still has never been and also to match with middle school against was able to read this, what such a team did it from local fields and member, okay to the international stage. these play as proof that size doesn't define strength. i'll just say well as follows, an inspirational story of person, disappointment, and trust rising to the chinese on pouches era. the political showdown in south korea president use appeal is under pressure to resign off to his failed attempt to impose marshall opposition. m. p. 's of served a notice to impeach him. i will look come, see whether this test of its democracy. this is inside store, the

hello welcome to a private monday of pocket during the past 4 decades. south korea has come far from use of dictatorships to become a fiving mountain democracy. that reputation faces serious press on tuesday night when present use of the old shop, the nation, and much of the world by declaring marshall, he was forced to withdraw his decree hours later, after it was overwhelming, the rejected by members of parliament present you now faces an impeachment, motion, and is under pressure to step down both both his own policy and trade unions. what prompted the south could be a leader to take this step that's being called, i'm to constitutional and an active rebellion. and how will be asian economic powerhouse deal with this extraordinary challenge to it's democracy will deal with all of these questions in a bit. but 1st, the support by mohammed hygiene the country and the grip of the political crisis. those 3 is decades old democracy put to the tech as far so that you just took your

place to the country on the muscle. on tuesday nights, the 1st time one has been imposed in more than 45 years. he accused the main opposition party of sympathizing with north korea. i'm taking part in what he described as anti states activities. but the president was forced to reverse this decision only was later off the politicians defied soldiers and force that way into parliament to vote against them. okay, we can have a you, after the national assemblies demand to leave marshall marshall, a troops have been withdrawn. i will accept the national assemblies demand and lift muscle through a cabinet meeting. the decision caused both anxiety and confusion almost south korean. how are you? oh, good. i thought this was a joke. then it turned out to be true that you had declared marshall. i got so worried, but in the morning south korea's largest labor union called a general strike, calling you and stuck your offer

a terrier. i'm demanding to step down mendota. i speak on behalf of all the farm is young, so gills regime is even more dangerous than climate change. we cannot turn a blind eye to present in you any longer. off the plunging his country into tom, we'll use the future is now hanging in the balance. he won the presidency of 2022 by the closest margin in south korea's democratic history. despite his background of a public prosecutor, he wanted to correct down on corruption. he has suffered very low approval ratings following a series of scandals and with his wife accused of corruption. in january. he's scrap the bill that would have would have had to be investigated of accusations of manipulating stocks in july. she was questioned after accepting a deal hand the back of the gift in violation of south korea's anti corruption laws . and the type of media leak, the phone call of the founder of opposing agency, who boasted of his influence over the president's choice of candidates. and by

elections held in 2022 year and as also struggled to push his attendance through an opposition controlled parliament. noon is not a tough presidency at present. here is that a difficult presidency in so far as the opposition party controls has the majority in the legislature, and they have been fighting and sort of to, to now the may not physician pots. he says it will now push for you to be impeached and will fall trees and charges against them that would further jeopardize the president's already questionable future habit. haji elders, era, fame, 5 story the okay, that's bringing a guess in washington dc. natalia slab today is the assistant editor at the career program of the steps. incentive think tank, insult b. j kim is a professor of international studies that hadn't come university and a full and a south korean diplomats. and also in dc, does the drive the hallways,

a fellow of korean studies with the economy, the endowment for international peace, hello to all 3 of you. if i will welcome to inside story b j. i'm going to put a question to you that perhaps any one mind and career really knows the, the arms of 2 of the by within the it is the president himself. what do you think president you was thinking when he declared marshal without even the backing of his own political party? the question still remains as a biggest puzzle in the minds of koreans quote, ordinary credit citizens as well as the analysts. so we do not have a clear answer to that. there are different kind of speculations, but we do not have a clear picture on them. what i can say is, uh, you know, judging from what we're hearing in his announcement of the marshal law, she was talking about all of this political, a pass that was continuously being waged by the opposition party that controls the legislature and national assembly on all fronts. continuously is showing impeachment of the prosecutors as well as judges that are trying the

