South Korean president abandons martial law attempt

 SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol abandoned a short-lived attempt at martial law on Wednesday after lawmakers defied security forces to vote against his declaration and thousands of protesters took to the streets.

Yoon's shock bid to impose South Korea's first martial law in over four decades plunged the country into its deepest turmoil in its modern democratic history and caught its close allies around the world off guard.

The United States, which stations nearly 30,000 troops in South Korea to protect it from the nuclear-armed North, initially voiced deep concern at the declaration, then relief that martial law was over.

The dramatic developments also left the future of Yoon -- a conservative politician and former star public prosecutor who was elected president in 2022 -- in jeopardy.

South Korea's main opposition party -- whose lawmakers jumped fences and tussled with security forces so they could vote to overturn the law -- demanded Yoon to step down immediately over the attempted "insurrection".

The nation's largest umbrella labour union also called an "indefinite general strike" until Yoon resigned.

And the leader of Yoon's own ruling party even described the attempt as "tragic" while calling for those involved to be held accountable.

Yoon backed down after lawmakers voted to oppose the declaration, which he made late on Tuesday night citing the threat of North Korea and "anti-state forces".

"Just a moment ago, there was a demand from the National Assembly to lift the state of emergency, and we have withdrawn the military that was deployed for martial law operations," Yoon said in a televised address around 4:30 am (1930 GMT Tuesday).

"We will accept the National Assembly's request and lift the martial law through the Cabinet meeting."

Yonhap news agency then reported that Yoon's cabinet had approved the motion to lift the order.

 

- 'Impeachment' -

 

The U-turn prompted jubilation among protesters outside parliament who had braved freezing temperatures to keep vigil through the night in defiance of Yoon's martial law order.

Demonstrators who had been waving South Korean flags and chanting "Arrest Yoon Suk Yeol" outside the National Assembly erupted in cheers.

Lim Myeong-pan, 55, told AFP that Yoon's decision to rescind martial law did not absolve him of wrongdoing.

"Yoon's act of imposing it in the first place without legitimate cause is a serious crime in itself,” Lim told AFP.

"He has paved his own path to impeachment with this."

Defying security forces, 190 lawmakers managed to get in to the assembly in the early hours of Wednesday and unanimously voted to oppose martial law.

Under the constitution, martial law must be lifted when a majority in parliament demands it.

 

- 'Anti-state' elements -

 

Yoon had given a range of reasons to justify martial law -- South Korea's first in more than 40 years.

"To safeguard a liberal South Korea from the threats posed by North Korea's communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements plundering people's freedom and happiness, I hereby declare emergency martial law," Yoon said in a televised address.

Yoon did not give details of the North's threats, but the South remains technically at war with nuclear-armed Pyongyang.

"Our National Assembly has become a haven for criminals, a den of legislative dictatorship that seeks to paralyse the judicial and administrative systems and overturn our liberal democratic order," Yoon said.

The president labelled the main opposition Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the 300-member parliament, "anti-state forces intent on overthrowing the regime".

Yoon and his People Power Party are also bitterly at odds with the opposition over next year's budget.

Opposition MPs last week approved a significantly downsized budget plan through a parliamentary committee.

The imposition of emergency martial law came after Yoon's approval rating dropped to 19 percent in the latest Gallup poll last week, with many expressing dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and controversies involving his wife, Kim Keon Hee.

Concern, relief

Democratic South Korea is a major ally for the United States in Asia, but Washington said it was not given advance notice of Yoon's plan to impose martial law.

"We are relieved President Yoon has reversed course on his concerning declaration of martial law and respected the ROK National Assembly’s vote to end it," a National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement, using the acronym for South Korea's official name.

China, a key ally of North Korea, had urged its nationals in the South to stay calm and exercise caution, while Britain said it was "closely monitoring developments".

Vladimir Tikhonov, professor of Korea studies at the University of Oslo, said Yoon's move to impose martial law was "an attempt to wind the history back".

