Global News Podcast - South Korea's impeached president arrested after police scale walls

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

In custody Yoon Suk Yeol defended his decision to impose martial law last month. Also: dozens of bodies have been pulled from an abandoned gold mine in South Africa, and how to stay motivated and not give up on your New Year's resolutions.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Jonny Diamond from the Global Story podcast. After 15 months of war, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The conflict has cost tens of thousands of lives and left two million people displaced from their homes. What does the ceasefire deal say and crucially can it hold? That's on the Global Story, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and at 14 hours GMT on Wednesday the 15th of January these are our main stories. The impeached South Korean president is in custody but not cooperating. We bring you the latest. Dozens of bodies have been pulled from an abandoned gold mine in South Africa and there's emergency blackouts in Ukraine after a huge Russian missile attack. Also in this podcast. Examples on the extreme could be Mike Tyson, the boxer we all know, who has a BMI of 32. He's anything but obese.

Why it might be important to change how we diagnose obesity. We start in Seoul. That was the scene earlier outside the office where South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk-hyol was being questioned after he was finally arrested after a six-hour standoff over his failed attempt to impose martial law last month. Mr Yoon's supporters chanted and waved flags as, inside, anti-corruption investigators quizzed him on charges of insurrection and abuse of power. He's now being held in a detention centre. Just before his arrest, Mr Yoon recorded this defiant message. Today, upon witnessing these individuals invading the security zone using firefighting equipment,

I decided to comply with the Corruption Investigation Office's request for a voluntary appearance, despite it being an illegal investigation in order to prevent any unfortunate and violent incidents. However, I do not acknowledge the legitimacy of this investigation. As the president, who is sworn to uphold the constitution and the legal system of the Republic of Korea, my compliance with such illegal and invalid procedures does not signify my acceptance of them. It is solely a measure to prevent any unfortunate bloodshed." Earlier investigators had forced their way into the presidential compound to arrest him after previously

being thwarted by his security team. It's the first time in the country's history that a sitting president has been detained. We got the latest from our correspondent in Seoul, Shyamma Khalil. This has been a few hours of heightened, dramatic and contrasting feelings and sentiments here in South Korea. Not long ago we were outside the presidential residence where huge cheers of celebration among anti-youn protesters could be heard when it was announced that the president was arrested by the corruption investigation officials. And minutes after his motorcade made its way through into the corruption investigation

office, he has now been sitting there for a few hours being questioned for allegations of insurrection and misuse of power both relating to his botched declaration of martial law in early December. But the sentiment here now is one of anger, is one of defiance among UN supporters. We've been speaking to many of them young and old who say that they do not recognize the legality of this arrest warrant, essentially echoing what the president and his team have been saying. And what you have now is a dramatic crescendo to the buildup of this story, because essentially it's being framed in two different ways.

The investigators insist and they confirm that they did execute the arrest warrant for the president. Mr. Yoon and his team are saying this was a voluntary appearance to avoid bloodshed. But whichever way you look at it, this is a very dramatic and historic moment for South Korean politics because the first time in the country's history, a sitting president has been arrested. We've got 48 crucial hours now, two days. If a court administers a detention warrant, then Yoon Sang-yul is going to be detained. If not, he's free to go back to the presidential residence. This does not solve the core issue of this division. This is yet another phase in a divided country, another phase in this political drama here in South Korea.

Shyma Khalil. They have been trapped in an abandoned mine in the small town of Stilfontein, southeast of Johannesburg, for many weeks. But it's only in the last few days that the South African authorities have begun a rescue operation to bring the hundreds of workers back to the surface. More than 150 were rescued but dozens of bodies have also been recovered. The people underground had been mining illegally and those who were rescued alive may still face punishment but many are already dead and it's not clear how many are still about two kilometres below the surface. Our correspondent, Mayeni Jones, is in Johannesburg. She gave me more details.