legend, crimes of the opposition leader and also, you know, impede to some of the important members of the higher the top level leaders of the governments. as well as rejecting most of his policy major policy initiatives that he suggested to be, you know, putting into law and then killing the most of the major items in the budget for next year. so he was going over all this list of the political attacks being waged by the opposition leader. so that's one factor for sure. and in addition, as you would puerto mentioned, the, the test on the 1st lady herself about the allegations about the start menu, menu collation, accepting of the luxury back on and other kinds over the contacts with the political spin doctors that must have a play. the role in terms of, on the,

on the side of his personal, you know, the emotional side of it as well. so there were a list of things that might have caused a here's what we now think it's is miscalculation where we do not actually see clear kind of and the game, the image of his and the game or a clear scenario that he was trying to accomplish. you know, we're not sure what we talked about it was, it was over by the comes the most of the and games as a, as a conversation the continues but duffy, let us talk about some of the specific wording of this declaration of martial. because president june said that he was quote, rooting out, and the state for us is guilty of plotting sedition seemingly bump the huff of north korea. who was he trying to convince t c. and was there any audience in career that was willing to listen to a message like that to me? yeah, i think it's a really huddling message given it does seem a bit out of step with what the contemporary political culture looks like in south

korea. the language that we view is the anti north korea or anti state forces to create inside state forces that he's talking about. really harks back to an earlier day. and the 20th century, when korea was under martial law during the military dictatorship, in the 1960 seventy's and then 80. this one of the language was really what was used by the military dictators. first, pop punk cnn tend to want to justify their type control of society and implement some very heavy surveillance across the country. but this is really out of step with in 2024 where the country has really looked beyond the pundents a lot and its daily political life. it's really a much more global cold country. and so using this language really is the target audience is probably a very small segment of the right or older koreans. but um that would, this would resonate with laurie. what we're hearing from south korea right now is this, this feels like cover for what was really a political action,

as so language from a, a pasta arrow almost to, natalia says that darcy, can you give us a sense though, of the latent tensions that exist between the ruling policy um the opposition at the moment, natalia yeah. so we've seen us to moultrie was few years in the office from you and sonya all. now he's been accused and associated with multiple different reports of nepotism, bribery, corruption, and abuse of power overall. so as b j said earlier in the opposition party is really finding him kind of tooth and nail at every turn. and the legislative election back in april kind of solidified his status as a lane dock. when the opposition party won. and an overwhelming majority kind of hampering moving forward with any of his domestic or foreign policy agendas where he was coming closer to china and trying to really solidify korea status as

a geo political player, especially in tri lateral relations with the u. s. and japan. and to turn it to you b, j again, because you, you mentioned some of the personal issues that may have cost a shadow. well, may have influence this decision to introduce marshal know let me refer to some of them. i mean, as wise as we heard in the earlier reports of the 1st lady, kim kim and he was an essential the scandal over to a lot of apparently, of expensive humbugs here. allegedly plagiarize, have ph. d thesis as well. somebody say that some of the tabloids have even nickname to can key on hey, risk to these postal problems really pay a role in doing something such so dramatic as modeling the um, forces of the country feature as well as a person as a natural person present and you might have failed the other way because it was a very personal take on his own. a family member,

they don't have children. so it's just his wife, him himself and his wife has been alongside with him throughout his career. and what did they got married at the later age, but since their marriage has been cut and you know, together with him very tightly and on his way to the presidency, she was his most trusted advisor, if you will. so the oldest political attacks against her, whether they are true or not, must have been played a big role in chose, of impacting him in terms of causing anger and personal ingredients against this, you know, opposition, there was raising these issues and then i think that's kind of understandable, in the way dusting you've used all that i think the unit is feeling a lot of pressure as was mentioned in a piece of top there was the recent stalemate, deadlock over the the budget issue happening in national assembly. i think he took,

