North Korea could face a new famine next year as floods and bad weather aggravate its already chronic food shortages, a specialist warned yesterday.
Floods and storms, followed by outbreaks of blight and damage by insects, deprived the impoverished country of some 10 percent of its autumn harvest this year, said Kwon Tae-jin, research director of the Korea Rural Economic Institute.
"North Korea is likely to face very serious food shortages next year and barring very generous help from abroad, we may see something like the 1995 to 1998 famine," Kwon said.
That famine reportedly killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Kwon said the country needs at least 5.3 million tonnes of food to feed its 23 million population from now until next year's fall harvest.
But its own food production is expected to come to only 3.9 million tonnes, leaving a shortfall of 1.4 million.
South Korea is the North's biggest aid provider, supplying it with 400,000 tonnes of food every year. Seoul is expected to increase this aid to 500,000 tonnes next year.
North Korea is thought to use part of its meager foreign currency earnings to import 200,000 to 300,000 tonnes every year but must rely on outside help to plug the remaining gap, Kwon said.
Paul Risley, Asia spokesman for the World Food Program (WFP) in Bangkok, said some food aid was sent directly to the North, including from China.
Nonetheless, there is a significant gap between the amount of food that is available and the amount that is actually required, Risley said, citing UN figures.
"This is a very serious concern, and it's quite clear from most recent estimate of food commodities that are available ... that the DPRK [North Korea] will once again this year face a very significant gap between the amount of cereal such as corn and rice available and the amount of food required for its population," he said.
He said the WFP provided a "relatively small amount of food assistance" to millions of the most vulnerable, including several hundred thousand victims of August floods.
Following the floods, Pyongyang gave WFP approval to extend its food assistance to include many areas where workers were previously not allowed to operate, Risley said.
North Korea was already reliant on international aid to help make up a food shortfall of 1 million tonnes -- 20 percent of its needs -- even before the August rains.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
RSS