SEOUL: North Korea on Thursday warned that an “unprecedented” heatwave has caused heavy damage to crops as it urged citizens to “join the struggle” to prevent drought-like conditions from worsening and hampering food production in the impoverished country.
The Korean peninsula has been gripped by a scorching heatwave in recent weeks, with dozens of deaths in the South blamed on soaring temperatures that have hit all-time highs.
The temperature in North Korea’s capital Pyongyang climbed to a record high of 37.8 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, with state TV warning that it was “taking a toll on the economy.”
It did not elaborate on the scale of the damage.
But the rising temperatures have already inflicted heavy losses on the richer South, which has reported more than three million deaths of livestock and a fivefold increase in deaths from heat-related illnesses, while vegetable prices have doubled due to supplies being affected.
The North’s state-run Rodong newspaper on Thursday said that curbing further damage to the agriculture sector was an “extremely important and urgent task.”
“Rural areas across the country... are reporting damages to crops including rice and corn due to extremely high temperatures and drought,” it said in an editorial.
“Today’s reality is calling for every single individual across the country to join the struggle to contain the damages stemming from high temperature and drought,” it said, urging citizens to “display their patriotic zeal” and “save every single dollop of water.”
“This year’s high temperature is an unprecedented natural disaster but it is not an insurmountable difficulty,” it added.
The North has a fragile economy and has been frequently condemned by the international community for decades of prioritizing its military and banned nuclear weapons program over adequately providing for its people.
It has also been slapped with UN sanctions over its nuclear and missile tests, with the restrictions remaining in place despite an ongoing diplomatic rapprochement that has seen the North’s leader Kim Jong Un hold a landmark summit with US President Donald Trump.
The country has periodically been hit by famine, and hundreds of thousands of people died — estimates range into millions — in the mid-1990s.
The food situation has improved in recent years however, partly due to reforms in agriculture and increasing trade at state-sanctioned private markets that have cropped up nationwide.
But the nation remains vulnerable to natural disasters including flood and drought due to chronic lack of infrastructure, deforestation and decades of state mismanagement.
North Korea says ‘unprecedented’ heatwave causing heavy crop damage
North Korea says ‘unprecedented’ heatwave causing heavy crop damage
- The Korean peninsula has been gripped by a scorching heatwave in recent weeks
- The North has a fragile economy and has been frequently condemned by the international community for decades of prioritizing its military and banned nuclear weapons program
Lawsuit challenges Trump administration’s ending of protections for Somalis
- The lawsuit cites a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing.”
BOSTON: Immigrant rights advocates filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to stop US President Donald Trump’s administration from next week ending legal protections that allow nearly 1,100 Somalis to live and work in the United States. The lawsuit, brought by four Somalis and two advocacy groups, challenges the US Department of Homeland Security’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Somali immigrants, whom Trump has derided in public remarks. Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in January announced that TPS for Somalis would end on March 17, arguing that Somalia’s conditions had improved, despite fighting continuing between Somali forces and Al-Shabab militants. The plaintiffs, who include the groups African Communities Together and Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, in the lawsuit filed in Boston federal court argue the move was procedurally flawed and driven by a discriminatory, predetermined agenda.
The lawsuit cites a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing.”
The plaintiffs said the administration is ending TPS for Somalia and other countries due to unconstitutional bias against non-white immigrants, not based on objective assessments of country conditions.
“The termination of TPS for Somalia is racism masking as immigration policy,” Omar Farah, executive director at the legal group Muslim Advocates, said in a statement.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said TPS was “never intended to be a de facto amnesty program.”
TPS is a form of humanitarian immigration protection that shields eligible migrants from deportation and allows them to work. Under Noem, DHS has moved to end TPS for a dozen countries, sparking legal challenges. The administration on Saturday announced plans to pursue an appeal at the US Supreme Court in order to end TPS for over 350,000 Haitians. It also wants the high court to allow it to end TPS for about 6,000 Syrians.
SOMALI COMMUNITY TARGETED
Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991, with its latest extension in 2024. About 1,082 Somalis currently hold TPS, and 1,383 more have pending applications, according to DHS. Somalis in Minnesota in recent months had become a target of Trump’s immigration crackdown, with officials pointing to a fraud scandal in which many people charged come from the state’s large Somali community. The Trump administration cited those fraud allegations as a basis for a months-long immigration enforcement surge in Democratic-led Minnesota, during which about 3,000 immigration agents were deployed, spurring protests and leading to the killing of two US citizens by federal agents.
In November, Trump announced he would end TPS for Somalis in Minnesota, and a month later said he wanted them sent “back to where they came from.”
The US Department of State advises against traveling to Somalia, citing crime and civil unrest among numerous factors.
