SOUTH KOREA
Doctors facing suspension
Seoul yesterday said it would take steps to suspend the licenses of striking trainee doctors who have defied orders to return to work in a standoff over medical training reforms. About 9,000 junior doctors walked out nearly two weeks ago to protest against an increase in medical school admissions from next year. The strikers defied a government deadline on Thursday last week for them to return to work or face legal action, including possible arrest or suspension of their licenses. Despite repeated government appeals, the number returning to work “has been minimal,” Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo told a news conference. “Starting today the government is enforcing legal measures,” he said, adding that inspections at hospitals nationwide were to be conducted yesterday to find out who had returned or not.
South KOREA
N Korea targets chip firms
North Korean hacking groups have broken into at least two makers of chipmaking equipment, as Pyongyang looks to evade sanctions and produce its own chips for weapons programs, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said yesterday. The NIS said local firms had been a key target of North Korean hackers since late last year, and called for tougher security. North Korea penetrated the servers of two companies in December and last month, stealing product design drawings and photographs of their facilities, it said. “We believe that North Korea might possibly be preparing to produce its own semiconductors in the face of difficulties in procuring them due to sanctions,” it said in a statement. Also driving the North’s efforts could be higher demand from its satellite, missile and other weapons programs, it added.
INDIA
Police hunt tourist’s rapists
Three Indian men have appeared in court after the gang rape of a Spanish tourist on a motorbike trip with her husband, with police hunting four other suspects, reports said yesterday. The attack took place on Friday night in Jharkhand state’s Dumka district, where the couple were camping. Seven men are accused of carrying out the assault. “We have formed a team to hunt the remaining suspects,” senior local police officer Pitamber Singh Kherwar said. On Sunday, three accused were seen being escorted into court with sacks on their heads by police officers holding ropes tied around their waists. The three were later remanded in custody. The Spanish woman and her husband were also in court. Kherwar said a special team including forensic officers had been formed to scour the scene of the attack, while another team was hunting more suspects.
INDIA
Drivers busy with cricket
The drivers of a train that missed a signal and plowed into another train, killing 14 people, were distracted because they were watching cricket on a phone, Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw said yesterday. The fatal collision in Andhra Pradesh state in October took place as hosts India played England during the one-day international Cricket World Cup. “The recent case in Andhra Pradesh happened because both the loco-pilot and co-pilot were distracted by the cricket match,” Vaishnaw said in a Press Trust of India report. “Now we are installing systems which can detect any such distraction.” Separately, officials sacked the station master and three other employees after a runaway freight train traveled 70km without a driver last month, the Hindustan Times reported.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home