders shortly after he took office to crack down on immigration.
Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses said the Pentagon will provide military aircraft to support Department of Homeland Security deportation flights for more than 5,000 detained migrants and the troops will assist in the construction of barriers.
The number of troops and their mission may soon change, Salesses said in a statement. “This is just the beginning,” he said.
It remains to be seen if they will end up doing law enforcement, which would put American troops in a dramatically different role for the first time in decades.
The active duty forces will join the roughly 2,500 US National Guard and Reserve forces already there. There are currently no active duty troops working along the roughly 2,000-mile border.
Personnel started moving to the border earlier Wednesday, according to a military official briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity to provide additional details on the deployment. The troops will include 500 Marines from Camp Pendleton in California, and the remainder will be Army.
Troops have done similar duties in support of Border Patrol agents in the past, when both Trump and former President Joe Biden sent active duty troops to the border.
Troops are prohibited by law from doing law enforcement duties under the Posse Comitatus Act, but that may change. Trump has directed through executive order that the incoming secretary of defense and incoming homeland security chief report back within 90 days if they think an 1807 law called the Insurrection Act should be invoked. That would allow those troops to be used in civilian law enforcement on US soil.
The last time the act was invoked was in 1992 during rioting in Los Angeles in protest of the acquittal of four police officers charged with beating Rodney King.
The widely expected deployment, coming in Trump’s first week in office, was an early step in his long-touted plan to expand the use of the military along the border. In one of his first orders on Monday, Trump directed the defense secretary to come up with a plan to “seal the borders” and repel “unlawful mass migration.”
“This is something President Trump campaigned on,” said Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary. “The American people have been waiting for such a time as this — for our Department of Defense to actually implement homeland security seriously. This is a No. 1 priority for the American people.”
On Tuesday, just as Trump fired the Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Linda Fagan, the service announced it was surging more cutter ships, aircraft and personnel to the “Gulf of America” — a nod to the president’s directive to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump said during his inaugural address on Monday that “I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places in which they came.”
Military personnel have been sent to the border almost continuously since the 1990s to help address migration. drug trafficking and transnational crime.
In executive orders signed Monday, Trump suggested the military would help the Department of Homeland Security with “detention space, transportation (including aircraft), and other logistics services.”
There are about 20,000 Border Patrol agents, and while the southern border is where most are located, they’re also responsible for protecting the northern border with Canada. Usually agents are tasked with looking for drug smugglers or people trying to enter the country undetected.
More recently, however, they have had to deal with migrants actively seeking out Border Patrol in order to get refuge in America — taxing the agency’s staff.
In his first term, Trump ordered active duty troops to the border in response to a caravan of migrants slowly making its way through Mexico toward the United States in 2018. More than 7,000 active duty troops were sent to Texas, Arizona and California, including military police, an assault helicopter battalion, various communications, medical and headquarters units, combat engineers, planners and public affairs units.
At the time, the Pentagon was adamant that active duty troops would not do law enforcement. So they spent much of their time transporting Border Patrol agents to and along the border, helping them erect additional vehicle barriers and fencing along the border, assisting them with communications and providing some security for border agent camps.
The military also provided Border Patrol agents with medical care, pre-packaged meals and temporary housing.
It’s also not yet clear if the Trump administration will order the military to use bases to house detained migrants.
Bases previously have been used for that purpose, and after the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban, they were used to host thousands of Afghan evacuees. The facilities struggled to support the influx.
In 2018, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, to prepare to house as many as 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children, but the additional space ultimately wasn’t needed and Goodfellow was determined not to have the infrastructure necessary to support the surge.
In March 2021, the Biden administration greenlighted using property at Fort Bliss, Texas, for a detention facility to provide beds for up to 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children as border crossings increased from Mexico.
The facility, operated by DHS, was quickly overrun, with far too few case managers for the thousands of children that arrived, exposure to extreme weather and dust and unsanitary conditions, a 2022 inspector general report found.

