South Korea’s main opposition party on Wednesday called on President Yoon Suk Yeol to resign immediately, saying he had committed the ‘crime of sedition’ by briefly declaring martial law a day earlier, which it said had spread to advisers in the leader’s inner circle.

South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party said Yoon’s declaration of martial law was a ‘gross violation of the constitution’.

“This is a clear act of treason and an excellent reason for Yoon’s dismissal,” the party said in a statement.

In a statement on behalf of floor leader Park Chan-dae, the party said Yoon, who was forced to resign as the country’s leader by a National Assembly resolution hours after he declared martial law on Tuesday night, should step down.

“It has become clear to the entire nation that President Yoon can no longer conduct state affairs normally,” the statement said.

Some 190 lawmakers from six opposition parties submitted an impeachment motion, which will be debated in parliament on Thursday before a vote on Friday or Saturday.

The attempt to remove Yoon foreshadows further political turmoil in the country of 52 million, Asia’s fourth-largest economy and a key ally of the United States.

Resignations from presidential office

Senior presidential aides, including Yoon’s chief of staff, submitted their resignations on Wednesday, the presidential office said. The statement did not say whether Yoon would accept the offers. The president has not spoken publicly since his televised message on Tuesday night.

In a brief televised address the night before, Yoon unexpectedly declared martial law, citing the need to protect South Korean democracy from ‘anti-state forces’ linked to North Korea.

Kim Min-ki, secretary general of the National Assembly, the country’s legislature, held a press conference on Wednesday to give a detailed account of the previous night’s state of emergency. He began his remarks by condemning what he described as the ‘unconstitutional and unlawful’ seizure of the legislative body on Yoon’s orders.

Kim said that at 10.50pm on Tuesday, shortly after Yoon declared martial law, police tried to prevent lawmakers from entering the National Assembly grounds. Kim said that the Ministry of National Defence then brought about 230 soldiers by helicopter to the National Assembly building. They were followed by about 50 more soldiers who scaled the perimeter walls and entered the area.

Video from the scene showed members of the public scuffling with police and soldiers at the entrance to the National Assembly, but no injuries were reported. On Wednesday, the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper published footage from the scene showing soldiers armed with machine guns, gas masks and night vision goggles.

In Seoul’s Jongno district, a major business center, vehicular and pedestrian traffic was as busy as ever as citizens went about their daily routines a day after the shocking footage of soldiers entering the National Assembly. A rally was held in the vast Gwanghwamun Square, attended by hundreds of people carrying banners calling on Yoon to resign.

Korean Confederation of Trade Unions declares general strike

Yoon has been plagued by scandal in recent months, with his wife accused of influence peddling and himself facing political backlash after using his presidential veto to halt an investigation into his wife’s case.

The declaration of martial law immediately sparked strong opposition, including from within Yoon’s own party. Han Dong-hoon, leader of the ruling People’s Power Party, immediately issued a statement saying he would oppose Yoon’s declaration, while opposition lawmakers gathered late at night in Seoul’s parliament to vote on martial law. Outside the building, an enthusiastic protest took place, with people chanting slogans calling for Yoon’s dismissal and arrest.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), a major umbrella group, announced an indefinite strike and a morning rally in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square until Yoon was removed from office.

The KCTU issued a statement calling the declaration of martial law ‘absurd and anti-democratic’.

The statement read The Yoon Suk Yeol government has declared the end of its rule. After this martial law, the KCTU and all the people of this country will declare the end of Yoon Suk Yeol.

Samsung Electronics shares fall

Yoon’s proposal to impose martial law, the country’s first since the restoration of democracy in the 1980s, came after months of tension with the opposition over his loss of a parliamentary majority.

After a night of turmoil, South Korea’s financial authorities pledged to support markets with ‘unlimited’ liquidity. The Bank of Korea said, after an emergency meeting on Wednesday that it would ‘keep all options open until markets stabilize’.

The won, which weakened sharply against the dollar following Yoon’s declaration of martial law, recovered.

The benchmark Kospi index fell nearly 2 per cent. Shares in Samsung Electronics, the country’s largest company, fell 1.1 per cent.

Is impeachment possible?

For Yoon to be removed, two-thirds of the 300-member National Assembly must vote in favor. Opposition parties have a total of 192 seats, so a bill could pass with the support of more than eight members of Yoon’s own party.

If impeached, Yoon would be immediately suspended as president pending a final ruling by South Korea’s Constitutional Court.

A new election must be held within 60 days of the president’s impeachment or resignation. The prime minister will take over as acting president.

Choi Jin-bong, a professor of journalism and broadcasting at Sungkonghoe University, said “there could be more demonstrations if lawmakers do not vote for impeachment. Public protests are likely to increase, forcing them to vote for impeachment again.”

‘We are watching closely’

Yoon’s decision to abandon his attempt to impose martial law was welcomed by the United States, South Korea’s most important ally.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. was ‘closely monitoring developments over the past 24 hours’.

“We welcome President Yoon’s announcement that he will rescind the emergency martial law order,” Blinken said in a statement. “We continue to expect that political disputes will be resolved peacefully and in accordance with the rule of law”

Earlier, Yoon’s own conservative People’s Power Party called on the president to sack Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun, who it said recommended the martial law declaration. Party leaders are discussing whether Yoon should leave the party, according to the state-run Yonhap news agency.