that really, really was really frustrated by that. this year we've seen medical bestbuy doctors over his decision to res. uh, enter the entry for, for doctors there's a really severe health care shortage. certainly things like housing, labor. these are things that have been really stressful issues for both the country of him. i'm certainly as a speech i just mentioned, i think your, your only direct family member is, is a pretty uh, personal attack. so i think that this is just a, a mount mounting pressure against the president and it, he reacted in a way that just feels out of touch with what were the tools at his disposal as president of this robust democracy. and the way he is actually just sort of a chain of repercussions since then, the time it because several cabinet members, including the defense minister of all for their resignations,

i stress at the time of recording the president though it doesn't appear to be going anywhere. the teller, do you think this political bloodletting has diffused any tension, the tool around the president's future? unfortunately, i don't think it has. i think the cran public has made it clear how they feel about this move by imposing martial law. because as he said at the top and his reasons for going forward with it are kind of exaggerated. north korea already has a national security law in place that benz pro north korean activities, which is already pretty controversial. some of the specific articles have gone back to the national assembly for review, for and fairly targeting civil society organizations. especially those that focus on the north korean human rights fear and being used as a tool even to intimidate people and prevent them from speaking more candidly or criticizing this inter korean policy on north korea. so while we've had mass resignations, i'm not sure that it will assuage the public at all beach. and what if you can help

us understand who takes over if the president is ousted or indeed resigns before that as well? we have this case before 6 years ago with prison fucking it was impeached at that time. the prime minister mister home took over as the acting president, and he presided over the government for the next 5, a months time until present. when jane was elected as the new president, so did that, the pathway is quite clear. we have a clear, a precedent. right. and what is also clear is that whatever the president intended to darcy appears to catastrophically catastrophically backfired. i mean, why have you attempted to demonize the political left is actually united, some members of his own conservative policy of the people power policy with about 190 lawmakers from 6 opposition parties who now want to see him

a peach. what do you see as being the likely next step? darcy yeah, i think it's, it's, this is why it's so baffling is, but keep, there wasn't really a clear pathway for him to carry this out. given the law, the procedure of declaring martial law and it requiring national assembly approval doesn't have the votes and the national assembly, the opposition party has the majority votes. and they also have was facing a lot of conflict within his own party, particularly with the party to the party leader. so the number of votes that you mentioned included not only the opposition party as a 190, but it also included, i think, about 18 members of his own party voting to overturn his declaration of martial law looking forward. what this means is that it's basically backfire, like you mentioned. so now the opposition party had called for his resignation yesterday at full time sheet day and put forward a movement,

a motion to impeach him. he has 48 hours to resign, but it seems like there will be a vote by friday to impeach him. and i think right now he's basically garnered the support that this opposition needed to seek the impeachment that they had been trying over the past year. so that's what makes us really a particularly baffling move and maybe suggest his isolation from the general political. okay. uh, the political community of south korea, so bustling but no doubt, particularly b. j in soul. where you are very alarming to see how the company is flying above the presidential palace. i mean, bring it back. no doubt it goes of the pos, i mean, democracy is being hauled, one inquiry has been of the decades of military dictatorship. the last time marshall was introduced was back in 1917. i'd give him a sense of what the mood, the anticipation the fears were. while you are of the day as whilst you was announcing the martial law. i was watching the tv and i had the chip messages

coming into my mobile phones and or reaction from my students and my friends overall. it was kind of like a laughing stands like, what is it trying to do in this country where people have power has ruled above and beyond the law actually itself. we have this tradition for several decades. we have people who rose up and checked out the dictators one after another. and it was as recent as 6 years ago when people actually pushed out the sitting president out of her office. and this law proud tradition of people exercising their own power and having a strongly exceptional sense of ownership of the country. it was just unimaginable and think about what the president was trying to do by imposing martial law single handedly at that time last night. so that was the overall reaction and you know,

just remember is martial law. we made in actually fact only for about 4 and half hours while he was making this announcement of $12000.00. i'm not sure executive number of people, but they ran into the national assembly to protest and then they were letting the lawmakers into the national assembly used to have the lawmakers vote against the martial law. all right, so really address to that health the with the real expressed us of the health of democracy in the country. yeah, clearly i what if we can talk about the international ramifications? clearly, people power piece of one the day on the streets of sol, but we've had comments from the likes of russia, china, japan, the united states, the head of bates. so all of them saying pretty much exactly the same thing that they're watching developments with quote great concern and the toner. what does this test of democracy in korea mean for its international standing?