When the activities, the illegal activities in this mine were discovered back in November, the police were determined to arrest illegal miners. That's because the authorities say here that illegal mining costs the South African economy around two billion dollars a year, well at least it cost that much last year, in minerals that are extracted but then don't come back as revenue to the government. So they are, I don't mean they want to crack down on it, they say illegal mining also causes lots of environmental damage around mines, lots of criminalities in local

communities and so they said it's important that they put an end to it and in order to do this they took a hard stance back in November initially refusing to give any food or water to the miners, blocking out some of the exits in order as one minister put it to quote smoke them out. But the miners would see it a different way that they don't feel they have many other options this is just their way of trying to eke out a living. Absolutely, both workers unions and rights groups have been advocating in favour of the

miners, say that many of them have turned to this because of the high unemployment rate in South Africa. In the Stelphontaine area, one local representative told us that unemployment is at 57%, so lots of people have no option. But there's also the fact that a lot of these illegal miners are also illegal migrants from neighbouring countries looking for a living. And that is what has kind of irked the governments. They say that they have no right to be here. They're also engaged in criminal activities and they shouldn't necessarily get sympathy for doing that. Just in human terms, though, how many people are still down there? So it's hard to know because it was an illegal operation, there's no official log but

rights groups have spoken to say could be as many as 800 people. The rescue operation is expected to take at least another week. They're lowering this cage that's attached to a crane down into the mineshaft approximately every hour and bringing up six to eight people as well as dead bodies with them. So it's going to take another week and they're hoping that by the end of it everybody will be out. But for those that do make it out, the police have said they will be arrested and they will be prosecuted. My Innie Jones in Johannesburg.

A day after Kyiv carried out a large scale attack on targets deep inside Russia, Moscow has responded with a major drone and missile attack hitting Ukraine's energy sector. In some areas, emergency blackouts have been imposed. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is visiting Poland, addressed the issue at a news conference in Warsaw. Today, yet another attack took place with 40 rockets, some of them ballistic rockets in the Kharkov, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk regions. It was targeted namely against energy infrastructure very close to Polish border. border to. Thanks to God, our defence reacted swiftly and destroyed more than 30 rockets.

I asked our Eastern Europe correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, how much damage the attacks had caused. It's difficult to be exactly clear on the damage done. What we do know is the scale of the attack, if you like. The President, Vladimir Zelensky, has said that more than 40 missiles were launched by Russia and at least 70 attack drones. So it's a mixture of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. They were launched right across Ukraine and it was about five o'clock this morning that the alarms went off quarter to six this morning warning that there would be imminent missile launches. So quite a lot of people here in the capital and across Ukraine spent more than two hours

in shelters underground, on the metro here, or in the basements of their houses as they waited to see what was being targeted and what would be hit. Now, President Zelensky said that at least 30 of the missiles were destroyed, which means they were shot out of the sky. But that does mean that quite a few of them

hit their targets. And certainly local officials in Lviv, western Ukraine have said that two missiles did land there and hit what they call critical infrastructure. We don't have any more details, but we do know that there have been emergency blackouts introduced in several regions this morning. That usually is to preserve power when there are interruptions in the system because of Russian attacks on the energy infrastructure. Yeah and large-scale energy blackouts in the

winter must sap morale. It does and also remember because this is now the third winter that this has been happening you know Russia has continually and deliberately targeted the civilian energy infrastructure here and we've seen that every single winter that people then face long blackouts. The first winter I think was the worst because it was a surprise, it was a shock and the country wasn't prepared. Now there's a system whereby they introduce rolling blackouts, which means you usually know how many hours your house, your building, your home,

your office will be off grid. And you can somewhat plan for that. But it does mean that the lifts don't work. Often the water pumps don't work in apartment blocks, high-rise blocks, it means no hot water, means no electricity, it means life becomes very very difficult and that of course still in the context of the ongoing war in which civilians are also being injured and killed too so you know adding to the general exhaustion really and as you say that the sapping of morale that this long invasion by Russia, full-scale invasion, is causing. Sarah, you've been watching this from the start.

How do you think the war is going? Well certainly militarily it's not going brilliantly for Ukraine. It's quite clear that Ukraine lacks the number of soldiers that it needs to be able to make any kind of meaningful gains in the east of the country in terms of restoring and recovering territory and even in the last couple of days we've heard quite clearly that people there have been worries about people being taken off air defense duties and sent to the frontliners infantry because of the shortage of manpower that's something that President Zelensky has said will no longer happen, but I think it shows the scale of the problem here for Ukraine.

Sarah Rainsford. Negotiators are resuming talks in Qatar on trying to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal with all sides suggesting a final agreement is closed. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met senior security officials to discuss the proposals which have been presented to both sides. John Donnison is in Jerusalem. We're almost there but not quite. So what the mediators are saying is that the broad principles have been agreed between the two sides but they're still wrangling over what they're calling technical details.

