Global News Podcast - South Korean president faces impeachment vote

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

South Korean MPs have begun impeachment proceedings against President Yoon Suk Yeol after thwarting his move to impose martial law. Also: jailed Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi is temporarily released.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and at 14 Hours GMT on Wednesday 4th December, these are our main stories. Protesters in South Korea demand the resignation of President Yun Suk-nyeol after his failed declaration of martial law. France's Prime Minister Michel Barnier faces a vote of no confidence, which could bring down his minority government. And the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohamedi is given temporary release from her Iranian jail.

Also in this podcast... If I get money to start a provision shop, I will stop illegal mining. The government should give us money to start our own business. We hear how illegal mining in Ghana is putting people, their health and the environment at risk. And the social media company Telegram promises to do more to stop the sharing of child abuse images. We begin this podcast in South Korea. The country's accustomed to international attention

these days, but that's usually been because of its impact on global culture, whether through films such as the Oscar-winner Parasite or television hits like Squid Game. Now though, South Korea finds itself in the spotlight for less welcome reasons. The political turmoil began on Tuesday with President Jung-Sin-Niel's attempt to impose martial law. That was defeated by a vote in parliament. And now that parliament is set to vote on whether to impeach the president. His defence minister has already stepped down.

So with martial law now been and gone, I asked our correspondent in Seoul, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, if the situation there had fully calmed down. To an extent, Paul, life looks very much back to normal here in Seoul. I'm standing outside Seoul City Hall. There has been a big rally here tonight and a march and there are currently several thousand angry protesters marching south towards the presidential building, chanting, President Yoon resign now. So there are still, there's still a lot of anger here. There's still a lot of shock. I think really that the overwhelming emotion

here has been shock and surprise that President Yoon did what he did last night. Totally unexpected, totally out of keeping with the democratic traditions that have evolved in South Korea over the last three decades. So there's a lot of anger. There's a lot of anger. But, you know, you look around me in the streets here, the Christmas lights are on, buses and traffic is flowing as normal, shops are open, people are going about their business. So it looks like things are back to normal, but of course politically this is still a very strange situation and it's still a political crisis for the country. And that political crisis will manifest itself with this impeachment motion which as I said

is going before the parliament. What are the chances that will pass? I think the chances look extremely good. First of all, the opposition parties have a majority in the National Assembly, but even members of President Younes' own party voted with the opposition to overturn his martial law decree last night, and some of his members of staff have been leaving, fleeing his administration today and saying they want no part of it. So his allies seem to be rapidly declining and his popularity in the country already very low before last night's events, I suspect, is now even lower. Rupert Wingfield Hayes. South Korea is a major ally of the US

which has nearly 30,000 troops stationed in the country, and the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, made clear they are concerned about recent events. We're obviously watching the developments very closely. This is one of our closest partners and allies around the world. We welcome President Yun's statement withdrawing the martial law order, and there was a unanimous vote in the National Assembly to reject the decision and He followed up on that in our judgment any

Political disagreements need to be resolved peacefully and in accordance with the rule of law Anthony Blinken Let me be honest There were a few of us here who when we heard about martial law being imposed in South Korea, had the same thought. Is this a mistake? Has some news agency accidentally named the wrong country? It was, quite simply, something that nobody saw coming. And that includes the experts whose job is to keep tabs on South Korean developments, including Jean H. Lee, a senior fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington DC. It's astounding. This will be a defining moment for many young South Koreans who grew up in a

democracy. South Korea is a very young democracy, so many young South Koreans have never experienced something like this. Though it will be very familiar to older South Koreans who remember a time when authoritarianism and military dictatorships were very much a part of their daily lives. A reminder there of South Korea's not so distant past. Well, one person who knows the country's present is our East Asia editor, Mickey Bristo, who spent time in South Korea reporting. With hindsight, I asked him, was there any sign that this kind of thing might happen? Not very much. And I think firstly I'd like to say that it's a reminder that politics and world affairs

are unpredictable. Something can happen out of the blue. This is yet another reminder. Getting back to your question, there were some rumours that had reached even some legislators that perhaps this is what the president was considering doing, but even they dismissed these as far-fetched conspiracy theories that simply wasn't going to happen in a modern liberal democracy like South Korea. So really unexpected.

I don't think anyone seriously believe that this would happen. It looks like the immediate crisis is over, will be over soon with this vote of impeachment possibly changing things. But we've seen the army trying to stop MPs entering Parliament. We've had the sight of an opposition lead having to climb the walls of Parliament to get to the chamber. I mean even if this now does die down, has this damaged, do you think, South Korea's image?

