New Report Details How Pro-Palestinian Protests are Suppressed in Democratic Countries

A new report tracking the health of civic freedoms around the world identifies a notable trend: Crackdowns on Palestinian solidarity protests in every kind of society, from the most open to the least.

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“Both the conflict itself and its impact on civic space … is one of the main takeaways of the year for us,” says Tara Petrović, an author of the report by CIVICUS Monitor, a global alliance of civil society groups, headquartered in Johannesburg. “We’ve seen expressions of solidarity and we’ve seen repression of these expressions of solidarity at pretty much every corner of the globe.”

Read More: In Europe, Free Speech Is Under Threat for Pro-Palestine Protesters

Most protests are over issues close to home—food prices, national politics. The throngs that gathered outside South Korea’s parliament on Tuesday were chanting against the President’s abrupt imposition of martial law, which outlawed just such expressions. Had the decree survived the day, the space for civil society in South Korea might have dropped from its current assessment, “narrowed,” to “obstructed” in the next annual CIVICUS report, titled People Power Under Attack. The group assays civic space in 198 countries, from “open” to “repressed,” and in its newly released report found that nearly one-tenth of the protests suppressed by authorities involved Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, or solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The deadly Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the devastating retaliatory war that answered it, sparked protests around the world, many demanding an end to a war that has claimed the lives of at least 1,200 Israelis and 44,000 Palestinians. But not all such demonstrations have been welcomed. In several countries, including those where civic freedoms are considered by CIVICUS to be “narrowed,” such as the Netherlands (whose standing was downgraded from “open” this year), Australia, and Italy, pro-Palestinian protesters were met with what the organization deems excessive force, arrests, and detention. Some, such as France, banned protests outright on the grounds that they posed a security risk.

Germany stands out, according to Petrović. In addition to cracking down on protests, German authorities have cancelled pro-Palestinian events, conducted raids on the homes of pro-Palestinian activists, and even enforced Schengen-wide bans on pro-Palestinian speakers, such as the British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta, trying to visit the country. (That ban, which applied to the 29 European nations that eliminated passport controls for travel between them, was subsequently overturned.) Most recently, the German government introduced new rules mandating that those applying for naturalization in the country affirm Israel’s right to exist. Germany’s ranking on the CIVICUS Monitor was downgraded from “open” to “narrowed” in 2023—a relegation that Petrović says was widely attributed to the state’s actions against climate activists, with tactics not dissimilar to those now being used against Palestinian-solidarity campaigners.

In the U.S., whose CIVICUS ranking has stood at “narrowed” since 2022, college campuses remain the fulcrum of debate over pro-Palestinian demonstrations, with more than 3,100 people arrested or detained at protests that often included encampments, the vast majority of which were peaceful. The controversies cost the leaders of several Ivy League universities their jobs, and resulted in many universities changing their rules around permissible campus activity and introducing new disciplinary measures in an apparent bid to prevent further such protests from taking place. Last month, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would enable the government to revoke the tax-exempt status of nonprofit groups it accuses of supporting terrorist entities—a power that opponents of the bill says could be weaponized to target certain organizations, including Palestinian rights groups.

“Engaging in activism or public debate concerning Israel and the situation of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation has become an incredibly fraught endeavor,” Zaha Hassan, a human rights lawyer and fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes in Suppressing Dissent: Shrinking Civic Space, Transnational Repression and Palestine-Israel, which is due to be published on Dec. 5. “This is true even outside of academic settings, whether one lives in Israel, in the occupied Palestinian territories, in a liberal democracy such as the United States, or under autocratic rule in the Arab Middle East. That American classrooms and college campuses—so often idealized as safe spaces for ideas to be debated—have become deeply contested terrain is no accident.”

So long as the war in Gaza persists, the protests opposed to it are expected to continue—as are the efforts to suppress them. But Petrović notes that the movements have already had a demonstrable impact on policy: several countries have withheld weapons sales to Israel, as well as restored funding to UNRWA, suspended when Israel reported a handful of Palestinians involved in the Oct. 7 attack also worked for the the U.N. agency that provides health, education, and food aid to Palestinians. Visibility, however, is the main accomplishment.

“What we’ve seen this year was this incredible global mobilization of people for the same cause,” she says, “and more specifically in solidarity with the people of Palestine and what they’re facing.”

source https://time.com/7199769/pro-palestine-protests-suppressed-democratic-countries/

Which Weight-Loss Drug Is Better: Wegovy or Zepbound?

With more people taking the weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Zepbound, one question inevitably arises: which one is more effective?