South Sudan orders temporary ban on social media over violence in neighboring Sudan

Updated 29 min 23 sec ago
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South Sudan orders temporary ban on social media over violence in neighboring Sudan

  • Many South Sudanese have been angered by footage from Sudan that purports to show killings by militia groups of South Sudanese in Gezira state

JUBA, South Sudan: South Sudanese authorities on Wednesday ordered telecoms to block access to social media for at least 30 days, citing concerns over the dissemination of graphic content relating to the ongoing violence against South Sudanese in neighboring Sudan.
The temporary ban, which could be extended to up to 90 days, will come into force at midnight Thursday, according to a directive from the National Communication Authority, NCA, to telecom companies stressing that the measure was necessary to protect the public.
“This directive may be lifted as soon as the situation is contained,” the NCA said. “The contents depicted violate our local laws and pose a significant threat to public safety and mental health.”
Many South Sudanese have been angered by footage from Sudan that purports to show killings by militia groups of South Sudanese in Gezira state. South Sudanese authorities imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Jan. 17 after a night of retaliatory violence during which shops owned by Sudanese traders were looted.
Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the African Union Commission, condemned “the brutal killings of South Sudanese nationals” in Sudan and urged restraint.
Civil war in Sudan has created a widening famine and the world’s largest displacement crisis. Fighting between forces loyal to rival military leaders exploded in the capital, Khartoum, in April 2023 and has since spread to other areas.
The conflict has been marked by atrocities, including ethnically motivated killing and rape, according to the UN and rights groups.
 


Trump administration freezes many health agency reports and online posts

Updated 23 January 2025
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Trump administration freezes many health agency reports and online posts

  • Shutting down public health communication stops a basic function of public health

The Trump administration has put a freeze on many federal health agency communications with the public through at least the end of the month.
In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, acting Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services Dorothy Fink told agency staff leaders Tuesday that an “immediate pause” had been ordered on — among other things — regulations, guidance, announcements, press releases, social media posts and website posts until such communications had been approved by a political appointee.
The pause also applies to anything intended to be published in the Federal Register, where the executive branch communicates rules and regulations, and the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientific publication.
The pause is in effect through Feb. 1, the memo said. Agencies subject to the HHS directive include the CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration — entities that fight epidemics, protect the nation’s food supply and search for cures to diseases.
HHS officials did not respond to requests for comment on the pause, which was first reported by The Washington Post. Four federal health officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue confirmed the communication pause to the AP.
A former HHS official said Wednesday that it’s not unusual for incoming administrations to pause agency communications for review. But typically, officials working on the president’s transition team have the process for issuing documents running smoothly by inauguration day.
“The executive branch is a hierarchy,” said Steven Grossman, who now consults for food and drug companies, in an email. “Whether stated publicly or not, every new administration wants important commitments and positions to wait until new teams are in place and some semblance of hierarchy restored.”
A pause is reasonable as a changing executive branch takes steps to become coordinated, said Dr. Ali Khan, a former CDC outbreak investigator who is now dean of the University of Nebraska’s public health college.
“The only concern would be is if this is a prelude to going back to a prior approach of silencing the agencies around a political narrative,” he added.
During his first term, President Donald Trump’s political appointees tried to gain control over the CDC’s MMWR journal, which had published information about the COVID-19 pandemic that conflicted with messaging from the White House.
Fink wrote in her memo that some exceptions would be made for communications affecting “critical health, safety, environmental, financial or nation security functions,” but that those would be subject to review. The FDA on Tuesday and Wednesday posted notices about warning letters sent to companies and a drug safety notice.
A consumer advocacy group said the communications pause could still threaten public safety.
Americans depend on timely information from the CDC, the FDA and other agencies to avoid foodborne illnesses and stay aware of other health issues, said Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
“When it comes to stopping outbreaks, every second counts,” Lurie said in a statement. “Confusion around the vaguely worded gag order is likely to lead to unnecessary delay in publishing urgent public alerts during active outbreaks.”
He was echoed by Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a University of Southern California public health expert.
“Local health officials and doctors depend on the CDC to get disease updates, timely prevention, testing and treatment guidelines and information about outbreaks,” Klausner wrote in an email. “Shutting down public health communication stops a basic function of public health. Imagine if the government turned off fire sirens or other warning systems.”


