SEOUL: South Korea granted nurses new powers and legal protections Tuesday and launched an investigation into a patient’s death, as hospital chaos caused by striking trainee doctors entered a second week.
Major hospitals are struggling to provide services after thousands of junior medics handed in their resignation and stopped working last week to protest against government plans to sharply increase medical school admissions in the face of a rapidly aging society.
The government said Tuesday it would launch an investigation after a patient died of a cardiac arrest in an ambulance after struggling to find a hospital.
Emergency services contacted seven different hospitals but “were told there were no trainee doctors,” the daily JoongAng Ilbo reported.
“The government is conducting an on-site probe with related agencies into the death,” Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said.
The mass work stoppage has also resulted in cancelations and postponements of surgeries for cancer patients and C-sections for pregnant women, with the government raising its public health alert to the highest level over the fallout.
Nurses will now be allowed to perform some medical procedures previously reserved for doctors, and offered immunity from any potential lawsuits linked to their new scope of work, Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo said.
“This pilot program will legally protect the nurses who are filling the medical vacuum created by trainee doctors’ walkouts at hospitals,” Park said.
The government said it needed to protect nurses as there were currently some “grey area” as to what medical treatments could be performed by which staff, at a time when nurses were “shouldering the workload” due to the strike.
The administrations of each hospital can work with nurses to decide which tasks they can perform.
The government has set a Thursday ultimatum for doctors to return to work, saying that legal action — including prosecution and the suspension of medical licenses — will be taken against those who refuse.
“We urge the trainee doctors to return to medical fields as soon as possible,” Park said.
Kim Sung-ju, the head of Korean Cancer Patients Rights Council, said that delays in chemotherapy and surgeries were happening in all university hospitals near the Seoul metropolitan area.
“We will thoroughly investigate all potential legal grounds and hold those responsible accountable if those with severe illnesses suffer severe damage,” Kim said.
Doctors are restricted from strikes by South Korean law, but the medics have said they have no option but to stop working to show their fierce opposition to the government’s plan.
Seoul says it has one of the lowest doctor-to-population ratios among developed countries, and the government is pushing hard to admit 2,000 more students to medical schools annually, starting next year.
Junior doctors say the reforms are the final straw in a profession where they already struggle with tough working conditions. They also argue that the over-reliance on trainees in the current health care system is not reasonable or fair.
But President Yoon Suk Yeol said Tuesday that “medical reform cannot be subject to negotiation or compromise.”
“No reasons can justify acts that hold lives and health of the people hostage,” he said at a meeting.
Polls suggest up to 75 percent of the South Korean public supports the increase in medical school admissions.
South Korea empowers nurses as doctors’ strike continues
https://arab.news/8te8n
South Korea empowers nurses as doctors’ strike continues
- Major hospitals struggling to provide services after thousands of junior medics handed in their resignation
- Nurses will now be allowed to perform some medical procedures previously reserved for doctors
Philippine VP made ‘active threat’ on Marcos’ life: palace
- The statement followed an expletive-laced press conference in which Duterte alleged she was the subject of an assassination plot
The statement followed an expletive-laced press conference in which Duterte alleged she was the subject of an assassination plot and said she ordered a member of her security team to kill the president should it succeed.
The Duterte and Marcos families have seen their alliance unravel in spectacular fashion in recent months, trading accusations of drug addiction and increasingly extreme rhetoric ahead of next year’s mid-term elections and presidential polls in 2028.
“I already talked to a person in my security. I told him if I get killed, kill BBM (Ferdinand Marcos), (first lady) Liza Araneta and (the president’s cousin) Martin Romualdez. No joke,” Duterte said at a press conference that began after midnight.
“I said, if I die, don’t stop until you have killed them.”
Hours later, the palace communications office said it had referred “this active threat to the Presidential Security Command for immediate proper action.”
“Any threat to the life of the President must always be taken seriously, more so that this threat has been publicly revealed in clear and certain terms,” it said in a statement.
Duterte is facing the threat of impeachment in the House of Representatives, led by Marcos’s cousin Romualdez, who is widely expected to run for president in 2028.
She has also had a messy falling out with the president’s wife Liza Araneta-Marcos, who has accused her of laughing at a January event where her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, accused Marcos of being a “drug addict.”
Duterte called her late-night press conference after House officials said they would transfer her chief of staff — detained after being cited for contempt — from the lower chamber’s detention center to a correctional facility.