"I don't think South Korea's civil society can recognise Yoon as a legitimate president any longer," he told AFP.

READ: According to PAGASA, the water level of La Mesa Dam is at 79.69 meters as of 8:00 AM and the forecast rain today is moderate to heavy rains. It will overflow when the dam water level reaches 80.15 meters.

 READ: According to PAGASA, the water level of La Mesa Dam is at 79.69 meters as of 8:00 AM and the forecast rain today is moderate to heavy rains. It will overflow when the dam water level reaches 80.15 meters.

Waters from the said dam are expected to affect the low-lying areas along the Tullahan River from Quezon City (Fairview, Forest Hills Subd., Quirino Highway, Sta. Quiteria and San Bartolome), Valenzuela (North Expressway, La Huerta Subd.) and Malabon.

All the residents living in the aforementioned areas and nearby areas, especially those near the river banks, are still advised to be alert for possible floodings, the weather bureau added.

Courtesy: PAGASA/Facebook

UPDATE: As of 8 AM, the low pressure area (LPA) being monitored

 UPDATE: As of 8 AM, the low pressure area (LPA) being monitored inside the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) has a medium potential of developing into a tropical depression within the next 24 hours, according to PAGASA.

Courtesy: DOST-PAGASA/FB

Trump says US to hold nuclear talks with Iran next week

 (June 26, 2025, REUTERS) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would likely seek a commitment from Iran to end its nuclear ambitions at talks next week and credited U.S. strikes on Iran with bringing a swift end to the war between Israel and Tehran.

Trump said his decision to unleash huge bunker-busting bombs in Sunday’s attack had devastated Iran’s nuclear program and called the outcome “a victory for everybody”.

“It was very severe. It was obliteration,” he said, shrugging off an initial assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency that Iran’s path to building a nuclear weapon may have been set back only by months.

Meanwhile, anxious Iranians and Israelis sought to resume normal life after 12 days of the most intense confrontation ever between the two foes and a ceasefire that took effect Tuesday.

Speaking in The Hague where he attended a NATO summit on Wednesday, Trump said he did not see Iran again engaging in nuclear weapons development. Tehran has for decades denied accusations by Western leaders that it is seeking nuclear arms.

“We’re going to talk to them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement. I don’t know. To me, I don’t think it’s that necessary,” Trump said.

“I’ll tell you, the last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover,” he said, referring to Western accusations that Iran has been enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade purity.

Later on Wednesday, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement that the U.S. air strikes had “severely damaged” Iran’s nuclear program, but he stopped short of declaring that the program had been destroyed.

The agency confirmed a “body of credible evidence” that several key Iranian facilities were destroyed and would take years to rebuild, he said.

Israel’s nuclear agency assessed the strikes had “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years”. The White House also circulated the Israeli assessment, although Trump said he was not relying on Israeli intelligence.

Trump said he was confident Tehran would pursue a diplomatic path towards reconciliation. The president gave no details on the discussions next week such as the venue and participants.

If Iran tried to rebuild its nuclear programme, “we won’t let that happen. Number one, militarily we won’t,” he said, adding that he thought “we’ll end up having something of a relationship with Iran” to resolve the issue.

The head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, dismissed what he called the “hourglass approach” of assessing damage to Iran’s nuclear programme in terms of months needed to rebuild as besides the point for an issue that needed a long-term solution.

“In any case, the technological knowledge is there and the industrial capacity is there. That, no one can deny. So we need to work together with them,” he said. His priority was returning international inspectors to Iranian nuclear sites, which he said was the only way to find out precisely what state they were in.

IRAN PRESIDENT HINTS AT DOMESTIC REFORMS

Israel’s bombing campaign, launched with a surprise attack on June 13, wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military leadership and killed leading nuclear scientists. Iran responded with missiles that pierced Israel’s defences in large numbers for the first time.

Iranian authorities said 627 people were killed and nearly 5,000 injured in Iran, where the extent of the damage could not be independently confirmed because of tight restrictions on media. Twenty-eight people were killed in Israel.

