Police put the crowd at 100,000, while organizers claimed there were 700,000.

"By this, President Lee Myung-bak is saying that he doesn't want to talk about it anymore," Yong Sang-soon, a demonstrator who came after work, said. Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun appeared at the protest venue, saying "I came to apologize directly to the public." But his move was thwarted by angry protesters.

On the national level, organizers expected up to one million people at the candlelight vigils from the southern resort island of Jeju to the second-largest city of Busan.

Police place South Korean flags on cargo containers that hold sand to form a barricade to block a planned protest march on a street leading to the U.S. embassy and the presidential Blue House in central Seoul June 10, 2008.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Unionized workers walked off their jobs to protest the US beef deal. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the more radical of the country's two umbrella labor unions, warned it will launch indefinite walkout next week. Resentment in the labor sector particularly rose following the death on Monday of a blue-collar worker who immolated himself during a beef protest about two weeks ago.