It's certainly changed South Korea's image. Over the last decade or so, South Korea's really done an enormous job of projecting itself across the world. Think of culture, TV dramas, films, pop music. The economic prowess of the country is well known. They've got global brands, Samsung phones, Hyundai cars, that kind of thing. So we were used to seeing South Korea as a modern, progressive, liberal democracy, perhaps the most open place in East Asia. So these images, and I've been looking at them myself, of soldiers trying to storm the National Assembly it seems to hark back to a different place and a different time

in South Korea's history and one which people would have hoped was long gone. I mean I've said that things have all died down given your warning that you know the unexpected does occur. Should we think well that's it for now or is this now going to be a worry about the stability of South Korea's democracy? It's a good question and you could say that. How can a place be so stable if indeed they've just had martial law but paradoxically and counter-intuitively it might have reassured and solidified democracy as we heard from the commentator earlier. The procedure is held.

The president declared martial law and in the country's Prime Minister. Michel Barnier leads the minority government and is expected to lose the vote, potentially leading to his ejection from office. It follows his decision on Monday to force a budgetary law through the chamber, where his supporters are outnumbered by the combined forces of the left-wing bloc and the hard right. From France, Hugh Schofield reports. Prime Minister Manier has warned that if he's voted out of office today an

already worrying social and economic situation in the country will only get worse. There'll be no budget for 2025 so emergency measures will be needed to keep the country solvent. The cost of servicing France's monumental debt will increase as lenders take fright and turbulence on the markets could too easily be mirrored by turbulence on the street. But none of this seems to have altered the determination of his opponents to bring his government to an end. By early evening he'll know if he's been voted out of office, becoming the shortest serving Prime Minister in the Fifth Republic and if President Macron's search for a replacement is once again underway. Hugh Schofield.

She campaigned for a woman's right to choose whether and how to wear the hijab, and she opposed Iran's widespread use of capital punishment. That and other campaigning earned Nargiz Mohammadi a 10-year jail term, and subsequently the Nobel Peace Prize. But now the 52-year-old activist has been granted three weeks' leave from prison for medical reasons. I spoke about this with Buran Abassi from the BBC's Persian service. I'd asked her first why Nargiz Mohammadi had become such a prominent figure. Nargiz Mohammadi has been advocating for human rights in Iran for three decades and despite her poor health, she has

been imprisoned repeatedly for over a decade. She has been known as one of the bravest and one of the most vocal voices against human rights violations in Iran. And when she received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2023, her conditions in prison got worse and she was banned from having contact with her family, with his teenage daughter and son who live in Paris. So given that harsh treatment that you're describing, why do we think Iran is now releasing her temporarily? At least what are they saying?

Her condition in prison was in a way that it was impossible for her to stay there. She had developed bed sores after a bone grafting operation because according to her family she did not receive adequate medical care and some female prisoners, female political prisoners had gone on hunger strike inside prison asking for her release. So the pressure on the Iranian government had been increasing. So the government seems to have succumbed in part to that pressure, releasing her temporarily.

What are we hearing from Nagesh Mohammedi's supporters? Her supporters and her family say that this is not enough. They have asked for her unconditional release, but they say that if she has to go back to prison, this current leave has to be extended to at least three months. And they say that she's already suffering from harsh conditions in prison and it's her human right to have treatment in a sanitary environment. Buran Abassi. And we have another story about a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Nadia Murad is a member of Iraq's Yazidi community. There were many atrocities which took place in Iraq

as the country fell apart in the wake of Saddam Hussein's overthrow, bombings, multiple assassinations and acts of ethnic cleansing. But even by these appalling standards, the treatment of the Yazidi people stood out. Tens of thousands were murdered or enslaved when the group called Islamic State took over their home territory, a war crime widely recognised as constituting genocide. And yet a United Nations investigation into Islamic State in Iraq was shut down last September. That move's been condemned by Nadia Murad. She's been speaking about what it means for justice in the Middle East in an interview with the BBC's Stephanie Hegarty. It's 10 years since the Islamic State group took control of vast swathes of Iraq and killed and

enslaved tens of thousands of Yazidi people. Despite many countries recognising this genocide, less than 20 members of IS have been tried for war crimes. Nadia Murad was among the thousands of women captured by IS as a sex slave. Sexual violence and rape, it is something that stays long after the war is over. It lasts forever and lives in your body, in your mind. It's hard to fully recover from it. Can we stop these horrific crimes from happening? And is there more that international institutions

