Day: March 25, 2024

Older US adults should get another COVID-19 shot, health officials recommend  The Associated Press

Relaunched after COVID, local Bible club for kids gaining popularity  SooToday

Elon Musk’s X to pay legal bills for Canadian doctor chastised over COVID-19 tweets  The Globe and Mail

Elon Musk’s X to pay legal bills for vaccine-doubting Canadian doctor  National Post

SEOUL, South Korea — Senior doctors at dozens of hospitals in South Korea planned to submit their resignations Monday in support of medical interns and residents who have been on a strike for five weeks over the government’s push to sharply increase medical school admissions, their leader said.

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Read More: South Korea Deploys Military Surgeons to Public Hospitals as Doctors Strike Drags On

The senior doctors’ action won’t likely cause an immediate worsening of hospital operations in South Korea because they have said they would continue to work even after submitting their resignations. But prospects for an early end to the medical impasse were also dim, as the doctors’ planned action comes after President Yoon Suk Yeol called for talks with doctors while suggesting a possible softening of punitive steps against the striking junior doctors.

About 12,000 interns and medical residents have faced impending suspensions of their licenses over their refusal to end their strikes, which have caused hundreds of cancelled surgeries and other treatments at their hospitals.

Read More: South Korea Urges Doctors to End Strike, Threatening Consequences as Hospitals Suffer

They oppose the government’s plan to increase the country’s medical school admission cap by two-thirds, saying schools can’t handle such a steep increase in students and that it would eventually hurt South Korea’s medical services. But officials say more doctors are urgently needed because South Korea has a rapidly aging population and its doctor-to-population ratio is one of the lowest in the developed world.

In a meeting with ruling party leader Han Dong-hoon on Sunday, representatives of medical professors and doctors at some 40 university hospitals—where the junior doctors work while training—expressed support for the striking doctors, saying the government’s recruitment plan “would collapse our country’s medical system,” Kim Chang-soo, head of the emergency committee at those universities, said Monday.

Kim called Yoon’s overture a positive step but said the current standoff between doctors and the government won’t be resolved unless the government rolls back its recruitment plan.

He said doctors at the universities were expected to stick to earlier plans to submit resignations voluntarily and cut back their working hours to 52 hours per week—the maximum weekly number of legal working hours. Observers say senior doctors have been grappling with excessive workloads after their juniors left their hospitals.

“If the government has an intention of withdrawing its plan or has an intention of considering it, we’re ready to discuss all pending issues with the government before the public,” Kim said.

After Sunday’s meeting, Han asked Yoon’s office to “flexibly handle” the issue of planned license suspensions for the striking doctors. Yoon then asked his prime minister to pursue “a flexible measure” to resolve the dispute and seek constructive consultations with doctors, according to Yoon’s office.

It’s unclear whether and how soon the government and doctors would sit down for talks and reach a breakthrough. Some observers say the government’s likely softening of punishments for the striking doctors and its pursuit of dialogue with doctors were likely related to next month’s parliamentary elections as further disruptions of hospital operations would be unhelpful for ruling party candidates.

The striking junior doctors represent less than 10% of South Korea’s 140,000 doctors. But in some major hospitals, they account for about 30%-40% of the doctors, assisting senior doctors during surgeries and dealing with inpatients while training.

Public surveys show that a majority of South Koreans support the government’s push to create more doctors, and critics say that doctors, one of the highest-paid professions in South Korea, worry about lower incomes due to a rise in the number of doctors.

Officials say more doctors are required to address a long-standing shortage of physicians in rural areas and in essential but low-paying specialties. But doctors say newly recruited students would also try to work in the capital region and in high-paying fields like plastic surgery and dermatology. They say the government plan would also likely result in doctors performing unnecessary treatments due to increased competition.

North Korea said Monday that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has proposed a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as the North urged Japan to show sincerity toward improving bilateral ties and realizing their countries’ first summit in about 20 years.