In a press release, Lilly announced that in its latest trial comparing its medication, Zepbound, to Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk, people randomly assigned to receive Zepbound lost about 20% of their body weight after about 18 months, while those taking Wegovy lost nearly 14% of their body weight.

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Wegovy (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide) both target a group of hormones that the body makes called incretins. Wegovy works on the GLP-1 hormone, which suppresses appetite and signals the pancreas to produce insulin to break down sugars in food. Zepbound works on both GLP-1 and GIP, another hormone that stimulates insulin production. Separate studies conducted by the respective manufacturers have showed that Zepbound, with its dual-acting effect, was linked to more weight loss than Wegovy, but until now, no studies have compared the two medications directly.

Read More: What to Do if You Have Sleep Apnea

In a statement, a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk focused on the other health benefits of its semaglutide medication. “In combination with diet and exercise, Wegovy is the only proven obesity medicine proven to reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events such as death, heart attack, or stroke in adults with known heart disease and with either obesity or overweight,” the company said. In March, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed the company to add on Wegovy’s label that the drug can lower the risk of heart events in people with heart disease who are overweight or obese. “As a pioneer and leader in obesity care, we know that treating this misunderstood disease is more than just a number on a scale, and we strongly believe in the semaglutide molecule and the robust data supporting its benefits.” Novo Nordisk is continuing to study semaglutide for its potential benefits in other conditions, from Alzheimer’s disease to kidney and liver conditions.

Lilly is also studying the other health benefits of tirzepatide and has published studies showing that the drug can lower the risk of heart failure and death from heart disease. The company plans to publish these latest findings in a peer-reviewed journal and present them at a medical conference next year after analyzing them more fully.

The results are in line with past studies each pharmaceutical company conducted to earn approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but the direct comparison could encourage more development of medications that target multiple hormones, in order to achieve greater weight loss and potentially other health benefits. Lilly is developing a drug that targets three hormones: the two incretin hormones, GLP-1 and GIP, and glucagon. Both companies are also finding ways to put the medications, which patients currently need to inject, into pill form.

source https://time.com/7199613/which-weight-loss-drug-is-best-wegovy-zepbound/

What Getting 105 Blood Tests From a Health Startup Taught Me

The last time I went to the doctor, I lived in a different zip code, belonged to a different body-weight category, and was rounding out a different decade. I never consciously swore off health care, but who likes feeling dismissed—or consistently being told that the next available appointment is months down the road?

Yet after years of not stepping foot in an exam room, I knew I needed a check-up—make that a tune-up. That’s how I ended up in a phlebotomist’s chair at Quest Diagnostics at 7 a.m. on a recent Saturday, looking hard in the other direction to avoid seeing what felt like an excessive amount of blood pumping out of my arm. I had just joined Function Health, a personalized health testing platform co-founded by the preventive medicine guru Dr. Mark Hyman, and those dozen tiny vials would provide me with in-depth intel on more than 100 measures. I would soon receive a full assessment of my heart, hormones, thyroid, immunity, and seemingly every other aspect of my health. Was I nervous? Absolutely. Impatient for the results? You know it.

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Function Health—which launched in 2023 and bills itself as the fastest-growing health platform in the U.S.—is backed by big-name investors like Matt Damon, Zac Efron, Pedro Pascal, Jay Shetty, and Blake Griffin. The company is still in beta mode, which means you have to sign up for its waitlist; I was accepted within a day. For $499 per year, you get two rounds of testing: an initial assessment with 105 lab tests, and then three to six months later, a follow-up including 60-plus retests to see how your numbers are changing. By then, the Function team believes, you’ll have had the opportunity to make changes through diet, exercise, or a new medication regimen, and you’ll be able to see how those efforts are paying off. The hope is that people will remain members for years, tracking how their health evolves through twice-annual testing, and making changes that could add more quality years to their lives. While no treatment regimen is provided based on results, clients receive personalized written insights from Function’s team of clinicians.

For someone like me, who ignored annual-physical reminders and waited out even the most annoying symptoms, it seemed like an ideal way to get a much-needed health status update. But is putting patients in the driver’s seat of their own well-being the future of health care—or a slippery slope to information overload?

A pivot to proactive care

Hyman, 65, has spent his entire career trying to find a way to “break through the noise and really address chronic disease, which is now a national emergency,” he told me during a video conversation in September. He specializes in functional medicine, which aims to identify and treat the root cause of illness—not just the symptoms it triggers. In addition to being Function’s senior medical advisor, he’s the founder and senior advisor of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, founder and director of The UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Mass., the author of a pile of books, and the host of a popular podcast. He regularly dispenses health tips to his 3 million Instagram followers: which inflammatory oils he avoids; how to think about brain-health supplements; what to know about the six states of insulin resistance.