of course a career is very much part of the fabric of everyday life. and millions of people around the world from korean calls to kate pump. what does this mean though, for chloe is international reputation. well, certainly in south korea has definitely, as you said, entrenched itself in the fabric of the global community. and i think people in dc especially were kind of shocked at the response from the united states. i think most thought that it would be a stronger condemnation of imposing martial law, especially because in the all of these build ups of try lateral relations with the u. s and japan, south korea has promoted itself as a global responsible power with a strong sense of democracy, a strong history of democracy. so i think the global community is a bit shocked and just trying to figure out what the next steps are for south korea . and what that means for international relations, red large south korea has a lot of hands and a lot of different pods. so it will be interesting to see if any countries come

forward with stronger statements or if they will focus on kind of rebuilding the party and moving forward with more democratic procedures. does say, i mean, what about international security? i'm in the us, have a quite a sizable ministry presence. they can create that and they understand around 24000 troops, 9 major bases. do you think this is likely to from, to security via reevaluation from the us. i don't think that the alliance isn't any jeopardy from this. i do. i would actually go a little step further from natalia and say, i think in washington, we were a bit just made by the by ministrations reaction to this. and this is something that's been a bit confusing for us in washington looking who do watch career closely june has domestically implemented some uh, policies that were i anti labor or suppressing for media different. and so for the city of washington dc for this to be our partner,

there is a bit of a mismatch here. that being said, i do think that us in washington and those who do work on the alliance are very hardened by the fact that this was resolved in as professor kim just a few hours. and i think that showing the strength of korea's robust in institutions to keep this sort of overreach and check, just goes to show that we're, you know, we, we are in good hands. when we think about our security architecture in the region. it's not in jeopardy from a strong man and so, so i'm trying to overstep it so i don't think that this is necessarily going to. ready affecting the broad strokes of our alliance. so results in a few hours, but nevertheless, it seems so close to a significant amount of jitters in career itself. b, g. i mean the trade unions clearly worried about all of this. they've lost his indefinite strike. and to present you goes and stop the futures, the tumbled, obviously, markets there like anything like this. i mean, how do you evaluate the economic damage in career at the moment,

the economic damage. i cannot think of any scenario where this will have a real, a significant impact on the, on the economy. other than perhaps, as you mentioned, the financial market reactions last night, especially the foreign exchange side. or we saw a say see they've been the weakening of korean courtesy for some time, but overall industry and the business overall. we cannot think of any scenario other than that, the possibility of the opposition party. well, not possibility. almost certainly the opposition democratic party would probably lead the overall direction with economic policy going forward. the thing is opposition parties of pro with party. but that's the party was that was the party that belonged to that had previous month, present moon and wound governments party. and at that time, you know what to and a half years ago when government was not known as the unfriendly party towards the business, they were doing

a lot of business friendly stuff. so even though the opposition party democratic party was even for the increase their hands over economic policy going forward, that's not a bad news now. that's not necessarily a bad news for the business as a whole. so economic business, i don't see like significant impact as i said, sort of, it's potentially a gift towards. so for the opposition, but natalia is also in some kind of way a gift horse for north career. i guess we could do an entire program on that. but your thoughts and to tell you well, we've seen that north korea has been pretty silent on the issue. and i think this just shows that they were willing to sit back and look at play out as it was. i think that they felt it was embarrassing for you. and so now we also know that people that come out in north korea and speak with such as conjunctions. sister can young, they never have anything time to say about what's going on in south korea or the us or japan, or anybody who's working against what north korea is doing, the international community. so we're not really surprised to see that there's

