South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said yesterday he was determined to make a “fresh start” after weeks of mass protests prompted his entire Cabinet to offer their resignations.
Some 100,000 demonstrators opposing the resumption of US beef imports and calling for Lee’s resignation packed central Seoul on Tuesday evening, the latest and largest in a month-long series of occasionally violent rallies.
Ahead of the protest, Lee’s Cabinet offered to quit to take responsibility for the political crisis which blew up less than four months into his presidency. Senior secretaries made a similar offer last week.
PHOTO: AP
“The government is determined to make a fresh start,” Lee was quoted by Yonhap news agency as telling officials and businessmen, expressing relief that Tuesday’s rallies in Seoul and other cities ended peacefully.
Yonhap interpreted the statement as indicating he would conduct a sweeping shakeup of his Cabinet and secretariat.
Protesters say US beef carries a risk of the human form of mad cow disease even though Seoul and Washington firmly deny this. Imports had been suspended in 2003 after a mad cow case.
But the rallies have also become a sounding box for a range of grievances against the conservative former business tycoon, whose popularity ratings have plummeted below 20 percent.
A semblance of normality returned to Seoul as police dispersed a few hundred remaining protesters early yesterday and dismantled barricades of shipping containers erected to keep demonstrators away from the presidential palace.
The conservative Chosun Ilbo daily said in an editorial that foreigners watching the rally must have thought “some kind of revolution” was taking place.
“The government is chiefly to blame,” it said, adding that officials had agreed to the resumption of US beef imports as a “lubricant” for Lee’s first summit with US President George W. Bush in April despite public sensitivity on the issue.
The government also alienated the public by filling key posts with “people only from among acquaintances, intimates, neighbors and people ideologically friendly to the president, making light of the moral standards of the majority,” it said.
Most newspapers called for an end to the protests, with JoongAng Ilbo declaring it was “time to calm down.” But there was also criticism of the new government’s record.
The Korea Herald said the Cabinet and presidential staff had displayed “collective incompetence” and, “therefore, the more extensive the replacements, the better.”
Seoul has sent officials to Washington to try to secure voluntary changes to the beef imports pact, but says it cannot renegotiate it, as protesters demand.
“If the government fails to accept the demand for renegotiation by June 20, we will stage a nationwide campaign to drive the government from power,” Park Won-suk, a leading activist, told reporters.
Choi Jin, chief of the Institute of Presidential Leadership, said the worst may be over in terms of protests.
“But the problems remain unsolved,” he said. “This crisis stems from a loss of public faith in Lee.”
The most important casualty of public distrust is likely to be Lee’s controversial canal project.
“I know how much people hate the canal project. I will make a bold decision if the people hate it so much,” Lee reportedly said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly