Peruvian physicians end one-month strike

Peru's 13,000 public sector doctors accepted a government-decreed scale of pay increases and returned to work after a month-long strike, officials report. The government offered increases of between 20 and 56 percent with junior doctors receiving the highest increases. It also withdrew dismissal notices served on doctors for abandoning their work. The doctors, who treated patients free of charge in church parishes during the strike, asked for a minimum monthly basic salary of $645. Junior hospital doctors had been paid an average of $165 a month.