We start at the National Assembly... where the government is stepping up efforts to get its multi-billion U.S. dollar supplementary budget through parliament.
The prime minister is scheduled to address parliament on the budget this afternoon,... but the deadlock there is casting doubt over whether the schedule can go on as planned.
For more, we connect live to our political correspondent Kim Min-ji who's standing by at the National Assembly.
Min-ji, have there been any developments?
Well Mark, the floor leaders of the major parties had a closed door meeting early this morning -- in an attempt to settle their differences -- however, no agreement was made there.
After the meeting,... the floor leaders told reporters that no developments towards normalizing parliament have been made thus far.
Now, they are scheduled to meet again with the National Assembly Speaker in about half an hour's time -- where they will make another attempt to narrow their differences.
The National Assembly, as you said, has been at a standstill since the start of the April session -- which was last Monday -- with rival parties at odds over contentious bills that need to be handled... and talks on the Constitutional amendment.
For the past week, rival lawmakers have been playing the blame game,... so at this point, it's unclear whether the prime minister will be able to give his speech as scheduled.
The main opposition Liberty Korea Party and the centrist Bareun Mirae Party have said they won't participate unless the ruling party is willing to make concessions.
We'll have to see the outcome of the meeting.
If they do manage to hammer out an agreement, and the prime minister goes on with his policy speech,... what's he likely to emphasize and what are the prospects for the passage of the extra budget?
The prime minister is expected to call for cooperation from all parties for the swift passage of the almost 3-point-8 billion U.S. dollar extra budget bill.
The speech is expected to last about 30 minutes -- and he will likely address the country's youth unemployment woes -- stressing that the extra budget is a must in order to solve that problem.
The prime minister will also likely point out the need to use the extra budget to breathe life into ailing regions hit by corporate restructuring.
But, even if it does go on as scheduled,... the passage of the bill itself, isn't going to be easy.
Opposition parties haven't been fond of the drawing up of a supplementary budget -- saying it's only been three months since this year's full budget was passed -- and they accused the government and ruling party of pumping in money to woo voters ahead of the local elections in June.
On top of that, this new budget comes less than a year since the government's first extra budget was implemented -- with some parties questioning the effectiveness of the extra budget -- and saying that the impact of the previous supplementary budget has to be assessed first.
That's all I have f