He calls Function Health his most fulfilling venture. Hyman sees the startup as a natural extension of his desire to make medicine more proactive, pointing to a philosophy called P4 medicine, which stands for predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory. The idea is to help people take control of their health by identifying what areas they need to work on before they land in a full-blown medical crisis. “The only way to do that is to have your own data, and not be limited by what you get at your doctor’s,” he says. “How do we break down the sort of patriarchal, paternalistic medical system that puts you apart from your own body? You have to go to the doctor and the insurance companies and ask for what you want, and they’re trained in a certain way which is essentially reactive, not proactive.”

Read More: When Should I Go to the Doctor With Cold Symptoms?

Function Health’s tests go beyond what many primary care doctors include in “outdated” annual panels, he adds. While doctors traditionally check LDL, HDL, and total cholesterol, for example, they don’t always include measures like lipoprotein(a), apolipoprotein B, and LDL pattern, all of which can predict future heart health. And while it’s common to find out your calcium and vitamin D levels, I’d never before had a doctor check my ferritin or iron binding capacity.

The thinking is that the earlier you realize something isn’t quite right, the sooner you can address it. Plus, Function’s platform is easy to navigate and visually pleasing—a welcome change from the poorly designed patient portals I was used to. That enables clients to track trends over time and compare their results from one round of testing to the next. Is their hemoglobin A1C gradually creeping up? Is their LDL cholesterol better or worse than it was six months or two years ago? Is that random kidney number still out of range, or was it a one-off blip?

“We’re very good at naming and blaming diseases,” Hyman says. “We’re not very good at identifying proactively, what is the transition from wellness to illness? Most people are just walking around with low, smoldering risk factors that they don’t know about.” He paused, meeting my eyes through the screen: “Like you, actually.”

My unexpected results

My first round of testing required nearly two dozen vials of blood, which could wipe you out for the day—so Function splits it into two separate appointments scheduled a week apart. On my second visit, the phlebotomist noticed I was starting to look pale and assured me fewer vials would be taken than the first time. When I left, fainting risk averted, she admitted she had lied. Still, by the time my results started rolling in a few days later, I had forgotten all about my sore arm. They arrived over the course of a week, during which I refreshed my Function Health portal constantly. Each time a measure was off, I dramatically declared that I was dying, and then proceeded to Google every possible explanation, working myself into a stupor.

During our interview, Hyman and I talked through my test results, which calmed my anxiety. (This one-on-one time isn’t customary for Function’s members, who typically receive insights without any one clinician’s name attached.) In total, 20 of my biomarkers were out of range, and 85 were normal. I learned, for example, that my thyroglobulin antibodies (TgAb) were above range—“low-grade Hashimoto’s,” Hyman speculated after reviewing my results—and that I had ketones and “many” calcium oxalate crystals in my urine. Two liver metrics, alanine transaminase and gamma-glutamyl transferase, were elevated. If he were my doctor, “I would say, ‘Oh, your liver tests are elevated—why is that?’” Hyman told me. “I would ask you a bunch of questions, like ‘Do you drink a lot?’” I don’t—but until recently, I would pop a Tylenol any time I felt even the slightest twinge of a headache setting in, which happened almost every day. Taking too much acetaminophen, Hyman cautioned me, is the most common cause of acute liver failure in the U.S. He appeared pleased that I had gone cold turkey after receiving my results, and I was relieved that I had found out I needed to make a change. (For what it’s worth, this probably wouldn’t have registered on a primary care provider’s annual blood panel, and there’s no way I would have brought up my Tylenol habit unprompted.)

Perhaps most alarmingly, 11 of my 15 heart biomarkers were out of range, suggesting systemic inflammation and an elevated risk of heart events. I wasn’t entirely surprised: High cholesterol runs in my family, and when I was 3, my parents took me to a big-city children’s hospital, where a pediatric cardiologist recommended I start statins. My parents, concerned about my young age, decided not to opt for treatment, and throughout my adult life, I’ve hoped my plant-based diet and exercise routine would shield me from the genetic threat.

