MED SCHOOL QUOTA TO EXPAND

MED SCHOOL QUOTA TO EXPAND

[Anchor Lead]
Will we end up seeing more doctors in the country? The government has decided to increase the quota for medical school admissions by 2,000 for next year's university entrance examination. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, this move is part of a plan to bolster the physician workforce by an additional 10,000 by the year 2035. However, this announcement has met with strong opposition from medical associations.

[Pkg]
The government has decided to increase the medical school admissions quota by two thousand from next year's enrollment. This means the total quota will rise to 5,058. It marks the first hike in 19 years since 2006.

[Soundbite]
Cho Kyoo-hong (Minister of Health and Welfare): The med school quota will expand by 2,000 from the current 3,058 to 5,058 from 2025.

The increased quota will first be assigned to med schools outside the capital region. Doctors groups have fiercely protested the larger than expected increase. They argue the current crisis in essential medical care is not due to a lack of doctors but due to an imbalance in medical fees and judicial risks physicians face. As previously warned, the Korean Medical Association will proceed with the resignation of its current executives and set up an emergency committee to begin steps to launch a general strike.

[Soundbite]
Lee Pil-soo (President, Korean Medical Association (Feb. 6)): If the gov‘t unilaterally announces a quota hike, the KMA executive branch will resign en masse and take immediate steps for a general strike.

The Korean Intern Resident Association will also hold an extraordinary general meeting next week to discuss response measures, including collective action. As a doctors walkout is expected right after the Lunar New Year holiday, the government has raised the public health crisis alert to "alert" and activated the central disaster management headquarters.

'MED SCHOOL RUSH' EXPECTED

[Anchor Lead]
With news of the expansion in medical school quotas, the so-called "medical school rush" phenomenon is expected to intensify. This has caused a stir not only in educational institutions but also across university campuses, with significant changes anticipated in the landscape of university admissions. The specific quotas for medical schools by institution are expected to be finalized in April.

[Pkg]
Students who have chosen to retake the college entrance exam repeatedly just to get into medical schools welcomed the news about the med school quota increase.

[Soundbite]
(CSAT retaker): It's everyone's dream to get into med school. Only the best of the best are admitted there.

The decision to accept more students to med schools will likely push more top-performing students to apply there.

[Soundbite]
(CSAT taker): Students of ranks 1 or 2, like me, have a good chance of getting into med colleges.

Because the quota increase is similar to the overall number of students at the colleges of natural sciences at Seoul National University, Yonsei University and Korea University, the projected exodus to med schools will likely result in lower admission requirements for natural science majors. Universities are all abuzz about the news of the dramatic med school quota increase. Chances are high that not only students majoring in natural sciences but also pharmacy and dentistry will try to get into medical schools.

[Soundbite]
Lee Taek-min (Natural science major): Many students at SNU, Yonsei and Korea Univ. study for another major. Students who never planned for med school want to try their luck.

The ministries of health and education have begun finalizing admission quota expansion by university.

[Soundbite]
(Education Ministry official): We will survey the demand by mid-March and devise criteria with the Health Ministry to finalize the scope by mid-April.

As the quota increase applies mostly to medical colleges in areas outside the capital region, authorities plan to raise the percentage of regional admissions, whereby only graduates of high schools located in those areas are eligible to apply to local med schools, from the current 40 percent to 60 percent.

"N. KOREA'S DISTRIBUTION COLLAPSE"

[Anchor Lead]
A report providing a glimpse into the veiled internal situation of North Korea has been released. This marks the first time the Ministry of Unification has disclosed findings from its decade-long survey of approximately 6,300 defectors from North Korea. The findings reveal a collapse of the public distribution system, with a significant increase in reliance on the market economy.

[Pkg]
The North Korean economy is crippled to the extent that during winter, there are fierce so-called "manure battles" due to fertilizer shortages. The government has released data revealing the reality of life in North Korea, which was previously only conveyed in fragments. The unification ministry has disclosed the results of an in-depth survey into North Korean defectors, previously regarded "confidential." The data shows in numbers the collapse of the North Korean economy based on the state-led food distribution system. Of those who defected the North recently, 72.2 percent never received food from the state. Some 50 percent received no wages or food for their work. This shows the regime lacks the capacity to resolve the food shortage.

[Soundbite]
Choi Seol (Ph.D. in N. Korea Studies (defected in 2011)): Even though they say harvest was good the previous year, there is a long way to go before food is distributed to the public.

Instead, the North's private economy keeps expanding around marketplaces. Nine out of 10 respondents said daily life in the North is virtually impossible without local markets. Sixty-nine percent said their major income was unofficial income earned by selling or smuggling goods. Housing transactions have also become common. They mostly involve transactions in permits for household use instead of ownership rights. The data shows 34 percent of the respondents had experience in buying or selling properties. The survey also found that housing prices were primarily influenced by location, including proximity to a market or subway.

NEGATIVE TOWARD KIM'S POWER SUCCESSION

[Anchor Lead]
Despite North Korea's intensified efforts to curb the influx of external information, the consumption of Chinese and South Korean media continues to rise. Furthermore, there is an increasing negative perception towards the hereditary succession of power, particularly among those who have defected after enduring the Kim Jong-un regime for an extended period, revealing a stronger tendency towards this sentiment.

[Pkg]
A video of students in Pyongyang being tried in public for watching South Korean TV shows.