Japan’s government did not immediately respond to the North Korean announcement. In the statement carried by state media, Kim’s sister and senior official, Kim Yo Jong, said Kishida used an unspecified channel to convey his position that he wants to meet Kim Jong Un in person at an early date.

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Kim Yo Jong said there will be no breakthrough in North Korea-Japan relations as long as Kishida’s government raises the issue of Japanese citizens abducted to North Korea in past decades and opposes what she described as the North’s “exercise of sovereign rights,” apparently referring to the North’s weapons testing activities.

“If Japan continues to try to interfere with our exercise of our sovereign rights, and continues to be preoccupied with the abduction issue, of which there is nothing more to resolve or investigate, then the prime minister’s (offer for talks) will inevitably be labeled as just an attempt to improve his popularity,” she said.

Read More: Japan’s Ruling Party Is Trying to Mend Its Scandal-Ridden Reputation. It’s Failing

“As long as Japan is hostile toward (North Korea) and infringes our sovereign rights, we will consider it as an enemy that is within our target, not as a friend,” Kim Yo Jong said. “The prime minister should know that he won’t be able to meet the leadership of our country just because he wants to or just because he’s determined to.”

In February, Kim Yo Jong issued a similar statement on bilateral ties, saying North Korea was open to improving relationships with Japan and even inviting Kishida to Pyongyang. But she said those would be possible only if Tokyo “drops its bad habit of unreasonably pulling up (North Korea) over its legitimate right to self-defense and does not lay such a stumbling block as the already settled abduction issue.”

Kishida has said previously that he believes a summit with Kim Jong Un is important in various ways, including solving the problem of the abducted Japanese citizens. Japanese media reported he said he wasn’t aware of the North Korean announcement when he was asked about it in parliament Monday.

Some experts say North Korea is seeking to improve ties with Japan as a way to weaken a trilateral Tokyo-Seoul-Washington security partnership, while Kishida also wants better ties with North Korea to increase his declining approval rating at home.

Read More: Soccer Match Between Japan and North Korea Complicated by Off-Field Rivalry and Issues

The U.S. and South Korea have been expanding their military drills and trilateral exercises involving Japan in response to North Korea’s provocative run of weapons tests since 2022. The North Korean weapons tested in recent years included nuclear-capable missiles designed to strike key facilities in Japan as well as those in South Korea and the mainland U.S.

North Korea and Japan don’t have diplomatic ties, and their relations have been overshadowed by North Korea’s nuclear program, the North’s past abduction of Japanese nationals and Japan’s 1910-45 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

After years of denial, North Korea acknowledged in an unprecedented 2002 summit between Kim Jong Il, the late father of Kim Jong Un, and then-Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese, mainly to train spies in Japanese language and culture. It allowed five of them to return to Japan that year, but said the others had died. Japan thinks at least some of them may still be alive, and believes hundreds more may also have been abducted.

Earlier Monday, North Korea’s state media reported that Kim Jong Un supervised a tank exercise and encouraged his armored forces to sharpen war preparations in the face of growing tensions with South Korea.

—AP journalist Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.

The attack brought back memories of past decades, including the wars against Chechen separatists in the 1990s and 2000s that helped enable Putin’s rise to power.

Situated in Novocherkassk, approximately 53 kilometres from Rostov-on-Don, the power plant plays a pivotal role in the Rostov energy system alongside the Rostov NPP.

sydney — New Zealand said Monday a free trade agreement with the European Union would come into effect on May 1, after the country’s parliament ratified the deal.

New Zealand notified the European Union it ratified the agreement earlier on Monday, Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay said in a statement.

Wellington and Brussels signed the deal in July 2023, with the European Parliament ratifying its side of the agreement in November.

New Zealand expects the deal to benefit its beef, lamb, butter and cheese industries, as well as removing tariffs on other exports like its iconic kiwi fruit.

The EU will see tariffs lifted on its exports including clothing, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and cars, as well as wine and confections.

The EU is New Zealand’s fourth-largest trade partner, according to government data, with two-way goods and services trade worth $12.10 billion in 2022.