Read More: 9 Weird Symptoms Cardiologists Say You Should Never Ignore

Yet the situation was worse than I expected. My total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, non-HDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, and lipoprotein(a) were all out of range. My LDL particle number—a new-to-me term that measures the number of particles carrying LDL cholesterol—turned out to be 2,181, which concerned Hyman. “You want it to be under 1,000,” he told me. All my heart numbers, taken together, indicated to him that I needed follow-up testing, like an AI-enhanced CT coronary scan to check for plaque. I immediately started searching for a cardiologist after doing a deep dive on all the ways a heart attack or stroke might manifest in a relatively young woman.

One of the less-conventional health metrics I learned was my biological age. Inside, I’m 28.5, which is almost 9 years younger than my actual age of 37. This metric indicates the quality and rate of how you’re aging on a genetic, cellular, and molecular level, Hyman says. Faster biological aging—being older than your chronological age—increases the risk of problems like prediabetes, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and hormonal imbalances. While almost every company selling these tests calculates biological age based on a different methodology, Function relies on Phenotypic Age, which is an assessment of biomarkers such as albumin, creatinine, glucose, and mean cell volume.

I asked Hyman if I should be disappointed about my biological age: Wouldn’t it have been better to get a number, say, 15 years younger? “No, no,” he told me—though I soon learned that, while he’s 65, his biological age is 39. (“I’m almost as young as you,” he joked.) He assured me that while you can’t change your calendar age, you can reverse your biological age by, for example, prioritizing a healthy diet, being more active, losing weight, getting enough sleep, and lowering your cholesterol. I’ll have mine retested in six months—and during that time, I hope to get reacquainted with my early 20s, which I thought I had left in the dust.

All of these lab results were accompanied by eight pages of personalized clinician notes; if results are urgent, the company says it calls you immediately. The feedback is dense and actionable: I learned more about what each out-of-range metric meant, and what kind of steps I could take to correct it, like limiting or prioritizing certain foods, taking supplements, and practicing self-care. The calcium oxalate crystals in my urine, for example, suggested a predisposition toward kidney stones, so Function’s clinicians suggested mitigating risk through dietary changes and increased fluid intake. And because my high-sensitivity C-reactive protein—a marker of inflammation—was high, I received a list of dozens of potentially beneficial foods to prioritize (non-starchy vegetables, organic soy), as well as advice on which to limit (refined sugars and dairy).

There were also, of course, abundant suggestions to follow-up with my primary care provider—which put me right back in the doctor-less pickle where I had begun.

The future of health care, or information overload?

My Function Health tests armed me with information—but I wasn’t sure exactly what to do with it. Would primary care doctors and specialists even be interested in reviewing my results? Or would they be annoyed I had taken testing into my own hands (and that they had eight pages of data to wade through)?

Function Health doesn’t yet have an app, which means the easiest way to share results with a doctor is to take screenshots on your phone or print out the relevant sections. Dr. Richard Bruno, regent-at-large with the American College of Preventive Medicine, is used to patients bringing in information for him to review, like Quest blood tests they ordered on their own—but he’s not sure it’s necessary. “I do have patients who [do similar testing], and they come to me with pages-thick labs and want me to interpret it for them,” he says. “Like, ‘Dr. Bruno, what does this mean? It looks like I have kidney function problems.’” That might lead to a conversation about how much value to assign to a slightly out-of-whack sodium level: “Maybe it was because you did a heavy workout this week,” he says. “It’ll probably normalize, because kidneys are very good at normalizing electrolytes.” Sometimes, he’ll run follow-up labs—but notes that pursuing all incidental findings can end up being emotionally and financially taxing for patients.

Read More: Long Waits, Short Appointments, Huge Bills: U.S. Health Care Is Causing Patient Burnout

Still, if you decide to follow through with your own testing, Bruno recommends keeping your provider in the loop—which can also help cut back on Dr. Google-induced anxiety. “Bringing it back to somebody you trust is critical,” he says. “I may chuckle a little if somebody brings me a stack of labs, but I will take the time to help them understand and navigate.”

Dr. Baljash Cheema, an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and medical director at the university’s Human Longevity Lab, isn’t convinced Function Health is worth the financial, psychological, and serological investment. He estimates that at least half of the company’s biometrics are related to basic labs he runs all the time. “I don’t know how novel this is,” he says. Plus, he points out that some biomarkers might be too esoteric for all doctors to grasp. “I have to tell you that I don’t know what it means to have your basophil count change from month to month,” he says. “I don’t know if anybody does.” (In case you were wondering: basophils account for about 1% of white blood cells and play a role in the body’s immune response. Mine were normal.) “I’m just not sure that small changes in your potassium or chloride or your lipase or your amylase have true meaning for your health.”

Still, Cheema notes that he agrees with the company’s big-picture goal. “We’re backwards in the way that we approach health care—we wait for disease to show up,” he says. “And I think there is very much a role for preventive screening and getting on top of these things before they cause disease.” Looking forward, he believes doctors will start screening for metrics that give people a better understanding of their longevity, though more work is required to determine exactly what those are, why they matter, whether it’s possible to improve them, and if so, how to do it. “I do think this field is ripe for innovation and really could help people live healthier, longer, better lives,” he says. “But I’m not sure that anything this company is doing right now is doing that.”

A new sense of empowerment

Within the span of a couple weeks, I went from knowing nothing about my health to having more data than I knew I contained. Rabbit holes aside, I felt more invested in my well-being than I had in ages—and motivated to find a care team. 

Hyman considers that a victory. “I’m only one guy, so I can only see so many patients,” he says. “I want this to scale up to millions of people.” In the future, he hopes, Function will add even more biomarkers and more depth to its clinician insights. He anticipates steadily increasing demand. “We haven’t done a lot of marketing, and we have 60,000 [paying members],” he says. “So there’s a huge, pent-up need for this.”

He’s in a hurry to start delivering on the largest possible level. Ultimately, he sees Function as a “hub for everyone’s health,” and believes any adult could benefit. “I’m not getting any younger,” he says, before catching his own mistake—because, mind you, his biological age continues to drop. Maybe he is, he concedes. “But I really want to see a shift in this chronic disease epidemic and empower people with their own data, and get this future of medicine here now.”

source https://time.com/7176591/function-health-startup-blood-tests-preventive-medicine/

The UnitedHealthcare CEO Shot and Killed Outside a New York City Hotel

NEW YORK — Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot outside a hotel in midtown Manhattan where he was scheduled to speak at an investor meeting Wednesday morning, according to a person briefed on the investigation.

The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the investigation.

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Police did not release the victim’s name, but said a 50-year-old was shot around 6:45 a.m. outside a Hilton before the shooter fled.

The victim was taken to a nearby hospital but could not be saved.

The preliminary police investigation indicated the shooting was “a targeted murder,” according to Mayor Eric Adams.

He said police were looking at evidence recovered from the scene and canvassing video. “Tell New Yorkers: NYPD is on the job,” he said. “Again, this was not what appears to be a just random act of violence. It seems to be clearly targeted by an individual and we will apprehend that individual.”

UnitedHealthcare is the insurance arm of the health care giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. The Minnetonka, Minnesota-based company was scheduled to have its annual meeting with investors in New York City to update Wall Street on the company’s direction and expectations for the coming year, according to a company media advisory. An announcement was made to attendees Wednesday morning that the conference was ending early.

The Hilton is in a bustling part of Manhattan, a short walk from tourist sites such as the Museum of Modern Art and Rockefeller Center, and often dense with tourists and office workers on weekday mornings. The popular Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree lighting is set to take place Wednesday evening.

Part of the block where the shooting took place was cordoned off with police tape, with a large contingent of police officers at the scene. Many security cameras are nearby.

Thompson had served as CEO for more than three years and had been with the company since 2004.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz tweeted that the state is “sending our prayers to Brian’s family and the UnitedHealthcare team.”

“This is horrifying news and a terrible loss for the business and health care community in Minnesota,” the Democrat wrote.

UnitedHealthcare is the largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans in the U.S. and manages health insurance coverage for employers and state-and federally funded Medicaid programs.

___

Associated Press writer Tom Murphy in Indianapolis, Indiana, contributed to this story.

source https://time.com/7199760/the-unitedhealthcare-ceo-killed-new-york/

South Korean Lawmakers Submit Motion to Impeach President Yoon Over Martial Law

SEOUL — South Korea’s opposition parties on Wednesday submitted a motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is facing pressure to leave office hours after he ended a short-lived martial law that prompted troops to encircle parliament before lawmakers voted to lift it.

Impeaching Yoon would require the support of two-thirds of parliament for the motion and then the backing of at least six Constitutional Court justices. The motion, submitted jointly by the main opposition Democratic Party and five smaller opposition parties, could be put to a vote as early as Friday.

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Yoon’s senior advisers and secretaries offered to resign collectively and his Cabinet members, including Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun, were also facing calls to step down, as the nation struggled to make sense of what appeared to be a poorly-thought-out stunt.

In the capital, tourists and residents walked around, traffic and construction were heard, and other than crowds of police holding shields, it seemed like a normal sunny, cold December morning.

On Tuesday night, Yoon abruptly imposed the emergency martial law, vowing to eliminate “anti-state” forces after he struggled to push forward his agenda in the opposition-dominated parliament. But his martial law was effective for only about six hours, as the National Assembly voted to overrule the president. The declaration was formally lifted around 4:30 a.m. during a Cabinet meeting.

The liberal opposition Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the 300-seat parliament, said Wednesday that its lawmakers decided to call on Yoon to quit immediately or they would take steps to impeach him.

“President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law declaration was a clear violation of the constitution. It didn’t abide by any requirements to declare it,” the Democratic Party said in a statement. “His martial law declaration was originally invalid and a grave violation of the constitution. It was a grave act of rebellion and provides perfect grounds for his impeachment.”

Impeaching him would require support from 200 of parliament’s 300 members. The Democratic Party and other small opposition parties together have 192 seats. But when the parliament rejected Yoon’s martial law declaration in a 190-0 vote, 18 lawmakers from Yoon’s ruling People Power Party cast ballots supporting the rejection, according to National Assembly officials. The leader of the People Power Party, Han Dong-hun, who has long ties with Yoon dating to their days as prosecutors, criticized Yoon’s martial law declaration as “unconstitutional.” If Yoon is impeached, he’ll be stripped of his constitutional powers until the Constitutional Court can rule on his fate. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the No. 2 position in the South Korean government, would take over his presidential responsibilities. As calls mounted for Yoon’s Cabinet to resign, Han issued a public message pleading for patience and calling for Cabinet members to “fulfill your duties even after this moment.”

At least six of the Constitutional Court’s nine justices need to support the motion filed by lawmakers for Yoon to be removed from office. But the court currently has only six justices following the retirements of three justices, which is one below the minimum seven needed to handle a presidential impeachment case, requiring lawmakers to speed up the process of naming new justices.

Yoon’s martial law declaration, the first of its kind in more than 40 years, harkened to South Korea’s past military-backed governments when authorities occasionally proclaimed martial law and other decrees that allowed them to station combat soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles on streets or at public places like schools to prevent anti-government demonstrations. Such scenes of military intervention had not been seen since South Korea achieved a genuine democracy in the late 1980s until Tuesday night.

After Yoon’s declaration, troops carrying full battle gear, including assault rifles, tried to keep protesters away from the National Assembly as military helicopters flew overhead and landed nearby. One soldier pointed his assault rifle at a woman who was among protesters outside the building demanding that the martial law be lifted.

It wasn’t clear how the 190 lawmakers were able to enter a parliamentary hall to vote down Yoon’s martial law decree. Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung livestreamed himself climbing over the wall, and while troops and police officers blocked some from entering they didn’t aggressively restrain or use force against others.

No major violence has been reported. The troops and police personnel were later seen leaving the grounds of the National Assembly after the parliamentary vote to lift the martial law. National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik said: “Even with our unfortunate memories of military coups, our citizens have surely observed the events of today and saw the maturity of our military.”

Han, the People Power Party leader, demanded that Yoon explain his decision and fire Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun, who he said recommended the martial law decree to Yoon. The Defense Ministry has not commented.

Under South Korea’s constitution, the president can declare martial law during “wartime, war-like situations or other comparable national emergency states” that require the use of military force to restrict the freedom of press, assembly and other rights to maintain order. Many observers question whether South Korea is currently in such a state.

The constitution also states that the president must oblige when the National Assembly demands the lifting of martial law with a majority vote.

Some experts say Yoon clearly violated the constitution in how he imposed martial law. While martial law allows “special measures” to restrict individual freedoms and the authority of agencies and courts, the constitution does not permit the functions of parliament to be restricted. But in following Yoon’s declaration on Tuesday, South Korea’s military proclaimed parliamentary activities were suspended and deployed troops to try to block lawmakers from entering the National Assembly.

Park Chan-dae, the Democratic Party’s floor leader, called for Yoon to be immediately investigated on charges of rebellion over the way he deployed troops to the parliament. While the president mostly enjoys immunity from prosecution while in office, the protection does not extend to alleged rebellion or treason.

In Washington, the White House said the U.S. was “seriously concerned” by the events in Seoul. A spokesperson for the National Security Council said President Joe Biden’s administration was not notified in advance of the martial law announcement and was in contact with the South Korean government.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said there was no effect on the more than 27,000 U.S. service members based in South Korea.

In Seoul, the streets seemed busy like a normal day Wednesday.

Tourist Stephen Rowan, from Brisbane, Australia, who was touring Gyeongbokgung Palace, said he was not concerned at all.

