Written by India Trivikraman
Edited by Annika Lilja
Top Story from Europe: Alexei Navalny’s body has been returned to mother 8 days after death
Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anti-corruption activist, died in the country’s prison service last week, Feb 16. He was serving a combined 30 ½ year jail sentence and was soon to be in line to be exchanged in a prison swap when he died.
Russia’s federal prison service has said that Nvalny died after feeling ill following a walk and that the emergency medical team’s necessary resuscitation measures were unsuccessful. The day before he died, Navalny addressed a court via video link and appeared healthy. To quote his mother, Lyudmila Navalny: he appeared “healthy and happy” (NBC).
Navalny has been Russia’s most outspoken Kremlin (Russian Government) critic, leading nationwide protests against authorities and running for office to challenge members of the Russian establishment.
The European Union has called for an independent investigation into Navalny’s death. U.S. President Joe Biden said in a White House Speech that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something Putin and his thugs did” (NBC).
Top Story from Asia: South Korean doctors go on strike against government recruitment plans
Doctors in South Korea are protesting plans of boosting the number of physicians in essential healthcare sectors e.g. emergency care & pediatrics by raising the number of trainee doctors.
6,500 interns and residents - about half of the junior doctor workforce- handed in resignation letters on Monday. 1,600 doctors on that day also failed to turn up to work. The Government has ordered doctors to go back to work and the President Suk-yeol condemned the campaign saying that they are “taking people's lives and health hostage” (BBC).
The strikers have voiced that they are mainly campaigning for higher pay and workload reductions, but also against the recruitment drive, claiming that there are enough physicians and that this would reduce the standard of health care.
South Korea has one of the lowest doctor-to-patient ratios among major economies with 2.5 doctors per 1,000 people. So the aim of the recruitment drive would be to better this ratio but it seems to be at the expense of trainee doctors who already make up 40% of medical professionals in the country despite the fact that they are still unqualified and learning on the job due to their low labour costs
Historical events from the week:
105 years ago: Feb 18, 1917, the first major strike of the Russian Revolution started.
391 years ago: Feb 22, 1632, Galileo Galilei's book "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" was published comparing the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems and whether the Earth orbits the sun.
Where we got our information from, and where you can go to for more information:
Top Story from Europe:
Top Story from Asia: