Category: General

An association of medical professors across the nation said Sunday that it will file a constitutional petition to have them get legal status as hospital employees.

Most medical professors serve as senior doctors at major hospitals, but a court ruling in 2022 refused to acknowledge them as hospital employees, saying that they are classified as faculty members of medical schools in accordance with the private school act.

“There are neither clear legal grounds nor protection measures for medical professors regarding their duty of providing treatment for patients as doctors,” Kim Chang-soo, chief of the national medical professors’ council, said.

“We will file a constitutional petition in the second half of this year to earn employee status,” he said, adding that his organization will also work to make its labor union more active.

The council is affiliated with medical professors at 40 medicine colleges nationwide.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

North Korea is expected to hold a plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) this week to review policy performances in the first half, amid attention over whether it would discuss follow-up measures to implement a new partnership treaty signed with Russia.

In May, the WPK’s politburo decided to hold a plenary meeting of the party’s Central Committee in late June to review progress in its economic and other projects in the first half, without disclosing other details, such as the date of the meeting.

North Korea usually holds a party plenary meeting for a few days in June. But the upcoming gathering draws more attention due to the possibility that it could discuss detailed measures to expand cooperation with Russia following its signing with Moscow of the treaty of comprehensive strategic partnership.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a summit in Pyongyang on Wednesday and clinched the sweeping treaty that calls for providing military assistance wit
hout delay if either comes under attack.

Article 4 of the 23-point treaty could be seen as warranting automatic military intervention in the event of aggression on either country. That would amount to the restoration of a Cold War-era alliance for the first time in 28 years since a mutual defense treaty was scrapped in 1996.

The treaty also indicates North Korea and Russia could join hands in resisting international sanctions against Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs. Article 16 of the treaty calls for both sides to oppose “unilateral coercive measures of an extraterritorial nature.”

The new pact specifies science and technology, space, the peaceful use of nuclear power and artificial intelligence as among the areas for cooperation. This raises concerns that North Korea and Russia’s cooperation in such fields could assist the North’s development of weapons of mass destruction banned under U.N. sanctions.

Whether North Korea would ratify the treaty at the WPK meeting will also garner attention. Unde
r the North’s constitution, an “important treaty” can be ratified or scrapped solely by its leader Kim, though the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), the North’s parliament, approves ordinary treaties.

After this week’s party plenary meeting, North Korea is widely expected to hold a key session of the SPA in a bid to revise the constitution. The North’s leader earlier called for revising the constitution to define South Korea as the North’s “primary foe” and clarify its territorial boundaries, including the maritime border.

Experts said at this week’s WPK meeting, Kim may issue a message critical of the United States and South Korea over the allies’ joint military drills scheduled for August.

Seoul and Washington plan to stage the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) in August, which the North has long denounced as a rehearsal for northern invasion.

Separately, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, arrived in the southeastern port city of Busan on Saturday in a show of force agai
nst North Korea’s military threats. The U.S., South Korea and Japan will hold their first-ever trilateral multidomain exercise later this month.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

Two major hospitals run by the Seoul city government are forecast to suffer losses of nearly 100 billion won (US$71.89 million) this year due to the prolonged walkout by trainee doctors, officials said Sunday.

The two municipal hospitals, Seoul Medical Center and Boramae Medical Center, are projected to suffer 89.7 billion won in losses combined this year if striking trainee doctors do not return to work and their operation disruptions continue through the year-end, according to the city government.

Trainee doctors nationwide have walked off the job since late February in protest of the government’s increase of the medical school admission quota that aims to address the shortage of doctors.

Of 203 doctors at Seoul Medical Center, 22 percent were trainee doctors, and the proportion at the Boramae hospital came to 33.9 percent.

The walkout caused the operation of their hospital beds to drop by more than 20 percent each, and the number of outpatients in the Boraemae hospital fell more than 10 percent.

The
city government said it plans to inject 45.6 billion won to support them in an effort to prevent the medical service vacuum from worsening.

The hospitals activated an emergency management mode and have implemented cost-cutting measures.

“The decision to inject the city budget was inevitable to ensure that they provide necessary medical services for citizens. We will work hard to persuade trainee doctors to end their strike,” an official said.

Despite strong opposition from doctors, the government late last month finalized an admissions quota hike of some 1,500 students for medical schools, marking the first such increase in 27 years.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

Nearly 170 employees of banks and other financial firms embezzled around 180 billion won combined (US$122.21 million) over the past six years, but less than 10 percent has been retrieved, data showed Sunday.

According to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), a total of 168 officials from the country’s financial firms pocketed 178.92 billion won combined from 2018-2023.

The amount of stolen money came to 5.67 billion won in 2018 but surged to 15.69 billion won in 2021 and 82.76 billion won in 2022 before falling slightly to 64.26 billion won last year.

But a mere 9.8 percent, or 17.45 billion won of the total, has been redeemed, indicating that their embezzlement has caused damage to corporate profits and ultimately to customers.

In 2022, the FSS announced a set of measures to strengthen internal control, but critics have said that they are far from enough to prevent such cases.

This year alone, 11 officials have been caught for pocketing 1.51 billion won combined, and 6.7 percent of the
amount has been retrieved, the data showed.

There have been renewed calls for stronger rules and supervision, after a Woori Bank employee in his 30s was arrested earlier this month on charges of embezzling around 10 billion won by forging corporate documents.

The FSS is considering the introduction of a new law that holds CEOs of financial firms accountable for such embezzlement and similar crimes by their officials.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

Research and development (R and D) expenditures by major South Korean companies hit an all-time high last year despite their falling sales amid an economic slowdown, data showed Sunday.

The country’s top 1,000 companies made investments of 72.5 trillion won (US$52.12 billion) combined in 2023, up 8.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology.

It was the largest ever amount, it showed.

The increase came despite their sales falling 2.8 percent on-year to 1,642 trillion won, and the proportion of corporate R and D investment out of sales rose 4.4 percent in 2023 from the previous year’s 3.9 percent.

Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. invested the largest amount in R and D last year with 23.9 trillion won, which was up 14.4 percent on-year and accounted for 32.9 percent of the total investment by South Korean companies.

Leading carmaker Hyundai Motor Co. came next with 3.7 trillion won, which marke
d 15.6 percent on-year growth. R and D spending by chip behemoth SK hynix Inc. fell 10 percent on-year to 3.6 trillion won.

Home appliances giant LG Electronics Inc. increased its R and D expenditure by 10 percent to 3.3 trillion won, and Samsung Display Co. spent 2.8 trillion won on R and D last year, up 12 percent on-year.

Kia Corp. was the fifth-largest R and D investor last year with 2.2 trillion won, the data showed.

Of the 1,000 companies, 171 were large conglomerates and 491 were second-tier mid-sized companies. The remaining 338 firms were mid- and small-sized companies.

“The number of mid-sized companies that were among the top 1,000 major R and D investing companies has risen over the past years. The government will extend support for companies to increase investment for innovation,” a ministry official said.

Source: Yonhap News Agency