“But then again, I don’t understand too much about the political status in Korea,” he said. “But I hear they are now calling for the current president’s resignation, so … apparently there’s going to be a lot of demonstrations. … I would have been concerned if martial law had stayed enforced.”

Yoon’s government and ruling party have been embroiled in an impasse with the Democratic Party over next year’s budget bill and a Democratic Party-led attempt to to impeach three top prosecutors.

During his televised announcement, Yoon also described the opposition as “shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces who are plundering the freedom and happiness of our citizens.” He did not elaborate. North Korea had no immediate comments.

Natalia Slavney, research analyst at the Stimson Center’s 38 North website that focuses on Korean affairs, said Yoon’s imposition of martial law was “a serious backslide of democracy” that followed a “worrying trend of abuse” since he took office in 2022.

South Korea “has a robust history of political pluralism and is no stranger to mass protests and swift impeachments,” Slavney said, citing the example of former President Park Geun-hye, who was ousted from office and imprisoned for bribery and other crimes in 2017. She was later pardoned.

—Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott contributed to this report.

source https://time.com/7199673/south-korea-impeach-president-yoon-martial-law/

Donald Trump’s Nomination of Pete Hegseth Is on Shaky Ground

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox.

First came the raw shock of the nomination. A weekend host of a Fox News morning show to lead the Department of Defense, the largest employer in the United States? Really?

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Then came a reminder that Pete Hegseth doesn’t think women should be in combat roles. And then a nudge to recall that the former National Guardsman thinks diversity and inclusion programs at the Pentagon spawn “wokeness” in the ranks. Then there were the stories about his past advocacy for people accused of war crimes despite opposition from those leading the Department of Defense at the time. And then the stories about his unit’s alleged involvement with war crimes. And his anti-Muslim rhetoric. And maybe a white-Christian-nationalism tattoo. And a flag based on that tattoo to his higher-ups in the military that he could be an “insider threat” who shouldn’t be let near high-pressure environments.

Fine, said the crew down at Mar-a-Lago, the de facto White House-in-waiting. Republicans close to the incoming Donald Trump Administration say the team heading back to Washington knew all of this before they nominated Hegseth as their pick to become the next Secretary of Defense and sixth in line for the presidency itself. Republicans in the Senate held steady, even if behind closed doors there was a sinking feeling that they were on a familiar rollercoaster.

But what caught the Trump team by surprise were the stories that came next. Hegseth is alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman at a Republican women’s conference in California. There is a police report. And there is a hush-money settlement. (Hegseth has denied the assault allegations, arguing the encounter was consensual, and noting the police did not charge him. He also has stood by both his political stances and the tattoo, which Hegseth said disqualified him from guarding President Joe Biden’s Inauguration despite being “just a Christian symbol.”) 

Each story came out in recent days before reports surfaced that his own mother sent him a poison-pen email accusing him of being a serial abuser of women and something of a cad. And then there was the one about him as a bad steward of money raised by the powerful Koch network, a sexist bully, and a drunkard on the job who got canned. And the one that said he billed his wife’s credit card for hotel hookup venues. And the one that claimed his former Fox colleagues worried about his alcohol consumption.

All of which would probably block any other incoming administration’s pick for a receptionist—let alone a Secretary of Defense—from creeping forward. But this is Trump, and he likes to provoke. His top aides doubled-down on Tuesday despite some grumbling that this mightn’t be the best use of their political capital. 

But here’s the thing about Trump: he’s loyal until he isn’t. Late Tuesday afternoon, it became clear the nomination was going wobbly in a big way. Hegseth can afford to lose three Republican Senators, and it looks like there may be a few more doubters than that. While plenty of lawmakers have taken the pro-Trump line, some like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are signaling a “difficult” path ahead. Sen. Joni Ernst, a retired Army Reservist from Iowa who serves on the Armed Services Committee, says she plans a “frank” conversation with Hegseth. The Chairman of that committee, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, said Hegseth will have to answer questions from his panel if he is going to weather the drip of negative stories. Some Republicans who have been inconsistent allies to Trump could break the nomination; many are watching Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Others are bracing for a whistleblower report and audit from Hegseth’s time running the Koch-backed veterans’ group.

Privately, Hill staffers are watching the nomination closely and with little certainty. Even as Trump’s team projected confidence, GOP leadership aides are increasingly skeptical. At least a half-dozen Republican Senators are seen as in play, according to three Hill aides.

