Hello and welcome to NewsHour. I'm Celia Hatton, coming to you live from London.

Let's go straight to our top story breaking in the last hour and a half.

The president of South Korea has declared martial law, saying the country needed to be protected from North Korea's communist forces. He made the announcement

in a late-night television address.

Dear citizens, I hereby declare martial law to protect the Republic of Korea from the threats

posed by North Korean communist forces

and to eradicate in one sweep the shameless pro-north anti-state forces

that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people

and to safeguard the constitutional order of freedom.

That was the President of South Korea, Yun Sung-Yol.

Let's go live now to the capital, Seoul, and speak to freelance journalist Nemo Kim.

Nemo, I want to get to what's actually happening in Seoul in just a moment.

But first, can you tell us more about what the president actually said?

Yes. Just as the report just now mentioned, President Yun used extremely strong words when he imposed the emergency martial law. The speech got, the

burden of the speech got stronger as he went on. And it was very reminiscent of the

situation in South Korea back in the 1980s when we actually had curfews and stuff. So he basically said that

there are clear anti-state behavior aimed at inciting rebellion on the part of the opposition party.

And he said that martial law is an extremely necessary measure at this point, and I quote here,

to eradicate these shameless pro-north anti-state forces.

And President Yun justified this decision as essential to protect the freedoms and safety of the people of South Korea.

Nemo, as you mentioned, South Korea has a history of martial law.

We're now seeing that local media reports that police buses have blocked entrance to the parliament there.

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