Here are a few stories from around Asia you may have missed this week.

South Korea will send its military and community doctors to hospitals soon as part of emergency measures to support the healthcare system after a mass walkout by trainee doctors, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said on Wednesday. He also pleaded with the young doctors to return to work by a Thursday deadline set by the government, and said the authorities would listen to their concerns. Starting March, 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, Han said.

Maryam Nawaz Sharif, vice president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party and daughter of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was elected on Monday as the first female chief minister of Pakistan's Punjab province. Maryam was elected chief minister following Pakistan's general elections for the National Assembly and provincial assemblies held on February 8. After her election, Maryam addressed the assembly session and said she would increase development projects, bring health and agricultural reforms, and facilitate doing business by introducing a one-window policy.

Thailand will ban the recreational use of marijuana by the end of this year but continue to allow its use for medical purposes, the health minister told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. After Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to free up medicinal use in 2018, and then recreational use in 2022, tens of thousands of cannabis shops sprung up in an industry projected to be worth up to $1.2 billion. The draft bill will go to cabinet for approval before moving to parliament to be passed before the end of the year, Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew said. "Without the law to regulate cannabis it will be misused," Cholnan said, referring to recreational use. "The misuse of cannabis has a negative impact on Thai children," he added. "In the long run it could lead to other drugs."

The number of babies born in Japan fell for an eighth straight year to a fresh record low in 2023, preliminary government data showed on Tuesday, emphasizing the task the country faces in trying to stem depopulation. The number of births fell 5.1 percent from a year earlier to 758,631, while the number of marriages slid 5.9 percent to 489,281, the first time in 90 years the number fell below 500,000. Asked about the latest data, Japan's top government spokesperson said the government will take "unprecedented steps" to cope with the declining birthrate, such as expanding childcare and promoting wage hikes for younger workers.

India has unveiled four Air Force pilots who have been shortlisted to travel on the country's maiden space flight scheduled for next year. The Gaganyaan mission aims to send three astronauts to an orbit of 400 kilometers and bring them back after three days. Named after the Sanskrit word for "vehicle to the sky," the Gaganyaan project has been developed at the cost of 90 billion rupees ($1 billion). The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been carrying out a number of tests to prepare for the flight. After its success, the ISRO said a test flight would take a robot into space in 2024, before astronauts are sent into space in 2025.

(Cover: Medical staff at a university hospital in Seoul, South Korea, on the 10th day of the mass resignation of doctors and the government's deadline for their return, February 29, 2024.)