or governments can do to stop sexual violence? Well, first we have to acknowledge it as a war crime. We have to hold perpetrators accountable. We have to respect survivors and listen to them. But at the same time, we have to work on stronger protections of women and girls. In 2021, a German court proved that it's possible to hold members of the Islamic state group to account for their war crimes. The IS husband and wife, who'd enslaved Nadia's neighbour and murdered her five-year-old daughter, were convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. What people don't know about ISIS and like-minded groups is that they don't care about being

killed, but they are so scared of facing the women and girls in court room. Nadia campaigned to set up the UN body UNITAD to investigate the war crimes of IS. But after seven years and mountains of evidence collected, UNITAD ended in September, and no one has been charged with war crimes in Iraq. The country has yet to write its war crimes legislation. Thousands of people have been tried

on terrorism-related charges, but that process hasn't been transparent. And UN experts say it's rife with human rights abuses. A lot of Iraqis joined ISIS, our neighbours and a lot of people from the region. But there were also thousands of foreigners who joined ISIS and believed in their ideology. And a lot of them, you know, after ISIS was defeated, men and women were able to come back to their countries of origin. So it's not about evidence, it's just a lack of political will.

You started telling your story almost as soon as you escaped and you very clearly refused to feel the shame that the perpetrators wanted you to feel. Was that a conscious choice at the time? The shame and stigma that was attached to being raped, it wasn't just by ISIS but also the people that I was like living with, the country, the society. It was something that so many people advised me not to tell. I think the second I was free and I made it to the safety, I felt responsible. I felt some sort of guilt of like surviving while my younger nieces were still in there. No one came to rescue Nadia. She escaped from her captors alone No one came to rescue Nadia. She escaped from her captors alone.

And she has strong words for peacekeeping institutions like the UN, who she says failed her people. These international institutions who were meant to protect the most vulnerable, but they have been absent in most of these conflicts, especially in the Middle East. So many people around the world, including myself, feel that these institutions are driven by politics rather than justice.

Nadia Murad speaking to Stephanie Hegarty. The United Nations humanitarian chief was not pulling his punches. Describing the global situation ahead, Tom Fletcher said quite simply, the world is on fire. He was referring partly to the sheer number of crises the UN is trying to deal with. Wars in Ukraine, Sudan and the Middle East. But also populations already suffering the effects of climate change. And what the UN says it needs in order to tackle these is of course more money. 47 billion dollars over the next year. Yet some major donors like Britain and Germany have already said they'll be cutting back their UN funding,

while the imminent arrival of Donald Trump poses questions about America's future contributions. Our correspondent Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva. 2024 has seen escalating conflict and growing violence towards aid agencies. A record number of aid workers have been killed. There have been hundreds of attacks on hospitals and ambulances. The UN's emergency relief coordinator, Tom Fletcher, fears the once accepted rules of war are being deliberately ignored. It's not just the ferocity of these conflicts, Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria. It's about that willful neglect of international humanitarian law. And as a result, we seem

to have lost our anchor somehow. That scaffolding that we felt was there, international humanitarian law, that I was hoping that we'd be taking for granted at this point is shaking. But even if aid agencies get the renewed respect they need to work, they also need hard cash. Traditionally generous donors, Germany or the UK, are cutting back. And with the election of Donald Trump and his America First strategy, big questions hang over the commitment of the UN's biggest funder, the United States. Tom Fletcher believes a trend towards isolationism can only compound global problems. These challenges require a global response and not a withdrawal, a national introspection.

We need to move on from this time of national distancing and get back to a system of global cooperation again. But UN appeals are never fully funded. This year's has, in December, received less than half what was budgeted, causing cuts to food aid in Syria and Sudan. In 2025, the UN estimates a staggering 305 million people will need help. Its appeal will, even if fully funded, support just two-thirds of them. Imogen folks, still to come in this podcast. She is unique. We don't know of any others that are even close to her age.

The next closest that we know of that's here currently of albatrosses in general are about 45 years old. The tale of the albatross which laid an egg at the grand old age of 74. Available now on the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Katie Watson in the Cook Islands, where we're taking a deep dive into the Pacific. This small island nation has grand ambitions to mine its seabed for metals used in green technology. But a community that's defined by its ocean has found itself at the centre of a global debate. Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Ghana is one of the world's top ten gold producers and the biggest in Africa.

But mining the precious metal can come at great cost to the environment and to human health. The BBC has discovered that water around an illegal gold mining site in Ghana contains around 500 times more mercury than is accepted for safe drinking water, putting in danger the lives of the communities living there. The BBC's Thomas Nadi reports. living there. The BBC's Thomas Nardi reports. Deep in the forest in south-western Ghana, illegal miners are busy at work. Soil is dug up and gold is sifted with the help of a pumping machine. Toxic chemicals like mercury are also used to help separate the precious metal from debt. One of the miners who spoke to me anonymously had this to say. I'm aware of the health issues associated with illegal mining.

We spoil most of the rivers, and now there is no clean water. But I don't have anything else to do apart from mining. Illegal miners in Ghana can make up to $4,000 a month. They prefer operating on rivers because that's where they find most of the gold. But their activity is now destroying the country's rich forest reserves. Amada and Cobra River, located in southwest Ghana, has been heavily polluted with toxic of Western Ghana. It's been heavily polluted with toxic chemicals like mercury, cyanide, and other dangerous chemicals used by illegal miners, locally known as Galamse. The color of the water has completely changed to brown, and the state of this river has destroyed

livelihoods in this area. The Water Research Institute of Accra found waters around a Galamsey site contained 500 times more mercury than the WHO recommends for human consumption. Dr. Asante is one of the researchers. Where we took the Galamsey water, the mercury that we measured was 0.513 milligram per liter and that grossly exceeded the guideline value of 0.001 milligram per liter. Now mercury when it gets into a system will affect the internal organs. It affects the lungs, it affects the kidney and then for children it affects their developmental process. In southern Ghana Aksum hospital is about 30 minutes

drive from where Ivankubra empties into the sea. Health workers here are regularly assisting people suffering from symptoms similar to the ones described by Dr. Santi. We've had deliveries that the babies were born with congenital deformities, some without limbs, some with transparent skin. Then we also had children having kidney problems.

Then we think that it may have a link with the gallium C. Despite suggestions that the water pollution could be behind the cases of kidney failure and deformity in newborns at Aksim Hospital, no specific studies have been commissioned, so there's no medical evidence linking the two. Military forces are regularly supported surveying Galamse sports. Machine guns aimed at equipment in a bid to deter the miners. But the potential of this lucrative trade keeps luring them back.

keeps luring them back. If I get money to start a provision shop, I will stop illegal mining. The government should give us money to start our own business so that we can stop mining. With costs of living still high in Ghana, the potential riches that come from illegal mining are still attractive for some. Until viable alternatives arise, rivers and forests along with communities that depend

on them will remain at risk of the adverse effects of galamsey. That report by Thomas Nardi. Social media companies are often criticised for the content they allow, but Telegram has proved particularly controversial. Until now it has refused to use the services of the Internet Watch Foundation, which helps detect and remove images of child abuse. That may be one of the reasons that Telegram's billionaire owner Pavel Durov was arrested when he arrived in Paris in August and is still unable to leave France while investigations are carried out.

Well now Telegram has changed its mind and said it will use Internet watch. I spoke about this with our cyber correspondent Joe Tidy. I'd asked him first to explain why Telegram had operated differently to other platforms. Well Telegram is a bit of like if you imagine a mix between WhatsApp and Twitter or now called X, of course. It's often described as a social messaging platform. So it's not just a peer-to-peer thing where you message your friends or groups of friends. It's also a place where you can broadcast to lots and lots of people. I think up to about 2 million people can be part of a channel. And Telegram started off as a Russian company. It was founded by a Russian, Pavel

Dorov, when he was in Dubai. And it's since spread all around the world, very particularly popular in Ukraine, in Russia, in Iran. And it's kind of like an anarchic type of experience, really. You go on there and there's all sorts of emojis and lots of noise, and it's very colorful. And you can do lots of things in the app. For example, you can exchange money and buy things, things like that. And that's partly where the problems have come because of course Telegram has been marketed by Dorov and his team as being a light touch moderation platform. They like to brand themselves as different from other social networks, not sort of Silicon

Valley conformist. And they have different policies, for example, on privacy, and they won't share too much detail with police on any activity that's happening on the platform. And that's part of the reason why it's gotten so much hot water. So why do you think it's now seems to have changed its mind and allowed, it says it will allow this foundation, the Internet Watch Foundation to sort out, to detect child abuse and remove it. Well, I think the arrest of Pavel Dura has got to be a big part of the catalyst for this decision.