Zuleika Lopez was detained on Wednesday after being accused of “undue interference” in House proceedings focused on Duterte’s spending of public funds.
Duterte stepped down from the cabinet post of education secretary in June as relations between the two families reached a breaking point.
Months earlier, her father had accused Marcos of being a “drug addict,” with the president the next day claiming his predecessor’s health was failing due to long-term use of the powerful opioid fentanyl.
Neither provided evidence of their allegations.
In October, Duterte said she felt “used” after teaming with Marcos for the May 2022 election, which they won by a landslide.
Duterte remains the constitutional successor to the 67-year-old president.
US restricts food, metal imports on Uyghur forced labor concerns
- Goods wholly or partially made by the sanctioned firms will be restricted from entering the US, says the Department of Homeland Security
- China is accused of incarcerating over 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, although officials strongly deny this
WASHINGTON: The United States said Friday that it is barring imports from dozens more China-based companies — ranging from businesses in the metals to food industries — citing worries over forced labor.
Officials are adding around 30 entities to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entity list, meaning that goods wholly or partially made by these firms will be restricted from entering the United States.
The new additions bring the total number on the list to 107, said the Department of Homeland Security.
The reason is that the companies were found to either source materials from China’s northwestern Xinjiang region or work with its local government “to recruit, transfer, and receive workers, including Uyghurs, out of Xinjiang,” said the US Trade Representative’s office.
Beijing has been accused of incarcerating over one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of detention facilities in Xinjiang, although officials strongly deny this.
The newly-targeted companies make goods ranging from agricultural to aluminum products, along with polysilicon materials.
They also mine and process metals like copper, gold and nickel, the USTR statement added.
Among them are companies tied to Chinese electric vehicle battery manufacturer CATL and China-linked Gotion too, a bipartisan US congressional committee noted on Friday.
Earlier this year, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and others flagged CATL and Gotion’s ties to two businesses, Xinjiang Nonferrous and Xinjiang Joinworld.
Both were included in the latest update.
The committee’s chairman John Moolenaar and other lawmakers released a statement saying: “While we are pleased with this initial step, we remain concerned that CATL and Gotion’s supply chains are deeply tied to the Xinjiang region.”
The rule comes into effect on November 25.
“Companies should not secure unfair advantages by exploiting workers,” said US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
“We will enforce our laws to address forced labor and prevent companies that violate workers’ rights from benefiting from the US market,” she added in a statement.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was signed into law in 2021.
Trump plans to assemble investigative teams to look into 2020 election, Washington Post reports
WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump plans to assemble investigative teams at the Department of Justice to search for evidence in battleground states that fraud tainted the 2020 election, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing a source.
Trump, who won the 2024 election but lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, has falsely claimed that he lost the 2020 election due to extensive voter fraud, a view shared by millions of his supporters.
Trump was indicted last year on federal charges for his attempts to overturn the election. The charges stemmed from an investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
The Washington Post, citing two people close to Trump’s transition team, reported that Trump plans to fire the entire team that worked with Smith.
Dutch court weighs a lawsuit against arms sales to Israel
- Opening the case at the court in The Hague, Judge Sonja Hoekstra noted: “It is important to underline that the Dutch State does not contest the gravity of the situation in Gaza, nor is the status of the West Bank”
THE HAGUE: Pro-Palestinian groups took the Dutch state to court on Friday, urging a halt to arms exports to Israel and accusing the government of failing to prevent what they termed a genocide in Gaza.
The NGOs argued that Israel is breaking international law in Gaza and the West Bank, invoking, among others, the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
“Israel is guilty of genocide and apartheid” and “is using Dutch weapons to wage war,” said Wout Albers, a lawyer representing the NGOs.
“Dutch weapons are killing children every day in Palestine, including my family,” said Ahmed Abofoul, a legal adviser to Al-Haq, one of the groups involved in the suit. Israel furiously denies accusations of genocide as it presses on with the offensive in Gaza.
Opening the case at the court in The Hague, Judge Sonja Hoekstra noted: “It is important to underline that the Dutch State does not contest the gravity of the situation in Gaza, nor is the status of the West Bank.”
“Today is about finding out what is legally in play and what can be expected of the state if the state can be expected to do more or act differently than it is currently acting,” she added.
She acknowledged this was a “sensitive case,” saying: “It’s a whole legal debate.”