This wouldn’t be Trump’s first Cabinet pick to go down. Trump really liked the idea of former Rep. Matt Gaetz to run the Department of Justice until it became clear he was going to be too much of a headache. The drip of bad news about Gaetz’s alleged sexual encounters with minors, drug use, and more—plus its dominance in the new cycle—proved too much for the President-elect. Trump can stand by someone as long as it doesn’t make him appear foolish; bad news is fine as long as it’s not new news to Number One. Crowding Trump off the front page is a fireable offense.

Gaetz’s downfall was the quickest exit of a Cabinet nomination in history so close to Election Day, rivaling a similar eight-day window that George W. Bush’s pick at Labor saw in 2000.

So far, Republicans who will control the confirmation—or not—of Trump’s Cabinet picks have largely held the line on Hegseth in a way they did not for Gaetz. But there are sufficient grumblings about moving forward with someone who has never before run something even comparable to the Pentagon to put the nomination in doubt. Senate Republicans fear Trump and his followers, but they also have to take a close eye on the person that will have Trump’s ear on major military action. There is a fine line between messy and untenable; Trump is testing it with Hegseth.

Democrats have, to this point, stepped aside and allowed Republicans to make trouble themselves. A favorite gif on the Hill since the nominations started has been some variation of someone watching with fascination as they toss popcorn in their mouths. Although Democrats won’t have a veto over Trump’s picks, they’re also not certain that they’re all going to get through. The chaos has already claimed Gaetz, and it, might soon be a fate shared by Hegseth or even Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick as the nation’s top spy master. Another pick raising eyebrows is Kash Patel, a former Hill hand who rose to become the Pentagon’s top aide during the first Trump term and is on deck to head the FBI. And of course there’s anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

For now, Trump’s team is telling allies to hold steady on the rest of the slate. Hegseth is on his version of a charm offensive with Hill offices, and many of the Republicans up there are signaling their fealty. “My position is what President Trump decides to do is what I will support,” Sen. Mike Crapo said when asked about the nominees going forward without so much as an FBI background check. (Since Crapo, an Idaho Republican, said this, the Trump campaign announced it would work with the feds on such vetting.)

And it’s worth remembering that for every moment of suspense when someone like Collins or Murkowski seems to balk at one of Trump’s moves, they were still more likely to side with Trump than not. Yet despite Trump’s strong support among the Senate’s rank and file, Hegseth still might be in trouble. Tuesday’s latest—that Hegseth billed hotels to his then-wife’s credit card while carrying out five affairs—further loosens his hold on the nomination. Trump loves to throw a surprise at his audience. He doesn’t like it the other way. Which may explain why some of his allies at the Capitol are not really investing their time preparing for Hegseth’s potential nomination hearing. Given just how messy the announced pick has been so far, that could be a waste of time. Washington is just watching for Trump to tire of this and move on to a different pick. Welcome to the Waiting Game, Trump’s Version.

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source https://time.com/7199646/pete-hegseth-nomination-trump-republican-senators/

South Korean President Declares Emergency Martial Law

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared an “emergency martial law,” Tuesday accusing the country’s opposition of controlling the parliament, sympathizing with North Korea and paralyzing the government with anti-state activities.

Yoon made the announcement in a televised briefing Tuesday, vowing to “eradicate pro-North Korean forces and protect the constitutional democratic order.”

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It wasn’t immediately clear how Yoon’s step would affect the country’s governance and democracy. The move drew immediate opposition from politicians, including the leader of his own conservative party, Han Dong-hoon, who called the decision “wrong” and vowed to “stop it with the people.” Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, who narrowly lost to Yoon in the 2022 presidential election, called Yoon’s announcement “illegal and unconstitutional.”

“Through this martial law, I will rebuild and protect the free Republic of Korea, which is falling into the depths of national ruin,” Yoon said during a televised speech, invoking South Korea’s formal name.

“I will eliminate anti-state forces as quickly as possible and normalize the country,” he said, while asking the people to believe in him and tolerate “some inconveniences.”

Yoon — whose approval rating has dipped in recent months — has struggled to push his agenda against an opposition-controlled parliament since taking office in 2022.

Yoon’s conservative People Power Party had been locked in an impasse with the liberal opposition Democratic Party over next year’s budget bill. The opposition has also been attempting to pass motions to impeach three top prosecutors, including the chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, in what the conservatives have called a vendetta against their criminal investigations on Lee, who has been seen as the favorite for the next presidential election in 2027 in opinion polls.

Yoon has also been dismissing calls for independent investigations into scandals involving his wife and top officials, drawing quick, strong rebukes from his political rivals. The Democratic Party reportedly called an emergency meeting of its lawmakers following Yoon’s announcement.

source https://time.com/7199557/south-korea-president-martial-law/