So how this deal will actually be implemented, how prisoners might be exchanged, at what point hostages will be released. But we could see hostages, three hostages apparently being released on the very first day and then the rest of those 30 or so hostages coming over the next six weeks. John Donnison in Jerusalem. An international panel of medical experts says a more nuanced approach is needed when diagnosing obesity. As many as a billion people around the world are considered obese which is measured by using body mass index or BMI. The University of Colorado's professor Bob Echol was part

of the Lancet Commission. One of the challenges to us was to redefine the approach to obesity going beyond BMI because obesity is in fact too much body fat, it's not BMI. So examples on the extreme could be Mike Tyson the boxer we all know who has a BMI of 32, he's anything but obese. So there's an example of where BMI is not an accurate assessment of body fat. So the challenge before us was to redefine the approach to obesity getting beyond BMI. Where have you come out? Well ultimately there are ways we can assess increases in body fat based on things like waist height

ratios. The waist circumference has certain circumferences where in fact for women and men above that level is too much centralization of body fat and also predicts increases in total body fat and then ultimately but not commonly employed would be DEXA which is an imaging technique which could look at total body composition. We're not really condoning that routinely but there are many ways to get a total body fat rather than BMI. You've also looked at whether obesity should be defined as a disease. We don't believe obesity is a disease but we do believe that excess body fat puts people into a category we call pre-clinical obesity because they

have too much fat. It's just the outcomes of that excess body fat on a illness to follow are not able to be documented to clinics. And what's important about it not being defined as a disease, do you think? Typically, healthcare systems reimburse treatment for diseases. But if someone has excess body fat and has pre-clinical obesity, which means they don't have any illnesses as a consequence of their excess body fat. We can't call that a disease. And we don't know the percentage of people that fall into that category, but remember these definitions are new now and they need to be applied in an investigative manner to understand the relative prevalence of pre-clinical obesity versus obesity.

These anti-obesity drugs, azemp and Wegovi, are being prescribed for some patients living with obesity. What do you think about that lifelong drugs and that comparison to a person with diabetes needing medication for life? Well, I think if the drugs to be utilized to treat clinical obesity, and again we think the drugs are utilized mostly for clinical obesity where people have consequences of their excess body fat. Yes, you stop the drug and there's a gradual weight regain back to the baseline weight before the drug was implemented. So yes, these could be lifelong medications once prescribed to keep the weight off.

Is that a positive thing? Yes. You think that is a positive step? As a positive step? Yeah. Oh, I think that is a positive step? Is a positive step? Yeah. Oh, I think that's a controversial step. I'm thinking that once people are on drug, if we want to keep their weight off for medical reasons, it would be a necessity for them to continue on the medications.

Professor Bob Echol from the University of Colorado speaking to Emma Barnett. Still to come in this podcast. I never imagined that I could play ice hockey, especially in Kenya. You'd see it maybe on Christmas movies, that's where you see snow and ice and it's like, well that happens somewhere else, not in Kenya. Our African team won't let the hot weather get in the way of their winter sports training. I'm Johnny Diamond from the Global Story Podcast. After 15 months of war, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The conflict has cost tens of thousands of lives and left two million people displaced from their homes. What does the ceasefire deal say and crucially can it hold? That's on the Global Story, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Donald Trump has said he will impose new tariffs on goods entering the US from Canada on his first day in office. Tariffs are a central part of the President-elect's economic vision. He sees them as a way of growing his country's economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue. But some warn the tariffs could inflate consumer prices. Our reporter Sam Gruitt's been meeting business

owners in Canada. So we're milking the cows three times a day. This is the second time we've milked all these cows today. The first time was at four o'clock this morning. Although 700 kilometres from Washington DC, the decisions made in the US capital have a direct impact here on those like third generation dairy farmer Ben Loweth, who runs Summit Dairy. So how many cows have we got in here? There's 32 cows that we milk at a time 16 on each side but in total we're milking about 480 cows three times a day. Canadian dairy is a protected industry with a quota system on how much farmers can produce and heavy tariffs on foreign imports. But talk of new tariffs still concerns Ben.

It'll affect us the same way as it'll affect every other business in Canada. Most of our inputs as a dairy farmer are domestic, the feeds that we're feeding, a lot of the equipment is coming from Europe as opposed to the States. But there's a thousand other little products and things like that that to keep our business running and to keep our households running that we are purchasing from the states. Tariffs are a central part of the president-elect's economic vision.

He sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue. I'm a big believer in tariffs. I think tariffs are the most beautiful word. I think it's gonna make us rich. Dairy isn't the only industry impacted too. Trump has also mentioned Canadian car manufacturing. We don't need their dairy products.

We have more than they have. We don't need their cars. You know, they make 20% of our cars. We don't need that. I'd rather make them in Detroit. Hi, Flavio. Flavio Volpe, president of Canada's Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, strongly disagrees. The reality is that of those two million cars a year that are made here,

about 1.6 million get exported to the US. More than half of those are American cars, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Dodge. Sitting down in his Toronto office, he's trying to understand what the president hopes to achieve with the proposed tariffs. He is talking to a constituency in the US that really wants to see Made in America become literal. But he threatens tariffs and he says Canada will pay. Well, Canada isn't a corporate entity and actually isn't an individual person's account. In actual fact, American consumers will pay that. So the cost of a pickup truck will go from 60,000 to 75.

Despite concern about the consequences of incoming tariffs, some Canadians are more willing to listen. His latest comments that he's made about annexing Canada, anyone who's ever watched him over the last eight, 10 years knows that he likes to take these hard positions. Including George Anne Burke, who runs the Canadian chapter of Republicans overseas and is a dual citizen. I don't think he's actually interested in annexing Canada. I think he is interested in Canada being a strong, viable trading and defence partner and that is what we should be focused on rather than our hair being on fire over his comments.

With Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepping down and a general election on the horizon, many, including Flavio Volpe, are looking for stability. So we're probably six months away from that stability. But you know, that's where organisations like ours are doing that part, whatever it's worth, to push back in the public realm that we will not be cowed, we will not be pushovers, but we also won't get too offended. You know, this is a fight in a marriage and we're committed to it. And you can hear more on this one Business Daily on the BBC World Service and you can also search for it wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

The company behind TikTok is trying to reassure its US staff that they will still be paid next week even if the Supreme Court in Washington upholds a new Biden administration law which says that the apps American business must be sold off or closed down by Sunday. The Supreme Court is expected to make its ruling later on Wednesday. Asia business reporter Mariko Oye has more. We keep talking about TikTok users in America, some 170 million of them, but ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, it also employs some 7,000 staff in the United States

and there were reports about how they have been voicing concerns about job security. And in an internal memo that has been reviewed by Reuters, it said that the company said told those employees that their jobs are safe regardless of what the Supreme Court decides and that their office will remain open. As we've been reporting about it, a new legislation put a deadline on the 19th of January, which is this coming Sunday, to either sell the app or face a ban in the United States. Now, it is important to emphasize that even if the Supreme Court does not block the bill, new TikTok downloads won't be allowed, but existing users can continue using it for some time, though eventually the services would degrade and therefore the users may decide

to leave anyway. Now, as I said, there are more than 170 million users of TikTok in the United States and interestingly some of them have actually been moving to other Chinese apps like RetNote which is apparently a combination of TikTok and Instagram and they're calling themselves TikTok refugees and even though there are some security concerns some American users are still choosing to accept the terms and conditions of using RetNote which are written in Chinese. So even if TikTok manages to dodge that ban, it may actually prove helpless against users moving to other platforms.

Arico Oi. There is only one place in the Kenyan capital Nairobi where the temperature drops below 9 degrees Celsius. It's the ice rink, the only one in East and Central Africa. It's where the nation's ice hockey team, Kenya Ice Lions, trains every week. Despite the sport being unusual in Africa, the Ice Lions have gone from strength to strength and after gaining membership of the International Ice Hockey Federation, they now have the chance to compete on the international stage as Priya Sippy reports.

In a hotel in Nairobi, the Kenya Ice Lions, Kenya's first and only ice hockey team, gather round to listen to their coach talk tactics before they begin their evening training session. They are wearing red and green jerseys with a lion emblazoned on the front. Quick warm-up, I'll tell you when we get on the ice in a second. Okay guys. With only one ice rink in the whole of Central and East Africa, ice hockey is not a common sport on the African continent. In 2016, a group of expats and local hockey players came together to form the Kenya Ice Lions. Our skill level has grown tremendously. Benjamin Mbuuru is the captain of the team.