Israel claimed to have achieved its goals of destroying Iran’s nuclear sites and missiles; Iran claimed to have forced the end of the war by penetrating Israeli defences.

Israel’s demonstration that it could target Iran’s senior leadership seemingly at will posed perhaps the biggest challenge yet for Iran’s clerical rulers, at a critical juncture when they must find a successor for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now 86 and in power for 36 years.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, a relative moderate elected last year in a challenge to years of dominance by hardliners, said it could result in reform.

“This war and the empathy that it fostered between the people and officials is an opportunity to change the outlook of management and the behaviour of officials so that they can create unity,” he said in a statement carried by state media.

Still, Iran’s authorities moved swiftly to demonstrate their control. The judiciary announced the execution of three men on Wednesday convicted of collaborating with Israel’s Mossad spy agency and smuggling equipment used in an assassination. Iran had arrested 700 people accused of ties with Israel during the conflict, the state-affiliated Nournews reported.

During the war, both Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump publicly suggested that it could end with the toppling of Iran’s entire system of clerical rule, established in its 1979 revolution.

But after the ceasefire, Trump said he did not want to see “regime change” in Iran, which he said would bring chaos at a time when he wanted the situation to settle down.

RELIEF, APPREHENSION, EXHAUSTION

In both Iran and Israel, residents expressed relief at the end of the fighting, but also apprehension.

“We came back after the ceasefire was announced. People are relieved that the war has stopped, but there’s a lot of uncertainty about what comes next,” said Farah, 67, who returned to Tehran from nearby Lavasan, where she had fled to escape Israeli bombing.

In Tel Aviv, Rony Hoter-Ishay Meyer, 38, said the war’s end brought mixed emotions: relief that children could return to school and normal life resume, but exhaustion from the stress.

“Those past two weeks were catastrophic in Israel, and we are very much exhausted and we need to get back to our normal energy.”

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Peter Graff, Philippa Fletcher and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Alexandra Hudson, Aidan Lewis and Cynthia Osterman)

MY OPN why impeachment is important

Impeachment is a constitutional remedy addressed to serious offenses against the system of government. It is the first step in a remedial process— that of removal from public office and possible disqualification from holding further office.

Impeachment followed by conviction is often the only way to forcibly remove a sitting official. While "impeachment" is often used to refer to the entire process of removing an official from office, it only formally refers to the indictment stage in the House of Representatives, not the trial stage in the Senate. Under the current Constitution, an official can be impeached if one third of the House of Representatives votes in favor. Since it takes only a simple majority to set the agenda or to adjourn the House, it can be difficult for a minority of one third to bring a vote and impeach an official.

my opn of impch vp sara

house vote 240 66 not vote  senate session adjournment back of sessinon  june 2 2025 

senate as impeachment court  7th articles of impeachment 

why impeach vp sara 

1 Culpable violation of the Constitution 2 Betrayal of public trust 3 Graft and corruption 4 Other high crimes

but senate pres chiz say press con impceah not lawsuit but removed from office lang 

constitutional duty IMPEACH OFFCE 

• Culpable violation of the Constitution
• 2 Betrayal of public trust
• 3 Graft and corruption 
• 4 Other high crimes 
• 5 treason

my opn

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EAT BULAGA  IS public service show 

EAT BULAGA IS SHOW NOT NOONTIME SHOW IS  public service SHOW  

EAT BULAGA IS COMILY SHOW NOONTIME SHOW 

SHOWTIME IS WEAK SHOW WHY I SAY WEAK HOST VICE GANDA BULLY 

WEAK HOSTS AND WEAK SHOW NOT NOONTIME SHOW IS BULLY SHOW 

WEAK SHOWTIME IS BULLY SHOW  I WISH  SHOWTIME AND EAT BULAGA  

BEST NOONTIME SHOW EAT BULAGA public service program   

TVJ IS EAT BULAGA EAT BULAGA IS TVJ 

SQ OH BABY PWDE KA STREAM YT MUSIC SPOTY