Noor Jallal Jalali, the Taliban’s minister of public health, has traveled to China at a time when the Taliban had just announced medical education for women to be banned across Afghanistan.

Jalali would take part in a bilateral health meeting in China aimed at bolstering up cooperation between the two countries.

Taliban spokesman for the health ministry, Sharafat Zaman Amarkhil called the purpose of the visit to “strengthen bilateral cooperation in the areas of health sectors.”

This comes when the Taliban supreme leader in a fresh decree had banned medical education in Afghanistan, closing the last remaining institutions where women can learn.

Following the announcement, the Afghan female students in medical schools across Afghanistan protest the decision, saying they will stand against this decision.

In one heart-wrenching video circulating in social media, female students in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province weep as a Taliban official announces that they are no longer allowed to continue their studies and orders them to go back home.

The door of education closed to the Afghan women and girls

Despite the closure of universities and schools for girls, they continued to study in private health institutes and were trained in fields such as midwifery, pharmacy, laboratory, x-ray, physiotherapy, nursing and dental prosthetics.

One of the heads of a private medical institution said that they received notice from the ministry of public health to freeze education for the girls. “We were called by the Taliban health officials and read the Taliban supreme leader’s decree and told us that from today on no women and girls are allowed to enter health institutes,” he said without revealing his name.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he told Harici that the health ministry called a number of owners of private health institutions without revealing the agenda of the meeting. “During the meeting, the health officials said that from now on no female should attend medical classes.” He said that most of the students were women and young girls, but from today (Tuesday) they are banned from education.

Taliban health minister visits China to standardize Afghanistan’s healthcare system

He said that the majority of students were women, lamenting on the current situation, he said that girls and women are banned from “last hope” of education. He said that women and girls came to the medical institutes following the ban of schools above six grades, but now this is also banned.

Meanwhile, Robert Dickson, Charge d’Affaires of the UK Mission to Afghanistan, expressed deep concern about new reports that the Taliban will deny medical education to women in Afghanistan.

“This is another affront to women’s right to education and will further restrict access to healthcare for Afghan women and children,” he said.

Taliban spokesman Amarkhil said that minister Jalali is also expected to hold meetings with senior Chinese health officials during his trip.

He put the purpose of the visit to seek “standardize Afghanistan’s healthcare system” and promote comprehensive partnerships with international organizations to address the country’s pressing health needs.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in its recent report said that Taliban policies limiting women’s participation in aid organizations, especially in healthcare, have significantly impacted women’s access to medical services. 

In a bid to expand globally, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the country’s top-selling defense group, is jointly looking for start-ups in India for cutting-edge technologies in areas such as big data, signal and image processing, green energy and more.

IAI launched the NeuSPHERE Innovation Accelerator Programme in the South Asian country at the end of November.

Avital Schrift, IAI’s vice president of core technologies, told Nikkei Asia in New Delhi that the aim of the programme is to “reach out to innovative startups in the deep technology space and work with this community to take their ideas and … turn immature ideas from the world’s technologies into products”.

In addition to big data, image processing and green energy, the IAI will also focus on advanced navigation systems, artificial intelligence, and autonomy, XR (augmented reality) care and training, advanced manufacturing, quantum, edge computing, human-machine interfaces, and wearable technology.

The company works with many Indian government organizations and private companies in various fields, such as Hindustan Aeronautics and Larsen & Toubro. In September, it signed a memorandum of understanding with India’s state-owned defense company Bharat Electronics to work together to meet the short-range air defense needs of the South Asian country’s armed forces.

We are working with all the giants [in India] and … [we are also] trying to create a lot of joint ventures … We believe in cooperation with Indian companies,’ Schrift said in the interview.

IAI said the NeuSPHERE programme will provide participating Indian startups with access to advanced resources and technologies, including global mentorship and guidance, networking, and funding to accelerate their market-ready solutions.

“We have our own innovation center in Israel that has been operating for the past four years,” said Schrift, adding that when they decided to go global, they focused on only two giants: The U.S. and India. The Israeli company launched an innovation programme called IAI CATALYST in the U.S. earlier this year.

“We value Indian culture, talent and technological capabilities,” said Schrift, who has been working with Indians for 40 years.

Israeli Ambassador to New Delhi Reuven Azar told Nikkei that the IAI’s NeuSPHERE programme is ‘a very important programme because innovation plays a key role in creating the value chain in the economy’.

“Everything starts with innovation and then flows down,” he added. IAI also inaugurated its latest facility in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Thursday, specializing in the maintenance and repair of radar modules and subsystems such as power systems, cooling systems, information technology integration, radar testing and calibration.

The strategic center marks an important milestone in IAI’s commitment to strengthen India’s defense infrastructure under the Make in India initiative, which aims to transform the South Asian country into a manufacturing hub, IAI said in a statement.

Founded in 1953, IAI is the largest technology employer in Israel with revenues of $5 billion and 15,000 employees. It is one of the world’s top 10 aircraft design and manufacturing companies and one of the world’s top 11 satellite companies.