Yoon said he's cooperating to avert "bloodshed" but invoked his right to remain silent and his lawyers are using "every legal tactic" in the book, analysts say, against the insurrection probe into his ill-fated declaration of martial law.

The launch came as Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya visited South Korea for a series of meetings with top officials, with the Asian neighbours seeking to boost bilateral ties before Trump returns to office next week.

President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea is set to receive an annual pay raise despite being actively suspended after placing the country under martial law.

The black boxes of Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 stopped recording minutes before the crash that killed 179 people.

The Cameroon-flagged vessel was supposed to sail to South Korea after it was briefly detained by Taiwan's coast guard on Friday on suspicion of dragging its anchor over an international subsea cable northeast of the island.

Authorities on Thursday carried out search and seizure operations at Muan airport where flight 2216 crashed, a regional aviation office in the southwestern city, and Jeju Air's office in the capital Seoul, police said.

The Boeing 737-800 was carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea Sunday when it issued a mayday call and belly-landed before hitting a barrier and bursting into flames, killing everyone aboard except two flight attendants pulled from the burning wreckage.

US investigators, including from Boeing, arrived at the crash site in southwestern Muan, officials said, as South Korean authorities began assessing two black boxes retrieved from the burned-out wreckage of the aircraft.

US air safety officials and staff from the beleaguered aircraft maker Boeing were arriving to join investigators probing the worst air disaster on South Korean soil, which officials initially blamed on a collision with birds.

A text message sent by a passenger who died in South Korea's worst domestic aviation disaster on Sunday was revealed.

A shocking video shows the moment a Boeing aircraft traveling from Thailand to South Korea crashed into a concrete wall upon landing, killing 179.

Han Duck-soo took over as acting president from President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was suspended following a parliamentary vote over his move to impose martial law on December 3.

South Korea's opposition said Thursday it filed an impeachment motion against acting president Han Duck-soo, after he refused to appoint Constitutional Court judges to complete the process of removing his predecessor from office.

Yoon, suspended from office by parliament since Saturday, faces concurrent probes over alleged insurrection by both South Korean prosecutors and a joint team of police, defence ministry and anti-corruption investigators.

Celebration broke out in the streets of Seoul, South Korea after the nation's National Assembly voted to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol following his short-lived attempt to declare martial law earlier this month.

The National Assembly voted 204-85 to impeach Yoon Suk Yeol for 'insurrectionary acts undermining the constitutional order'

President Yoon Suk Yeol faces an impeachment vote this Saturday after briefly imposing martial law in South Korea.

Shortly after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law late Tuesday -- the first time it had been imposed in the South in over four decades -- helicopters ferried the heavily-armed troops into the compound of South Korea's parliament, the footage showed.

Starbucks has just opened a coffee shop on an observation tower near one of the world's most heavily armed borders: the border between North and South Korea.

A South Korean woman is facing jail time for mocking a K-pop star's voice on social media. Prosecutors are seeking a four-month prison sentence.

The 26-year-old was accused of devising a diet plan to help them maintain a BMI high enough so that they would not have to complete military service.

Johnny Somali, a 24-year-old American live-streamer, is facing multiple charges in South Korea after creating a series of culturally insensitive videos.

The president of South Korea began practicing golf again for the first time in eight years to eventually play with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

American women are discovering the 4B Movement, a fight against misogyny that for some women offers a way to reclaim power lost when Donald Trump won the presidential election.

President Yoon Suk Yeol said Thursday he had discussed North Korea with US president-elect Donald Trump in a phone conversation that laid the groundwork for a meeting in the "near future".

The nuclear-armed North last week test-fired what it said was its most advanced and powerful solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in Kim Jong Un's first weapons test since being accused of sending soldiers to help Russia fight Ukraine.

Seoul had warned a day earlier that the nuclear-armed North was preparing to test-fire another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or even conduct a nuclear test ahead of next week's US elections.

Seoul has long accused the nuclear-armed North of sending weapons to help Moscow fight Kyiv, and after Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defence deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June, Pyongyang is alleged to have moved to deploy soldiers en masse.

North Korean state media said Monday that an investigation had "proved" South Korea's military sent a drone over Pyongyang to drop propaganda leaflets, calling it an infringement of sovereignty.

A North Korean "trash balloon" exploded over the South Korean Presidential Office Compound in Seoul on Thursday.