SEOUL – South Korean prosecutors indicted a former senior presidential aide and a former vice culture minister as part of their investigation of a corruption scandal that has led to President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment in parliament, media said on Sunday.

Friday’s overwhelming parliamentary vote to remove Park from office puts her fate in the hands of a nine-judge Constitutional Court, which has 180 days to decide whether to uphold the motion.

Park’s powers have been suspended and assumed by Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who has ordered a high state of military alert for any attempt by rival North Korea to take advantage of the political turmoil.

South Korea’s finance minister warned on Sunday that the impeachment could weigh on the economy if sentiment was undermined.

Park, whose father ruled the country for 18 years after seizing power in a military coup, has been accused of colluding with a friend and a former aide, both of whom prosecutors indicted earlier, to pressure big businesses to donate to foundations set up to back her policy initiatives.

Park, who is serving a single five-year term ending in February 2018, has denied wrongdoing but apologised for carelessness in her ties with her friend, Choi Soon-sil.

Prosecutors on Sunday again characterised Park as a co-conspirator, media reported, although she has immunity from prosecution as long as she remains in office.

They made a similar assertion on Nov. 20.

If the Constitutional Court affirms the parliamentary vote, Park would become the first democratically elected leader of Asia’s fourth-biggest economy to be forced from office. “Amid so much global uncertainty, this political situation is further weighing on the economy and a downturn in sentiment could be another problem,” Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho told a news conference.

PROTESTS

The two former officials whose charges were reported by media on Sunday included a former senior economic aide, Cho Won-dong, accused of colluding with the president in trying to pressure a South Korean conglomerate, CJ Group, to dismiss a group vice chairman, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Cho told a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday he had found the arm-twisting wrong but he had to deliver the president’s message to the conglomerate.

The chairman of food-to-entertainment conglomerate CJ Group, Sohn Kyung-shik, told a separate hearing that Cho had met him and asked the group to remove the vice chairman from her position.

The second newly charged person was a former vice culture minister, Kim Chong, indicted for suspected abuse of power and coercion for exerting influence over a state-run firm to make a contract with a sports management company controlled by the president’s friend, Yonhap and other outlets reported.

Prosecutors were not immediately available for comment.

A spokesman in the presidential Blue House declined to comment.

The scandal blew up in October and has drawn large, festive street protests in Seoul for the past seven Saturdays, with the crowds calling for Park to step down immediately.

A candle-lit rally on Saturday drew a smaller crowd of about 120,000 at its peak, police said, although organisers put the total number of participants at 800,000.

North Korean state media has been scathing in its coverage of the scandal.

On Sunday, it said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guided a special operations drill targeting the South. Pictures in the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed what appeared to be a mockup of South Korea’s presidential Blue House as a target.

The United States, which has about 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, was in close contact with South Korea and remained a strong ally, the White House said late on Friday.

In Korea, the diversity of seaweed can be dizzying, from silken thin maesaengi to strands of emerald green parae and wide ribbons of miyeok.

Among the staggering Korean lexicon of edible algae there is a delicacy traditionally enjoyed on Jeju Island called mojaban or mom.

Thicker than parae but thinner than miyeok, mom is customarily enjoyed in a pork-based soup called mom-guk on Jeju Island.

On the mainland, mom-guk can be had at Hallasan Korean Food Restaurant, which specializes in Jeju Island cuisine.

“People can enjoy the food of Jeju Island here without having to travel there,” said Hallasan Korean Food Restaurant owner-chef Lee Sang-kwon.

“We make our mom-guk broth with pork bones,” said Lee, 36, himself a native of Jeju Island.

“Our ingredients and the foundation of our dishes are traditional but we aim to be trendy in how we interpret them,” said Lee, who studied Japanese cuisine before working at various hotels.

Take his abalone and sea urchin rice hot pot for instance which features mom but, according to Lee, is not a traditional Jeju dish.

Lee said he wanted to create something that would feature hot, freshly cooked rice and healthy ingredients like seaweed, abalone and sea urchin.

Served with two sauces, one made with doenjang (fermented soybean paste) and freshwater snails called daseulgi, and the other with soy sauce and chives, the rice arrives in a hot stone pot called “dolsot.”

Topped with sea urchin, abalone and mom, one can mix it all together with one of the sauces like bibimbap, for a hearty and fortifying meal.

Hallasan also serves another popular Jeju Island seaweed soup of sea urchin and miyeok.

“The key to this soup is in the fragrance and flavor of the sea urchin that is used,” said Lee, who added that he keeps his version simple and focused on the two main ingredients — sea urchin and miyeok.

In addition to seafood like sea urchin and abalone, Hallasan also serves fish, including mackerel, which arrives grilled and garnished with rock salt.

The meaty, snowy flesh does not taste fishy or salty and pairs well with the side dishes and rice.

While Jeju Island cuisine is known for its seafood, it is famous for its pork as well, Lee explained when asked about the origin of the popular Jeju Island variation on suyuk (boiled pork).

Called dombe gogi, the boiled pork dish is served on a wooden cutting board — hence the name dombe, which Lee explains means cutting board in the Jeju Island dialect.

“We serve our ‘dombe gogi’ with immature green garlic pickled in soy sauce and ‘galchi sok jeot’ (fermented hairtail innards),” said Lee. “It pairs well when eaten together.”

Not only does Hallasan specialise in the cuisine of Jeju Island, the restaurant also serves alcoholic beverages from the island, like Jeju makgeolli and Hallasan Soju.

“I want it to be authentic,” said Lee of his restaurant, which opened in Seoul’s Sinsa-dong near Garosugil this October.

Hallasan Korean Food Restaurant

554-10 Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

(02) 545-1912

Open 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily

Meals cost 15,000 won (S$18.30) to 20,000 won, grilled fish (excluding hairtail) costs 15,000 won to 20,000 won, soups cost 9,000 won to 20,000 won