Author: GIKorea

The government should really revoke medical licenses from anyone participating in this strike that is adversely impacting so many patients:

To cope with a potential disruption of medical services, the government will extend operating hours at 97 public hospitals and emergency rooms at 12 military hospitals will be opened to the public, Park said.

“We are deeply disappointed and concerned that the collective action by trainee doctors has led to a disruption in medical services, such as the cancellation of surgeries,” Park said. 

“We cannot give justification to the actions of the doctors leaving their patients behind to protest a policy despite knowing what the collective action could result in,” Park added. 

“The government will put in utmost efforts to operate an emergency medical system to minimize possible damage to the patients.”

The government says the increase in the admission quota is needed to address a shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas and essential medical fields, such as high-risk surgeries, pediatrics, obstetrics and emergency medicine.

The number of doctors in South Korea relative to the size of the population is among the lowest in the developed world, according to health authorities.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The cover up is what caused these senior police officials to be convicted of a crime, not the incompetence that contributed to the Itaewon crowd crush disaster:

A South Korean court on Wednesday convicted three former police officers of destroying internal files and other evidence in an attempted cover-up after a Halloween crowd crush that killed nearly 160 people in the capital, Seoul, in 2022. They were the first convictions over the deaths. The high death toll was largely blamed on official failures in disaster planning and a botched emergency response. More than 20 government and police officials were indicted.

The Seoul Western District Court sentenced Park Seong-min, a former senior intelligence officer at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, to 18 months in prison on charges that he ordered subordinates to erase internal documents after the crush. Those included reports showing how police ignored warnings about possible crowd-related accidents in the nightlife district of Itaewon. Kim Jin-ho, a former intelligence officer at Seoul’s Yongsan district police station, received a suspended one-year sentence on similar charges. Kwang Yeong-seok, a lower-ranking officer at the Yongsan station, received a four-month deferred sentence after being found guilty of destroying files under Kim’s instruction.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but what continues to amaze me about this Itaewon tragedy is that there is a police station right across the street from the Hamilton Hotel where the disaster happened. The police received warnings for hours of the dangerous crowds in the area and nothing was done by the police personnel in the station right across the street.

It looks like Japan is the one democratic nation that the North Koreans are looking to play nice with:

The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered a rare opening for Japan, saying she saw a positive tone in comments from Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is seeking a summit. Kim Yo Jong indicated a meeting of leaders would be possible if Japan “does not lay such a stumbling block as the already settled abduction issue,” she said in a press statement issued Thursday on state media.

“It is my opinion that if Japan makes a political decision to open up a new way of mending the relations through its courteous behavior and trustworthy action on the basis of courageously breaking with anachronistic hostility and unattainable desire and recognizing each other, the two countries can open up a new future together,” the statement carried on the Korean Central News Agency said.

The tone is a marked change from comments she issued nearly two years ago when she lumped Japan in with a bunch of “sinister” nations she accused of raising rabble at the United Nations to criticize Pyongyang for the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but what I suspect is that the Kim regime sees the growing relationship between Japan and South Korea. Because of this they probably want to play nice with Japan in order to try and separate them from South Korea.

ITTF World Table Tennis Championships kicks off in Busan

The opening ceremony for the International Table Tennis Federation World Team Table Tennis Championships takes place at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center in the southeastern port city of Busan, on Feb. 17, 2024, as provided by the organizing body. (Yonhap)

This whole story sounds like something out of the Onion:

For five years, a man managed to live rent-free in a landmark New York City hotel by exploiting an obscure local housing law.

But prosecutors say Mickey Barreto went too far when he filed paperwork claiming ownership of the New Yorker Hotel building in midtown Manhattan — and tried to charge another tenant rent.

This month, he was arrested and charged with filing false property records. But Barreto, 48, says he was surprised when police showed up at his boyfriend’s apartment with guns and bulletproof shields. As far as he is concerned, it should be a civil case, not a criminal one.

“I said, ‘Oh, I thought you were doing something for Valentine’s Day to spice up the relationship until I saw the female officers,’” Barreto recalled telling his boyfriend.

LA Times

This guy was getting free rent at a $200 a day hotel through a legal loophole for five years and still got greedy and tried to claim ownership of the entire hotel:

Manhattan prosecutors acknowledge that the housing court gave Barreto “possession” of his room. But they say he didn’t stop there: In 2019, he uploaded a fake deed to a city website, purporting to transfer ownership of the entire building to himself from the Holy Spirit Assn. for the Unification of World Christianity, which bought the property in 1976. The church was founded in South Korea by a self-proclaimed messiah, the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Barreto then tried to charge various entities as the owner of the building, “including demanding rent from one of the hotel’s tenants, registering the hotel under his name with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection for water and sewage payments, and demanding the hotel’s bank transfer its accounts to him,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“As alleged, Mickey Barreto repeatedly and fraudulently claimed ownership of one of the city’s most iconic landmarks, the New Yorker Hotel,” said Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg.

You can read more at the link, but essentially a gay guy uses incompentent New York government to live rent free in a landmark New York hotel for five years and then tries to steal hotel from a notorious religious cult.

This is pretty ridiculous that these doctor trainees are vowing to go on strike because of the government’s increase in medical students in order to address a shortage of doctors:

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo (R) speaks at an emergency meeting with ministers at the government complex in central Seoul on Feb. 19, 2024. (Yonhap)

Trainee doctors began submitting their letters of collective resignation Monday in protest against the government’s plan to boost the number of medical students, while the health ministry ordered all of them to keep providing medical treatment. 

Worries mounted as doctors warn of a large-scale strike and other responses in opposition to the government’s decision to add 2,000 to the country’s medical school enrollment quota next year, marking a sharp rise from the current 3,058 seats.

Although the government had initially played down the possibility of doctors’ collective action, it is feared the nation will suffer substantial disruptions to its medical service, with some patients already experiencing delays in surgeries and other treatments in hospitals.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the ROK government is ordering the trainees to continue to provide medical services. If they do walkout it will be interesting to see if the government revokes their medical licenses thus ending their careers in medicine.