South Korea yesterday said it would allow foreign doctors to work in its hospitals after a rigorous vetting process, as a months-long doctors’ strike shows no sign of resolution.
Thousands stopped working on Feb. 20 to protest government plans to train more doctors, causing chaos in hospitals.
The government, which has already offered some concessions in a bid to end the standoff, this week said that doctors with foreign medical licenses would be allowed to practice in the country, in a bid to ease service disruptions.
After the move was announced, Korean Medical Association head Lim Hyun-taek shared a screenshot of a news report on newly graduated Somali doctors with the comment: “Coming Soon.”
The post, which was later removed, prompted widespread online criticism, and was highly inappropriate and “clearly racist,” said Kim Jae-heon, secretary-general of a non-governmental organization advocating free medical care.
The post “exploited Islamophobia and stereotyping against developing countries,” he said.
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said the government would make sure to “have a thorough safety system to prevent unqualified doctors [with foreign licenses] from treating our people.”
The government is locked in a protracted standoff with the junior doctors, who have refused to return to their hospitals, despite the health ministry offering last month to scale back proposed medical training reforms for next year.
The striking doctors have rejected the offer, demanding instead that the plan to create more doctors be scrapped entirely.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant
‘TERRORISM’: Israel slammed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying that he has revealed his ‘true face’ by embracing the ‘rapists and murderers of Hamas’ Hamas yesterday announced that it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organizations, including Fatah, to work together for “national unity,” with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza. “Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national
Soaring high across a gorge in the rugged Himalayas, a newly finished bridge would soon help India entrench control of disputed Kashmir and meet a rising strategic threat from China. The Chenab Rail Bridge, the highest of its kind in the world, has been hailed as a feat of engineering linking the restive Kashmir valley to the vast Indian plains by train for the first time. However, its completion has sparked concern among some in a territory with a long history of opposing Indian rule, already home to a permanent garrison of more than 500,000 soldiers. India’s military brass say the strategic benefits