LONDON: Thousands of doctors in the early years of their careers in England are to go on strike later this month for another five-day stretch as their long-standing pay dispute with the British government remains in stasis.
The British Medical Association, the union that represents the so-called junior doctors, said on Friday that the government had “failed to meet the deadline to put an improved pay offer on the table” and that they would go on strike from Feb. 24 to Feb. 28.
The junior doctors, who form the backbone of hospital and clinical care as they train up to be specialists in a particular field, have walked off the job on nine occasions over the past year and last month they went on strike for six days, the longest in the history of the state-funded National Health Service.
“We remain willing to carry on talking and to cancel the forthcoming strikes if significant progress is made and a credible offer is put forward,” the BMA’s junior doctors committee co-chairs Dr. Robert Laurenson and Dr. Vivek Trivedi said.
The union says newly qualified doctors earn 15.53 pounds ($19.37) an hour — the UK minimum wage is just over 10 pounds an hour — though salaries rise rapidly after the first year. The BMA has been asking for 35 percent “pay restoration” as its starting position but has said it is willing to negotiate.
The Conservative government has said it won’t negotiate unless the union calls off the strike.
“We already provided them with a pay increase of up to 10.3 percent and were prepared to go further,” said Health Secretary Victoria Atkins. “I ask the junior doctors’ committee to cancel their action and come back to the table to find a way forward for patients and our NHS.”
Senior doctors, known as consultants, and other medics have been drafted in to cover for emergency services, critical care and maternity services during the strikes. The consultants themselves are also in dispute with the government over their recent pay award but have yet to set any dates for any further strikes.
The upcoming strike means thousands more canceled appointments and operations, putting further pressure on the NHS to deal with a backlog that is likely to be a key issue in the general election later this year.
Britain has endured a year of rolling strikes across the health sector as staff sought pay rises to offset the soaring cost of living. Unions say wages, especially in the public sector, have fallen in real terms over the past decade, and double-digit inflation in late 2022 and early 2023, fueled by sharply rising food and energy prices, left many workers struggling to pay their bills.
Many groups within the NHS, such as nurses and ambulance crews, have reached pay deals with the government, but the union representing junior doctors has held out, and negotiations broke down late last year.
If it goes ahead, the strike would be the junior doctors’ last on the current mandate, which expires at the end of the month. Further strikes would require another vote among members which the BMA is currently undertaking.
The government is seeking to apportion many of the problems in the NHS on the junior doctors, while the main opposition Labour Party, which is way ahead in opinion polls, points the finger at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for personally blocking progress.
“He bears responsibility for the canceled operations and appointments desperate patients will face once again,” said Wes Streeting, Labour’s health spokesman. “This can’t go on. Patients are desperate and staff are worn out.”
Thousands of doctors in England to strike again as health likely to become a key UK election issue
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Thousands of doctors in England to strike again as health likely to become a key UK election issue
- The British Medical Association said on Friday that the government had “failed to meet the deadline to put an improved pay offer on the table”
- The junior doctors have walked off the job on nine occasions over the past year and last month they went on strike for six days
North Korean leader Kim reaffirms support for Russia on Ukraine, KCNA says
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reaffirmed Pyongyang’s “unconditional support” for all actions taken by the Russian leadership to fundamentally resolve the Ukraine situation, the North’s state media reported on Sunday.
Kim made the comment during his meeting with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday, state news agency KCNA said.
Unhealthy smoke from Canadian wildfires blankets the Upper Midwest when people want to be outside
BISMARCK, N.D.: Much of the Upper Midwest on Saturday was dealing with swaths of unhealthy air because of drifting smoke from Canadian wildfires, covering the northern region of the US at a time when people want to be enjoying lakes, trails and the great outdoors.
Most of Minnesota and parts of Montana, North Dakota and Wisconsin were ranked “unhealthy” for air quality on a US Environmental Protection Agency map. Part of North Dakota that is home to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and other tourist attractions was ranked “very unhealthy,” some of the worst air quality in the nation.
In Minnesota, “If you have a nice pork loin you can hang from a tree, it’ll turn into ham,” quipped Al Chirpich, owner of the Hideaway Resort near Detroit Lakes, where people come to enjoy tree-lined Island Lake for fishing and other water activities.
Normally there would be boats and jet skis all over, but on Saturday he couldn’t see a boat on the lake, where the smoke impaired visibility and curtailed his camper business. None of his 18 RV sites was occupied. His seven rental cabins drew a handful of customers.
“I suspect when the weather clears, we’ll be swamped again. Fourth of July, I had probably 20 boats here lined up at my docks, and today my boat is the only one,” Chirpich said.
The conditions started Friday, dragging smoke from the Canadian wildfires down to the surface, said National Weather Service Meteorologist Jennifer Ritterling, in Grand Forks. Periods of bad air quality are expected to last through the weekend in the region, she said.
Limiting time outdoors, keeping windows closed and running air purifiers are good ideas for people with lung conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and even healthy people, Ritterling said.
