Park Geun-hye fired as court upholds impeachment

The court’s decision capped a stunning fall for the country’s first female leader. She could face criminal charges and they may seek to block her from leaving the country, according to Korean broadcaster YTN. “Young people know what’s happening now, but we old people were living in the past”.

Coming two and half days after Park was formally stripped of presidency by the Constitutional Court, those words may signal how Park will behave in the days and weeks to come.

Demonstrators gather in Seoul on Saturday night for a candlelight rally to celebrate former president Park Geun-hye’s ouster.

In a televised speech, Hwang said “there would be people who feel they can not understand or accept (the court ruling), but it’s now time to move on and end all conflict and standoff”.

She obtained a degree in electronic engineering from Sogang University in 1974 and as well as her native Korean, she also speaks Chinese, English, French and Spanish.

She became an instant political star among older conservative South Koreans who fondly remembered her mother and revered her father for helping pull a war-ravaged nation out of poverty.

President Park eventually took office in 2013, promising to improve “economic prosperity, people’s happiness, and cultural enrichment”.

Government lawyers studied reports that people close to the president were using her office to raise millions of dollars.

Like a patient awakened from an enforced period of suspended animation, South Korea’s body politic has been sharply brought back to life.

The crisis began five months ago, when tabloid news stories began to appear about Park’s intimate reliance on a childhood friend named Choi Soon-sil. These protests reflected the enormous anger that masses of South Koreans feel not only against the president’s personal conduct and relations to the chaebol, but very broadly against a discredited economic and political system.

But the judges dismissed some charges, including accusations Ms Park had infringed on freedom of the press by creating a media blacklist of cultural figures, and criticism of her response during the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster.

Ms Park is alleged to have been personally involved in this, and to have given Ms Choi unacceptable levels of access to official documents.

Celebrations after court upholds President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment, but two die after protests against her removal. The case revolved around suspicions that she colluded with a confidante to extort money and favors from companies and allowed the friend to secretly manipulate state affairs.

Moon, a liberal, has called for South Korea’s strict national security laws to be repealed.

The Trump government in Washington said that it “look (s) forward to a productive relationship with whomever the people of South Korea elect to be their next president”.

As long as she remained nominally in office, Park refused to be questioned, and at one point Cheong Wa Dae staff physically scuffled with prosecutors to stop them searching the compound.

Yonhap news agency said nine senior presidential advisers tendered their resignations to acting leader Hwang Kyo-ahn today. Among the most popular is Moon Jae-in, a former democracy activist and human-rights attorney who, while Park was in office, led the opposition Democratic Party of Korea.