They previously did not want to engage at all with the IWF or any other organisations like the IWF. And of course, if you don't, then you don't get to use their tools and expertise to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material, which has proven to be an issue on Telegram. They didn't reply to messages from this group, they didn't want to sign up to the membership scheme, but now today they have. And that was Joe Tidy. The oldest known wild bird in the world has just laid an egg. Wisdom, the Laysan albatross, is thought to be 74, which would mean she's

been cruising around the North Pacific Ocean since the 1950s. Her egg is expected to hatch at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii. A source of delight to John Plissner, a biologist at the US Fish and Wildlife Service. She is by far the oldest bird that we have that we know of here at Midway. She is a Lesan albatross or moly in Hawaiian language and she is one of about two to three million Lesan albatrosses that come to Midway every year of which about a million of them breed every year here and the rest are non-breeders. We only know approximately how old she is because she was banded when she was already laying eggs.

She was found on a nest, and albatrosses do not start breeding until they are at least five years old. And so then, since she was banded in 1956, she would have had to have been at least five years old at that point. She is unique. We don't know of any others that are even close to her age. The next closest that we know of that's here currently of albatrosses in general are about 45 years old. So it is very rare. Wisdom has probably outlived several mates at this point in time, probably the average age that birds can survive or it's probably closer to 30 years so with many of them not lasting

even that long so it's likely that she's had at least three mates over that time and probably several more. John Plissner, if I told you there was a new exhibition opening called Inventing the Runway you'd be forgiven for thinking this was something to do with aeroplanes or airports. In fact though, we're talking about the world of high fashion. The runway in question is the catwalk which models walk down to show off the latest designs. And the exhibition is described as an immersive sound and vision experience, curated in part by that giant of the fashion world, Anna Winter. Our culture editor Katie Razzle went to meet Anna Winter at the London venue where it's

taking place, the Lightroom. When you look at the history of the runway show, it really does put into context everything that was happening. Fashion will always reflect what's happening in a bigger cultural sense. Fashion never, never exists in a vacuum. But what struck me is just how it's democratised. Yes, it started as a very elitist, you had to be invited and it was a very tight little world. And now everyone can come to the party, which is as it should be.

At the helm of Vogue since 1988, Anna Wintour's backing makes careers. But what most people want to know is, is she like this? I don't understand why it's so difficult to confirm the point. I know, I'm so sorry, Miranda. The tyrannical magazine boss, played by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada.

Tales of your incompetence do not interest me. Tell Simone I'm not going to prove that girl. Winter has leant into the portrayal and true to type, for our interview, the sunglasses stayed on. I'm horribly punctual, I'm also usually early. People are obsessed with the glasses. You're probably like, I'm so bored of talking about these glasses. That would be true.

Is it a shield? Is it about short-sightedness? I just wonder what the glasses are. They help me see and they help me not see and they help me be seen and not be seen. So they're a prop. What people always say about you is, nobody says no to Anna Wintour. People are frightened of you.

Well, unfortunately, that is absolutely untrue. They often say no, but that's a good thing. No is a wonderful word, I think, because you can, you know, then that helps you think about things differently and you look at a problem in a new way and you just think about how do you solve it. But do you think people are frightened of you? I hope not.

One of the big talking points in fashion is how thin is too thin. Many years back you said, and I know it was jokingly and very gently, you advised Oprah Winfrey to shed a few pounds to get on a cover and she did and she looked amazing, but would you still suggest that now for a potential cover star or has the world changed? Well I think a Zempik has changed a lot, but I think... Would you tell them to take a Zempik? I think that's a personal choice. Vogue stands very much for body diversity today and we've seen some change, certainly not enough.

If you put somebody who's a slightly larger size on the cover, does it make a difference to sales? Does it suppress sales? No, I think our audiences welcome diversity, body diversity and diversity in all ways, in all our coverage. Season after season Lagerfeld invited us not just to a fashion show but into a Chanel universe. Now we're looking at this rocket I mean this is spectacle beyond spectacle you were there. I was there it was extraordinary. Winters reliving the moment in 2017 brought to life in this Vogue show when fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld created a space station inspired catwalk set for Chanel complete with a rocket apparently blasting off. You've turned Vogue into a global brand. You're 75, you're still at the top of your game, your energy seems undiminished.

How much longer do you plan to stay in the job? I have no plans to leave my job currently. So does that mean you'd go on until 80, 85? I'm worried about today, not tomorrow. Anna Wintour talking to Katie Razzle. And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us

an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Matt Sissons and the producer was Stephanie Tillerson. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Paul Moss. Until next time, goodbye. taking a deep dive into the Pacific. This small island nation has grand ambitions to mine its seabed for metals used in green technology.

But a community that's defined by its ocean has found itself at the center of a global debate. Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.