This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Nick Miles and at 14 hours GMT on Wednesday the 11th of December, these are our main stories.

There's been a standoff in South Korea between security officers and the police at the President's Office.

The new Syrian leadership promises to guarantee the rights of all religious groups.

Cases of dengue fever in Central and South America have surged to a record high.

Also in this podcast, the trial has begun in Amsterdam of seven men accused of violent disorder

against Israeli football fans last month. And alphabet shares are higher after announcing a

quantum computing breakthrough, unveiling its new chip Willow. Google says its new quantum

computing chip is far faster than the world's best computers. But what practical use does it have?

We start in South Korea, where for many hours police were locked in a standoff with security

guards outside the presidential office in Seoul. They wanted to search the building to investigate

President Yun Suk Yul's declaration of martial law last week, but the guards refused to let them in. Outside the

National Assembly in Seoul, thousands of protesters cheered and waved glow sticks, demanding

the president is arrested. Some holding signs that say dismantle the people power party.

Well, the spokesman for the opposition Democratic Party, Joe Song Lai, told journalists that

President Yun and the officials helping him were breaking the law.

What the office of the president and the Secret Service are protecting right now is not a head of state, but an insurgent.

Therefore, interfering with the police raid constitutes participation in the insurrection by protecting the insurgents.

Celia Hatton got the latest from our correspondent in Seoul, Gene McKenzie.

Today, police officers have tried to raid the president's office.

They've been there to try and get hold of the minutes of the meetings,

two crucial meetings that he held, one before he decided to impose martial law in the minutes beforehand,

...