Why South Korea's President is Banned from Leaving the Country
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Today, South Korea's president is banned from leaving the country as the political crisis continues. Syria begins a new era after Bashar al-Assad flees to Moscow. And Romania annuls the result of its presidential election. From TLDR News, this is your daily briefing for Monday 9th December 2024.

South Korea's embattled President Yoon Suk-yool narrowly survived an impeachment vote over the weekend. But the country's political crisis is far from over as protests continue and the opposition-controlled National Assembly has vowed to introduce another impeachment motion this week.

President Yoon plunged South Korea into a political crisis last week by, out of the blue, declaring martial law on Tuesday night, sparking a tense six-hour period of protests and parliamentary opposition that eventually resulted in him lifting the order. Impeaching Yoon required support from 200 of the National Assembly's 300 members.

The main opposition Democratic Party and the smaller opposition parties have a combined 192 seats. However, only three members of Yoon's People Power Party took part in the vote, while the other 105 boycotted it, preventing the motion from progressing as the number of votes didn't reach 200.

On Saturday, President Yun said he was very sorry for his actions and promised not to declare martial law again. However, the opposition have accused his party of carrying out a second coup attempt, referring to a plan by Yun and his People Power Party which would see Yun remove himself from foreign and domestic affairs, allowing his prime minister to manage government affairs in the meantime, something that the opposition described as a blatant constitutional violation with no legal basis.

They vowed to hold impeachment votes every Saturday, hoping that continued pressure and ongoing protests will force more of Yoon's lawmakers to participate in the vote. Separately, the chief prosecutor of South Korea's Corruption Investigation Bureau has imposed a travel ban on President Yoon Suk-yool, as well as on several of his senior officials, while he's investigated for suspected treason and abuse of power.

Now, before we continue, I just wanted to quickly thank everyone who continues to watch and like The Daily Briefing every single day. Making these videos requires a lot of research and hard work to make sure we bring you the most up-to-date and accurate news every day. And that's also an expensive process. If you want to support our journalism in 2025 and make sure we can keep doing The Daily Briefing, then there's no better way to do that than by purchasing a copy of our magazine, Too Long.

Syria's now-toppled President Bashar al-Assad fled the country over the weekend in the face of a lightning rebel offensive that ended the Assad family's 54 years of rule. Speculation about Assad's whereabouts was rife and there were even rumours that he'd been killed in a plane crash while fleeing Damascus. Then on Sunday, Russian media, citing Kremlin sources, said that Assad and his family had arrived in Moscow and had been granted asylum out of humanitarian considerations.

Assad's stunning downfall comes after 13 years of civil war in Syria, but only really appeared to be a possibility in the last couple of weeks, as Syrian rebel forces, largely the Idlib-based Islamist group HTS, took city after city, Aleppo, Hama, Homs, then finally Damascus, with Assad's main backers, Iran and Russia, largely unwilling or unable to help.

Many Syrians, both in Syria and displaced abroad, have taken to the streets to celebrate Assad's downfall. Inside Syria, statues of Assad and his father have been torn down, and some of the regime's prisons, including the notorious Sednaya prison, dubbed a human slaughterhouse, have been opened, with many families hoping to reunite with relatives that were disappeared over the years.

Syria is now obviously at a crossroads, and while there's significant caution about the future, there's hope that the country can emerge from the years of brutal conflict and build something new for the Syrian people. If you're interested in the victorious rebel group and the crucial what next question, then you should check out our full video over on the TLDR Global channel. The link will be in the description.

Now, following the collapse of the Assad regime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Israeli military had entered and temporarily seized the demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, saying that the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria had collapsed with the collapse of the regime. Netanyahu, while celebrating Assad's ouster, said, "...we will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border."

The Israeli government also said it had carried out strikes on targets inside Syria, including strategic weapons systems and suspected chemical weapons sites, quote, in order that they will not fall into the hands of extremists.

Over to Romania now, where in another shocking twist the Constitutional Court has annulled the results of the first round of the presidential election. The winner of this round, held in late November, was the virtually unknown independent candidate and far-right Pro-Russian figure, Kalin Georgescu.

However, a trove of declassified information has now led to allegations that Russia organised a huge social media campaign promoting Georgescu, and without naming them, the Romanian Constitutional Court said that one candidate received preferential treatment, distorting voters' expressed will. For context, the outcome of the 2024 election was one of the biggest shocks in Romania's post-communist political history.

This was because the leaders of the two largest parties, the leftist Social Democrats and centre-right Liberals, were eliminated in the first round, while Georgescu, a little-known university professor, came first with a 22.9% vote share. This was especially surprising given that, before the election, he'd been polling at only around 5%. For his part, Georgescu has claimed the court is cancelling democracy and that there's nothing constitutional in Romania anymore.

Meanwhile, Romania's incumbent pro-Western president, Kraus-Johannes, said in a statement that the constitution serves as a shield against threats to democracy and that in turbulent times, state institutions are called upon to act with calm, wisdom and respect for the law.

The decision to annul the results has, however, also been criticised by Elena Lascone of the Stay Romania Union Party, who was due to face Georgescu in the second round run-off. She said the decision was illegal, immoral and crushes the very essence of democracy, and that the second round should have gone ahead as planned. Ultimately, this all means that new dates will have to be set for another presidential election. So we'll be sure to bring you news of this as and when it happens.

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