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 matter in a couple of hours,... but the deadlock there is casting doubt over whether it will go ahead.
For more, we connect live to our political correspondent Kim Min-ji who's standing by at the National Assembly.
Min-ji, since we last spoke,... have there been any developments?
Well a meeting between the floor leaders of the major parties and the National Assembly Speaker has just ended -- but yet again, no agreement has been reached to normalize parliament,
The floor leader of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party told reporters that no developments have been made on setting the agenda for the April session.
At this point, it's unclear whether the prime minister will be able to give his policy speech as scheduled.
Whether the parties strike a last minute deal will have to be seen between now and 2PM -- when the plenary session is scheduled.
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 amending the Constitution.
For the past week, rival lawmakers have been playing the blame game.
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.
So, it still appears unclear. But if they do manage to hammer out an agreement and the prime minister goes on with his policy speech at 2PM during the full parliament session -- what's he likely to emphasize and what are the prospects for the passage of the extra budget?
Prime Minister Lee is expected to call for cooperation from all parties for the swift passage of the almost three-point-eight 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 as