silence. but in terms of venture korean relations, i think we're going to stay in the course. i don't see any major policy shifts and then uh weeks coming, no matter who comes into power after you, though, seems to be around of this conversation. let me put this to you. is this a little likely to mean a period of whole political uncertainty to come into you? well, i certainly think that we can expect continuation of the wide scale protests that are gone going on in south korea. i mean, it's a legacy of it's democratization movement in the eighty's. it still has a vibrant, a protest culture, a non violent protest culture. so i think that we can look for that. certainly now with the, the large umbrella, career trade union and the kid to see you, we can look for, we should look for, for them. especially if they're calling for a up a us, a lot, a large scale strike. that's going to be affecting a lot of the industries and so that's another thing that we can look out. and then finally,

as the impeachment of whether president human decides the resign or appeasement proceeding so far word, there's going to be a lot of digging for political dirt. all right, let's circle back and give a b, j. the last words very briefly. beach a, when the dust settles on all of this, will there be some soul searching about how to safe god even further the health and stability of could be a democracy? if i briefly, if you would. yeah, the that's a great question. but once again, i think what we have learned so far is once again the people power of this country, which is very unique around the world in comparison with other countries and people sense of ownership of the country itself was showing them once again. so start searching yes. to make it stronger. definitely, but i think we have gain confidence once again in the aftermath of this, a big political turmoil and big surprise as well. so no flaws in the existing democratic god rails page i uh, you know, as long as people are popular,

it sits on the probable law and abuse above and beyond law. i think that's something we could trust in democracy rule by the people trust a democracy role by the people. we have reached the end of our conversation, a pleasure to have all 3 of you on the show on the inside story beach, a kim darcy drive, the holidays and the time, the slab de. um, thank you to you for watching. you can see the program any time by visiting our website, and i would just say with dot com. and for further discussion, go to a facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash 8 inside story. you can also join the conversation on x or handle this as a j inside story for me and the bulk of how the whole team here. i filled out the, the i'm the like of odds and the sort of india to find out how a tiny bass in this case, gross and extensive mining operations to

a scan. corona virus helps west across the world. good, devastating effects. and it's widely believed to be connected to the legal wildlife place. here in vietnam, we visit a rescue center for some of the world's most threatened animals and joined the call for an end to the global walk like shape or drive on l 20. this cinema is one of the oldest in the country and it was not opened before the displacement crisis began. in late september, this set about and tripoli is one of 3 that the lebanese national theater has taken over and turn into a shelter. it's home to 11 families at the moment to select different parts of the country. 6 year old jewelry sled her home with her family in the southern city of tire. she is the youngest resident in this old theater. these old historic features, once put on plays and shows for people wishing to escape the realities of their daily lives. now they are serving the same purpose, but for a different crowd of cheers solutions that gives us know

for a future that we have to find creative solutions, not just turn our backs on the. don't think that has a number. think about it as a person. yourself and that person shoes. so as you can see for this is my us, my life. earliest in my life, those stages we want we want to operate because the women and my country deadlocks, we we are not denies all of who we are human beings on this earth to be trees in the footsteps. our officers, whatever has been done before, can be done even better. as long as the human being is doing it, you just have to keep pushing because no one else can see. the vision is key.

in 1958 charles to go made of famous speech and algeria. but take a don't hold back the tide about jerry and independence in keep francis companies in africa and the pacific. in the final episode of the series out there explores how the long a bit to fight for the french empire still resonates today. imagine tis french t colonization on out. is there a unique perspective we don't want ahead to well, but we no longer have any private spaces on the incident. that's a scary well on heard voices a year into this genocide, it still remains large. one section connect with our community and tap into conversations you will find elsewhere, but humanity, the number of people who want to stop sending weapons has gone up and up despite what they hear in the mainstream media. in the united states, the stream on algebra. there are some of the media stories,

a critical look at the global news media. on audi 0, government shut off access to social media, the carry, johnson de la, the top stories now in algebra is ready strikes of killed at least 20 palestinians and wounded thousands in southern gaza attacks. talk to the so called safe zone in on the let's see what displaced people with living and make shift sounds as the strikes started. major fires which civil defense cruise a struggle to contain is very ami claimed it targeted senior members of from us. the victims have been rushed to hospital, hundreds of thousands of palestinians families of sheltering in. let's see what conditions are done with the food know in for struck.