SOUTH KOREA: Authorities suspended the licences of two senior doctors today for allegedly inciting strikes by thousands of their junior colleagues that have disrupted hospital operations.

The suspensions are the government’s first punitive steps against physicians after trainee doctors walked off the job last month to protest against the government’s plan to sharply increase medical school admissions.

PAKISTAN: Air strikes targeted multiple suspected hideouts of the Pakistani Taliban inside neighbouring Afghanistan early today, killing at least eight people and drawing return fire from the Afghan Taliban.

The Pakistani strikes came days after insurgents killed seven soldiers in a suicide bombing and co-ordinated attack in north-west Pakistan.

SPAIN: Police have arrested three people over the deaths of five migrants, who were threatened with a machete and forced to jump out of the boat they were travelling in with dozens of others, authorities said today.

According to a police statement, the five died on November 29 off the southern coast of Cadiz. 

The police said two men and a woman had been arrested earlier this month but gave no further details.

BULGARIA: President Rumen Radev called on the right-wing Gerb-UDF coalition today to form a government.

Mr Radev handed the mandate to Maria Gabriel, the prime minister-designate under a power-sharing deal between the two main parties, according to which each would hold the top job for nine months at a time.

The parties agreed to share power after elections last year in a bid to end a two-and-a-half-year political crisis.