The lawyer for the Dutch State, Reimer Veldhuis, said the Netherlands has been applying European laws in force for arms exports.
Veldhuis argued the case should be tossed out.
“It is unlikely that the minister responsible will grant an arms export license to Israel that would contribute to the Israeli army’s activities in Gaza or the West Bank,” said Veldhuis.
The case comes one day after another court based in The Hague, the International Criminal Court, issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister.
How COP29 outcome may impact countries most affected by climate change
- UN Climate Change Conference in Baku brought together policymakers, researchers and environmentalists from 200 countries
- Discussions covered energy transition, climate finance, loss and damage funding and environmental cost of geopolitical tensions
BAKU, Azerbaijan: The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference concluded in the capital of Azerbaijan on Friday with climate activists, world leaders and investors reflecting on climate change’s global impacts and the urgent need for actionable solutions.
This year’s event emphasized financing mechanisms, particularly to alleviate the suffering of vulnerable nations, and especially the developing countries most affected by climate change.
COP29 — the 29th Conference of the Parties under the United Nations climate organization UNFCCC — ran from Nov. 11 to 22 and brought together policymakers, researchers, and environmentalists from 200 countries.
A dominant theme was energy transition, as fossil fuel emissions remain the biggest driver of global warming.
The UN reports that burning coal, oil, and gas accounts for more than 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and roughly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.
Policymakers argued that reducing reliance on traditional fuels and adopting modern energy solutions could significantly shrink the global carbon footprint and bring the world closer to net-zero targets.
The University of Exeter’s Global Carbon Budget recently projected total CO2 emissions to rise from 40.6 billion metric tons in 2023 to 41.6 billion in 2024.
Sharing his perspective on the COP29 negotiations and the change he hopes to see, climate activist Philip McMaster, known on social media as SustainaClaus, told Arab News he is campaigning for a a healthier environment for children.
“The message of SustainaClaus is ‘Make childhood great again.’ Why? Because we all had a childhood before,” he said on the sidelines of the conference. “It was either great or not, but it was a very important period of time, and that is what these negotiations should be about: how we make the world a better place for the next generations.”
He added: “I hope to see global change.”
DID YOUKNOW?
• In the first week of COP29, as a step to foster sustainable energy, Saudi Arabia signed an executive program with Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan to strengthen collaboration on renewable energy development.
• The COP29 agenda included energy transition, finance, urbanization and Article 6.
• Climate finance was the main topic discussed in Baku, along with the need to raise funds for vulnerable nations.
Military activity also emerged as a significant environmental threat. Olga Lermak, communications lead at Greencubator, a Ukraine-based cleantech accelerator, noted the ecological devastation caused by war.
“War creates a climate crisis not just where it happens; it pollutes air, water, and land,” she said.
Ukraine accounts for 35 percent of Europe’s biodiversity, including 70,000 plant and animal species, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. Among its endangered animals are the sandy blind mole-rat, the Russian desman, and the saker falcon.
The country’s ongoing conflict with Russia has caused significant damage to that biodiversity, according to Lermak.
“I hope that the negotiations held here bring great solutions, something that will help us to move forward,” she said. “I hope it is not just conversations, not just talking, but real action after this.”
Opinion
This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)
Another key issue debated at COP29 was loss and damage funding — addressing “unavoided” damage caused by climate change in the most vulnerable countries as well as “unavoidable” damage such as that caused by rising sea levels. Investment in emissions reduction was one of the key solutions put forward for dealing with unavoided damage.
Researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change estimate that the loss and damage needs of vulnerable countries will amount to between $130 billion and $940 billion in 2025 alone.
Gloria Bulus, team lead at Nigeria’s Bridge that Gap Initiative, emphasized that beyond highlighting loss and damage, there must also be a focus on delivering investment and implementing concrete solutions.
“We are expecting a lot to be (invested) in terms of the loss and damage, so that it goes beyond the speeches,” she said.
Highlighting some of the pressing environmental challenges her country is facing, Bulus expressed her hope for “fair” negotiations.
“Negotiations have been very slow for us,” she said. “What we want is action. What we want is an outcome that favors people, where we have renewable energy transition.”
Among other steps, COP29 promised to secure “the highest ambition outcome possible,” proposing that wealthier countries contribute $250 billion annually to developing nations to support their efforts in tackling climate change.
