President Yoon Suk-yeol was pushing to add more doctors as an integral element of his medical reforms, but doctors said the healthcare sector was not short of medics.

The patient had waited five hours for a hospital in South Gyeongsang province that could perform heart surgery, and six facilities had turned down calls from first responders amid a doctors’ strike.

He’s the first-ever South Korean president left to contend with a hostile parliament for his entire five-year term, but embattled conservative Yoon insists his administration is moving in the ‘right direction’.

Envoy Chung Jae-ho allegedly bullied embassy staff and a South Korean team is in Beijing to investigate the matter, according to a media report.

Yoon Suk-yeol’s ruling party garnered 108 seats, trailing the liberal Democratic Party of Korea’s comfortable majority of 175 spots in the 300-strong parliament.

After the election, Yoon will face greater difficulty in pushing through his pro-market reforms in labour, the national pension fund and education, analysts say.

President Yoon Suk-yeol has faced a growing backlash for commenting on the price of spring onions during a supermarket photocall amid surging food inflation in South Korea.

The Democratic Party’s Kim Jun-hyeok claims Ewha Womans University’s first president helped send ‘comfort women’ to Japan and forced students to provide sexual favours to US soldiers.

Read on for a closer look at the potential conflict scenarios, after two prominent analysts set North Korea watchers’ tongues wagging by warning Kim ‘has made a strategic decision to go to war’.

The unprecedented absence of first lady Kim Keon-hee, who has not appeared in public since December 15, is seen by analysts as a political decision to shield President Yoon’s party from any negative comment.

South Korea’s foreign ministry says it is investigating Ambassador Chung Jae-ho, who has denied allegations of both bullying and mistreating embassy staff.

About 12,000 medical interns and residents in South Korea have been on strike for six weeks, causing hundreds of cancelled surgeries and other treatments at university hospitals.

Yoon risks being unable to carry out labour, pension, and education reforms if he were to lose next month’s parliamentary elections.

The ophthalmologist at Pusan National University Hospital had complained of fatigue after taking on more duties following last month’s strike by junior doctors.

Conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol looks set to maintain a hardline stance on Beijing despite the expected victory of ‘submissive’ liberals in next month’s parliamentary elections.

The event included an address by a Taiwanese minister and follows moves by President Yoon Suk-yeol to strengthen ties with the US.

A chilling warning from a senior presidential aide about possible terror attacks against dissenting journalists has put President Yoon Suk-yeol’s war on ‘fake news’ under the spotlight.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol reportedly hopes to build on the Japan-Republic of Korea Joint Declaration made in 1998 that outlined a future-oriented relationship.

Representatives from Taipei have been included in all three democracy summits, which were begun by US President Joe Biden in 2021, and mainland China has been excluded.

South Korea’s president was addressing the third Summit for Democracy conference, an initiative of US President Joe Biden being hosted by Seoul.

South Korea is set to build an aerospace hub to house some 1,000 firms to tap on the sector’s ‘limitless opportunities and a huge market’.

The issue isn’t likely to be settled soon as President Yoon’s party has large public backing for the plan to increase medical school places, senior doctors say.

The arrest of Baek Kwang-soon comes as relations between Seoul and Moscow have deteriorated since the Ukraine war, while ties between Moscow and Pyongyang have grown closer.

More than 90 per cent of the country’s 13,000 trainee doctors, who are similar to medical residents, have defied a government deadline to return to work by the start of March.

The increase in pay, and improving working conditions for young doctors, tackle key demands by medical trainees who have walked off the job.

South Korea’s president lambasted North Korea on Friday over what he called its repressive rule and vowed to achieve a free, unified Korean peninsula.

Starting next month, doctors who are serving in the military and at local clinics in lieu of mandatory military service will be assigned to hospitals affected by the walkout.

Low wages for doctors in the public sector and growing threats of lawsuits from patients have pushed doctors to more lucrative but low-risk specialities.