“Our summers up here are fairly short and so everyone wants to get out and enjoy them, and it’s a little frustrating when there’s this smoke in the air,” she said.
Fires in Canada prompt state of emergency for some
All of Manitoba is under a state of emergency because of the wildfires, which have led to 12,600 people evacuating their homes in the province. The fires in the central Canadian province have burned over 3,861 square miles , the most land burned in 30 years of electronic record-keeping.
Under 1,000 people have evacuated their homes in Saskatchewan, where wildfires also continue to burn.
North Rim in Grand Canyon still closed
In Arizona, the North Rim in Grand Canyon National Park is still closed because of a 2.3 square-mile wildfire and another fire nearby on Bureau of Land Management land that has burned nearly 17 square miles .
More than 200 firefighters and support personnel worked to halt the uncontained fire Saturday as it burned across a high-altitude plateau between the communities of Lonesome, White Sage and Jacob Lake.
In Colorado, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park remains closed because of a 4.4-square-mile wildfire burning on the South Rim of the park, known for its dramatic, steep cliffs. A few miles from the fire, an evacuation was ordered for the community of Bostwick Park, and a nearby highway also was shut.
The fires in and near both national parks led to evacuations of hundreds of people.
Chirpich, the Minnesota resort owner, said he has plans to go to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park on Thursday and is “a bit pensive about how that’s going to be there.”
“I’m going to leave one smokehouse for another, I guess,” he said.
US ends case against doctor over alleged Covid vaccine scheme
WASHINGTON: US Attorney General Pam Bondi said Saturday she had ordered charges to be dropped against a doctor accused of destroying Covid-19 jabs and issuing fake vaccination certificates.
The abrupt halt to proceedings comes just days after the trial commenced, and is the latest boost to the vaccine-skeptic movement from President Donald Trump’s administration.
Michael Kirk Moore, a plastic surgeon in the western state of Utah, was charged by the Department of Justice in 2023 alongside his clinic and three others for “running a scheme” to defraud the government.
He was accused of destroying or disposing of over $28,000 worth of government-provided Covid vaccines and handing out at least 1,937 false vaccine record cards in exchange for payment.
Moore, who faced decades behind bars, was also accused of administering a saline solution to children — at the behest of their parents — so that they would think they had been vaccinated against Covid.
Moore’s trial began this week at a federal court in Salt Lake City.
But on Tuesday, Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s most vocal hard-right supporters, said she had written to Bondi calling for charges against Moore to be dropped.
“Dr. Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so. He did not deserve the years in prison he was facing. It ends today,” Bondi wrote on X.
Bondi’s decision also notably comes as she faces fire from right-wing activists over her handling of a probe into the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
She thanked Greene and Utah Senator Mike Lee, another hard-right lawmaker, for their advocacy for dropping charges against Moore.
The Covid-19 pandemic sparked fierce political division in the US between those who supported lockdowns and vaccination drives, and those who considered the measures as restrictions on freedom.
Trump, himself vaccinated against Covid-19, has appointed as his Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has initiated an overhaul of American vaccine policy.
Kennedy said Moore “deserves a medal for his courage and commitment to healing,” in an X post in April.
At the end of May, Kennedy announced that federal authorities would no longer recommend Covid-19 jabs for children and pregnant women, prompting accusations from medical groups that he was taking away parents’ ability to opt for vaccinations.
Kennedy has been accused of spreading vaccine misinformation, including about the measles vaccine, even as the US grapples with its worst measles epidemic in 30 years.
Lawmakers visit ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ after being blocked
OCHOPEE, Florida: Democratic lawmakers condemned Florida’s new Everglades immigration detention center after a state-arranged visit Saturday, describing a crowded, unsanitary and bug-infested facility that officials have dubbed ” Alligator Alcatraz.” A Republican on the same tour said he saw nothing of the sort.
The tour came after some Democrats were blocked earlier from viewing the 3,000-bed detention center that the state rapidly built on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland. So many state legislators and members of Congress turned up Saturday that they were split into multiple groups to view the facility.
“There are really disturbing, vile conditions and this place needs to be shut the hell down,” Rep. US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, told reporters after visiting. “This place is a stunt, and they’re abusing human beings here.”
Cage-style units of 32 men share three combination toilet-sink devices, the visitors measured the temperature at 83 degrees in one area that was billed as air-conditioned and grasshoppers and other insects abound, she and other Democrats said.
Although the visitors said they weren’t able to speak with the detainees, Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Democrat from Florida, said one called out “I’m an American!” and others chanting, “Libertad!,” a Spanish word for “freedom.”
State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, a Republican from Florida, countered that he had seen a well-run, safe facility where the living quarters were clean and the air conditioning worked well. He recalled that a handful of detainees became “a little raucous” when the visitors appeared but said he didn’t make out what they were saying.
“The rhetoric coming out of the Democrats does not match the reality,” he said by phone. “It’s a detention center, not the Four Seasons.”
Journalists weren’t allowed on the tour, and lawmakers were instructed not to bring phones or cameras inside.
Messages seeking comment were sent to the state Division of Emergency Management, which built the facility, and to representatives for Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis spokesperson Molly Best highlighted one of Ingoglia’s upbeat readouts on social media.
DeSantis and fellow Republicans have touted the makeshift detention center — an agglomeration of tents, trailers and temporary buildings constructed in a matter of days — as an efficient and get-tough response to President Donald Trump’s call for mass deportations. The first detainees arrived July 3, after Trump toured and praised the facility.
Described as temporary, the detention center is meant to help the Republican president’s administration reach its goal of boosting the United States’ migrant detention capacity from 41,000 people to at least 100,000. The Florida facility’s remote location and its name — a nod to the notorious Alcatraz prison that once housed federal inmates in California — are meant to underscore a message of deterring illegal immigration.
Ahead of the facility’s opening, state officials said detainees would have access to medical care, consistent air conditioning, a recreation yard, attorneys and clergy members.
But detainees and their relatives and advocates have told The Associated Press that conditions are awful, with worm-infested food, toilets overflowing onto floors, mosquitoes buzzing around the fenced bunks, and air conditioners that sometimes shut off in the oppressive South Florida summer heat. One man told his wife that detainees go days without getting showers.
Florida Division of Emergency Management spokesperson Stephanie Hartman called those descriptions “completely false,” saying detainees always get three meals a day, unlimited drinking water, showers and other necessities.
“The facility meets all required standards and is in good working order,” she said.
Five Democratic state lawmakers tried to visit the site when it opened July 3 but said they were denied access. The state subsequently arranged Saturday’s tour.
The lawmakers have sued over the denial, saying that DeSantis’ administration is impeding lawmakers’ oversight authority. A DeSantis spokesperson has called the lawsuit “dumb.”
As Democratic officials headed into the facility, they said they expected to be given a sanitized and limited view.
Wasserman Schultz told reporters the lawmakers came anyway because they wanted to ask questions and get a sense of the structure and conditions.
German backpacker drank from puddles in Australian bush ordeal
- Wilga was suffering from exhaustion, dehydration, sunburn, “extensive insect bites,” and an injured foot, police said
SYDNEY: German backpacker Carolina Wilga drank water from puddles and sheltered in a cave before escaping an 11-night ordeal in the Australian bush, police said Saturday.
The 26-year-old walked “confused and disorientated” 24 kilometers away from her van after it got stuck in remote bushland in Western Australia. The backpacker had lost hope of being rescued, police said.
But on Friday, she managed to flag down a woman who drove her to police in the agricultural community of Beacon, northeast of Perth. Wilga was airlifted to a Perth hospital for treatment.
“She spent 11 nights exposed to the elements and survived by consuming the minimal food supplies she had in her possession, and drinking water from rain and puddles,” Western Australia police said in a statement.
“She sought shelter at night where possible, including in a cave.”
Wilga was suffering from exhaustion, dehydration, sunburn, “extensive insect bites,” and an injured foot, police said.
The driver who spotted her, Tania Henley, told public broadcaster ABC that she saw Wilga waving her hands by the side of the road.
She appeared to be in a “fragile state,” bitten by midges and suffering from the cold.
“Everything in this bush is very prickly. I just can’t believe that she survived. She had no shoes on, she’d wrapped her foot up.”
The rescue was down to “sheer luck,” Western Australia police acting inspector Jessica Securo told a news conference in Perth after speaking to Wilga.
“She is still in disbelief that she was able to survive. In her mind, she had convinced herself that she was not going to be located,” said Securo.
“She basically looked at the direction of the sun and tried to head west, thinking that that would be her best bet of coming across someone or a road.”
Wilga told police she was “very confused and disorientated.”
Until her rescue, she had been last seen on June 29 arriving in the van at a general store in Beacon.
A police search spotted the van on Thursday, abandoned in dense bushland north of Beacon with plastic orange traction tracks placed beneath the rear wheels.
“It appears that she has somewhat lost control of the vehicle, and then it’s become mechanically unsound, and bogged,” Securo said.
She stayed with the van for one day before leaving the vehicle through “panic,” hoping to find help.
Wilga was “overwhelmed” to have found someone to help her.
“She had minimal food and minimal water. From speaking to her, she has said she could have planned better.”
The terrain can be “quite dangerous,” Securo added.
Wilga remained in hospital and was not expected to be released on Saturday, still needing “emotional support” and treatment for some injuries.
“She’s had a good night’s sleep. She’s had a shower. We’ve got her some food, which was a massive relief for her. So she’s just taking it one day at a time at the moment.”
The backpacker is now in “frequent communication” with her family who are relieved and thankful the Western Australian community came together to “throw every resource at locating their daughter,” Securo said.
The family had no plans at this stage to travel to Australia.
Police say Wilga had spent two years backpacking around the country, and was working at mine sites in Western Australia while staying mostly at hostels.
“Carolina has told me that she loves Australia. She still has so much travel to do here. She hasn’t made it over to the east coast yet, so that’s still on her bucket list,” said Securo.
