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.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS