TAIPEI: Taiwan canceled parts of its annual military drills on Tuesday as authorities step up preparations for what they say could be the most damaging typhoon to hit the island in nearly four years.
Typhoons are common at this time of year near Taiwan but the subtropical island has not been directly hit by a typhoon since 2019, prompting officials to urge vigilance.
Typhoon Doksuri, ranked a category four super typhoon on a scale of 1 to 5 by Tropical Storm Risk, is expected to enter the Bashi Channel that separates Taiwan and the Philippines in a west-northwesterly direction and approach waters off the island’s southern coasts before making landfall in southern China, weather officials said.
Taiwan’s defense ministry canceled parts of the main annual Han Kuang exercises scheduled for Tuesday, citing safety concerns and the need to make preparations for the coming storm.
Taiwan’s weather bureau has issued sea warnings and said it will issue land warnings for its southern counties later on Tuesday, urging residents there to prepare for heavy rains and strong winds.
“Taiwan has not seen any typhoon making landfall in more than 1,400 days, and that’s why I urge all government ministries that they must gear up and make preparations,” Premier Chen Chien-jen said in a post on Facebook.
“I’d like to remind citizens not to underestimate the typhoon threats.”
It was not immediately clear how the typhoon could further impact the five-day military drill, which is set to take place throughout the island this week and focus on defending the island’s main international airport and how to keep sea lanes open in the event of a Chinese blockade.
In the southern port city of Kaohsiung, authorities were rushing to collect hundreds of containers drifting on the sea after Palau-flagged container ship Angel sank off Taiwan’s southwestern coast last week.
Taiwan cancels military drills as typhoon approaches
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Taiwan cancels military drills as typhoon approaches
- Typhoons are common at this time of year near Taiwan but the subtropical island has not been directly hit by a typhoon since 2019, prompting officials to urge vigilance
South Korea will boost medical school admissions to tackle physician shortage
- Jeong said all of the additional students will be trained through regional physician programs
SEOUL: South Korea plans to increase medical school admissions by more than 3,340 students from 2027 to 2031 to address concerns about physician shortages in one of the fastest-aging countries in the world, the government said Tuesday.
The decision was announced months after officials defused a prolonged doctors’ strike by backing away from a more ambitious increase pursued by Seoul’s former conservative government. Even the scaled-down plan drew criticism from the country’s doctors’ lobby, which said the move was “devoid of rational judgment.”
Kwak Soon-hun, a senior Health Ministry official, said that the president of the Korean Medical Association attended the healthcare policy meeting but left early to boycott the vote confirming the size of the admission increases.
The KMA president, Kim Taek-woo, later said the increases would overwhelm medical schools when combined with students returning from strikes or mandatory military service, and warned that the government would be “fully responsible for all confusion that emerges in the medical sector going forward.” The group didn’t immediately signal plans for further walkouts.
Health Minister Jeong Eun Kyeong said the annual medical school admissions cap will increase from the current 3,058 to 3,548 in 2027, with further hikes planned in subsequent years to reach 3,871 by 2031. This represents an average increase of 668 students per year over the five-year period, far smaller than the 2,000-per-year hike initially proposed by the government of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, which sparked the months long strike by thousands of doctors.
Jeong said all of the additional students will be trained through regional physician programs, which aim to increase the number of doctors in small towns and rural areas that have been hit hardest by demographic pressures. The specific admissions quota for each medical school will be finalized in April.