We actually won a tournament internationally. This proved to us and to everyone else that, yes, we are cut for this and we can do this. Like many other players on the team, Benjamin was first introduced to ice hockey through playing hockey on land. I never imagined that I could play ice hockey, especially in Kenya. You'd see it maybe on Christmas movies, that's where you see snow and ice and it's like, well, that happens somewhere else, not in Kenya.

Stepping onto the ice was it was so slippery I luckily had the balance from the inline hockey but then I couldn't control the skates I would just go forward make a very huge turn. It was an experience I'd say out of these all. As the team get ready to go on the ice they lace up their skates, put on their helmets and their shin pads. But just a few years ago, the team were playing with very little safety equipment. For the longest, most of us played with just shin pads, which was the bare minimum. The other issue was hockey sticks. If a hockey stick broke, you'd have to wait another, say, three, four months before maybe an expert would bring you one or someone leaves on behind. Well, ice hockey on the equator is not easy, I guarantee you that.

Canadian Tim Colby coaches the Kenya Ice Lions. Biggest challenge is ice time, right? So access to ice is expensive. That is one of our biggest challenges. It's expensive. That is one of our biggest challenges. Through media exposure, the team caught the eye of international brands and companies who donated equipment and funds for Ice Time, as well as sponsoring several trips abroad, including one to Canada. Just recently, the Kenya Ice Lions were granted membership to the International Ice Hockey Federation, and that means they'll get access to more funding, more coaching, and entry into bigger tournaments. It was, what I'd say, a dream come true for us.

It was a step towards where we want to be. But then now that means we have to up our game, we have to move on to the next step. And part of that next step involves setting up a women's ice hockey team, as well as coaching the next generation of young players, like 12-year-old Liam. Liam dreams of becoming a professional. The coaches push you to be your best.

You're playing on the ice, like, it just feels, you forget about everything else. Back on the ice rink in Nairobi, the Ice Lions finish up their training session. With their international ice hockey membership clinched, they are now setting their sights on their next big goal, the Winter Olympics. Priya Sippy. If you made a New Year's resolution, how are you getting on? Yesterday, Tuesday, it was the day you were most likely to abandon it,

as motivation starts to wane. Psychologist Simon Williams explains why. The more difficult and complex a resolution and a behaviour, the easier or the quicker we are to drop it. Part of it is about setting good resolutions and achievable resolutions. That's where a lot of people set themselves up almost for too much of a challenge and failure. There is research which shows if we introduce a new behavior.

So you think about something like, I want to eat more healthily. Rather than say I'm going to quit chocolate or crisp or that kind of stuff, maybe resolving or aspiring to eat more fruit and vegetables can actually be an easier goal, particularly if you pick ones that you quite like. And what that often does, sometimes it's called behavior stacking, where that has the effect of actually bumping out some of the bad behaviors, because you fill up on the good stuff and you don't have the room for the bad stuff. There are some, of course, where people, again, quitting smoking, I hear that example, it is much more challenging. Piece of advice number one is set a resolution, not resolutions. And then beyond that, I think it's about smart goals,

or in this case, smart resolutions, things that are specific. Again, what really do you wanna do? Not something vague in general, like I wanna be fitter, or I wanna lose weight. Something that's measurable, how much weight do you wanna lose, or how much time do you wanna spend exercising?

Something that's achievable, again, that helps to have something small and specific in mind. Something that's relevant to you, not just doing it because other people are doing it or because it sounds like a good thing. And also time-bound, I think that's the other thing, is part of the reason people drop off on or shortly after Quitters Day, many people do, is because they haven't set a time goal. Simon Williams. Before we go, I wanted to tell you about a special edition of the Global News podcast which we're preparing to record. The devastating wildfires in Los Angeles coming so soon after winter storms

elsewhere in the US and flooding in Spain have highlighted the way that extreme weather events are no longer a rare news event. We'll be looking at the extent to which extreme weather events are directly related to climate change and more practically what societies and what we as individuals can and should be doing to protect ourselves. So if you have a question you'd like our experts to answer, please email us at the usual address globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk and if you can please put your question in a voice note. And that's all from us for now but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. This edition was mixed by Nicola Broff and the producer was David

Lewis. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritzen. Until next time, goodbye. I'm Jonny Diamond from the Global Story Podcast. After 15 months of war, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The conflict has cost tens of thousands of lives and left 2 million people displaced from their homes. What does the ceasefire deal say and crucially, can it hold? That's on the Global Story, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.