Swiss prosecutors examine complaints against Israel president

Updated 23 January 2025
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Swiss prosecutors examine complaints against Israel president

  • The Swiss Keystone-ATS news agency reported that one of the complaints came from an NGO called Legal Action Against Genocide

GENEVA: Swiss prosecutors said Wednesday they were examining several complaints against visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog, as reports suggested NGOs were accusing him of “incitement to genocide” in Gaza.
The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) confirmed it had received “several criminal complaints” against Herzog, who was at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos this week.
“The criminal complaints are now being examined in accordance with the usual procedure,” the OAG said in an email sent to AFP, adding that the office was in contact with Switzerland’s foreign ministry “to examine the question of the immunity of the person concerned.”
It provided no details on the specific complaints filed.
The Swiss Keystone-ATS news agency reported that one of the complaints came from an NGO called Legal Action Against Genocide.
The NGO was calling for Herzog to be prosecuted “for incitement to genocide and crimes against humanity,” the news agency said.
The complaint, it said, deemed he had played “an active role in the ideological justification of genocide and war crimes in Gaza, by erasing all distinction between the civilian population and combatants.”
Israeli officials have repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes and genocide, accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields.
Herzog spoke at Davos on Tuesday and held meetings on Wednesday morning but it was unclear if he was still in Switzerland.
Complaints were also filed against him when he attended the Davos meeting a year ago but the OAG refrained from opening an investigation that time, Keystone-ATS reported.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
It sparked a war that has levelled much of Gaza and, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, killed more than 47,100, a majority of them civilians, figures the United Nations has said are reliable.


Trump halts refugee arrivals in crackdown

Updated 22 January 2025
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Trump halts refugee arrivals in crackdown

  • The memo asked the UN International Organization for Migration not to move refugees to transit centers
  • Refugees already resettled in the United States will continue to receive services as planned, it said

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has halted arrivals of refugees already cleared to enter the United States, according to a memo seen Wednesday, as he quickly pursues a sweeping crackdown on migration.
Following an executive order signed Monday hours after Trump took office, “all previously scheduled travel of refugees to the United States is being canceled,” said a State Department email to groups working with new arrivals.
The memo asked the UN International Organization for Migration not to move refugees to transit centers and said that all processing on cases has also been suspended.
Refugees already resettled in the United States will continue to receive services as planned, it said.
Trump in each of his presidential campaigns has run on promises to crack down on undocumented immigration.
But the refugee move also targets a legal pathway for people fleeing wars, persecution or disasters.
In his executive order, he said he was suspending refugee admissions as of January 27 and ordered a report on how to change the program, in part by giving “greater involvement” to states and local jurisdictions.
It also revoked his predecessor Joe Biden’s decision to consider the impact of climate change in refugee admissions.
New Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said Wednesday that the State Department will “no longer undertake any activities that facilitate or encourage mass migration. “
“Our diplomatic relations with other countries, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, will prioritize securing America’s borders, stopping illegal and destabilizing migration and negotiating the repatriation of illegal immigrants,” Rubio said in a statement.
Biden had embraced the refugee program as a way to support people in need through legal means.
In the 2024 fiscal year, more than 100,000 refugees resettled in the United States, the most in three decades.
The Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar have been among the top sources of refugees in recent years.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, voiced alarm at Trump’s moves and said that acceptance of refugees was “a core American value.”
“The US Refugee Admissions Program has a long history of bipartisan support and is a life-saving tool for the most vulnerable refugees, all while making Americans safer by promoting stability around the world,” she said.
The State Department memo said that Afghans who worked with the United States until the collapse of the Western-backed government in 2021 could still arrive through their separate resettlement program.
But Shaheen voiced concern that Afghans were also being left in limbo with flights canceled.