[Soundbite]
The rotten puppet culture is turning our young generations into the victims of reactionary ideas and cultures.

North Korea's crackdown and control over outside videos are getting tougher but more than 80% of North Koreans who defected quite recently say they had seen foreign videos. The number has exploded since before this millennium when the viewing percentage was only around 8%. Among the recent defectors, 56.3% said they were negative about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's inheritance of power. The figure indicates that they are more unfavorable toward Kim than those who had defected between 2011 and 2015. The conclusion is that those who suffered under the Kim Jong-un regime longer had more negative feelings. As more women worked in markets and participated in economic activities, 30% of the North Korean respondents said that women enjoy equal or higher status than their husbands. Some claimed that the husbands in North Korea are called 'daytime lamps' to mock their uselessness. This report was based on one-on-one surveys conducted over ten years on 6,351 defectors who had left North Korea by 2020. Nonetheless, the Ministry of Unification said that the report must be interpreted cautiously, given that the situation after 2021 hasn't been incorporated and more than 80% of the respondents were women and from the border areas.

'CHEONGUNG-II' EXPORTS TO SAUDI

[Anchor Lead]
Saudi Arabia has made the final decision to import the 'Cheongung-II', a surface-to-air missile developed with South Korean technology. The Cheongung-II missile, following its introduction to the United Arab Emirates, marks the second entry into the Middle Eastern region, thereby elevating the stature of K-defense even further.

[Pkg]
South Korea has finalized a deal to export its Cheongung-Ⅱ surface-to-air missile to Saudi Arabia. The contract is worth 3.2 billion U.S. dollars or about 4.25 trillion won. The deal was sealed last November, but in line with a bilateral agreement, the news was made public on Tuesday. The Cheongung-Ⅱ, an upgrade of the former version, can intercept enemy aircraft and even ballistic missiles, and is dubbed "South Korea's Patriot missile." Its main task is defending airspace below 40 kilometers in altitude. At the moment, Cheongung-Ⅱ is regarded as a key component to the Korea Air and Missile Defense or KAMD, aimed at countering North Korea's ballistic missile threat. The missile launches vertically and ignites in the air, known as a cold launch, thereby enabling a swifter response without the need to circle a turret. Saudi Arabia, the latest country to import the Cheongung-Ⅱ, is known to be the largest arms importer in the world after Ukraine, which is in the middle of a war. As the Saudis have been receiving missile attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen, there was increased demand for stockpiles of interceptor missiles. In 2022, amid an escalating arms race in the conflict-ridden Middle East fueled by oil money, the United Arab Emirates inked an import deal of the Cheongung-Ⅱ worth over 4 trillion won, or about 3 billion dollars. Seoul's Defense Acquisition Program Administration seeks to further expand the reach of K-defense by actively targeting the Middle Eastern market such as through an MOU on defense cooperation signed with Saudi Arabia.

NEWS BRIEF

[Anchor Lead]
The government designed a set of financial assistance plans to rejuvenate the construction industry hurt by the real estate project financing crisis. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport and other related ministries met with industry groups and announced that the government will provide more liquidity support such as a new replacement loan program that allows builders to refinance their high-interest PF loans with low-interest ones. The Ministry of Employment and Labor also said that it helped Taeyoung E&C settle back pays by conducting on-site inspections at some 100 sites under construction. The Ministry will institute a guidance period for overdue wages settlement until this Thursday.
Over 28.5 million people, or about 5.7 million people per day, are projected to travel over the Seol holiday. The day of Seol which falls on this Saturday is expected to see the most number of travelers at 6.63 million. The Korea Expressway Corporation forecasted that outbound traffic will be most congested on Friday morning, the day before the Seol holiday, and Sunday afternoon will be the busiest time for inbound traffic.

GORALS SPOTTED NEAR ROADS

[Anchor Lead]
Recently, the Korean goral, a natural monument and an endangered species, has been frequently spotted on roads near the Baekdudaegan mountain range in Gangwon-do Province. It is presumed that they have descended from higher altitudes due to a lack of food caused by consecutive heavy snowfalls, raising concerns about the possibility of roadkill or poaching incidents.

[Pkg]
Animals are seen on a hill adjacent to a busy road. Dark brown fur, a white nape and two horns. It's a long-tailed goral, a goat-like mammal that is designated a natural monument and a level one endangered species. A smaller, younger goral can also be seen.

[Soundbite]
Kim Seon-mi (Chungju resident): I've never seen a long-tailed goral. How did they come out so far. Shouldn't they be in the mountains?

Another road. Here, a goral has come down very close to the roadside. Despite the passing traffic, it nonchalantly chews on a twig. Gorals are known to reside deep in the mountains but in recent days, they are frequently spotted near roadways. KBS captured on camera, nine of them at five different locations. The mammals are believed to be descending from the hills due to difficulty in finding food amid the recent heavy snow. There are concerns that they have become too familiar with humans and vehicles exposing them to dangers of being road kill and even being poached.

[Soundbite]
Prof. Jo Yeong-seok (Daegu University): The sighting of an endangered species itself implies an adverse situation. We need active monitoring and protective measures.

Some 2,000 long-tailed gorals are believed to be residing in Korea including at Seoraksan Mountain. Some argue that extensive fencing installed to prevent the spread of African swine fever has destroyed the gorals' habitat forcing them to seek shelter elsewhere.