A corn shortage in North Korea and a bumper harvest across the border in China have triggered an active grain smuggling business, a Chinese official said yesterday, even as legal trade also soars.
International food agencies have warned that North Korea faces an increased risk of famine this year and next as it is unable to supply itself with enough grain even in a good year.
Denuded hillsides make the isolated country vulnerable to flooding, while a deterioration in infrastructure can compound the effects of drought.
“The drought in North Korea was very serious and there is a lot of corn smuggling from China into North Korea,” said Zhu Yehui (祝業輝), the head of the grains bureau of Jilin, the province bordering North Korea. “The price in North Korea is more than 10 times the domestic price in China.”
China effectively stopped exporting corn and wheat at the beginning of this year to control domestic inflation, but makes an exception for North Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
According to Chinese customs data, exports of corn to North Korea soared to 97,606 tonnes in the first seven months of the year, a rise of 564 percent.
North Korean imports were strong in the late winter, implying that last year’s harvest was insufficient, dipped in the spring, and then rose to 37,111 tonnes in June, the highest monthly level this year.
North Korea accounted for almost all of China’s corn exports this summer. Last month China exported 30,000 tonnes of corn, although the amount sent to North Korea has not yet been released.
The UN World Food Programme said earlier this month that China’s restrictions on grains exports hampered its ability to source grain for North Korea from China.
Meanwhile, the UN command in South Korea said it has handed over the body of a North Korean soldier found near the border dividing the two Koreas.
UN command spokesman Kim Yong-kyu says the body was turned over yesterday at the truce village of Panmunjom. The village lies inside the Demilitarized Zone.
Kim says South Korean soldiers found the body near a dam in the eastern South Korean province of Gangwon on Sept. 2 still dressed in a North Korean military uniform.
The body was drifting in a river that flows across the heavily fortified frontier and the cause of death was unclear, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
Bodies of North Korean soldiers and civilians have occasionally been found in rivers near the border, some of them believed to have been victims of flooding.
The US-led UN Command oversees the armistice that ended the Korean War.
The two countries technically remain at war.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
CHAGOS ISLANDS: Recently elected Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told lawmakers that the contents of negotiations are ‘unknown’ to the government Mauritius’ new prime minister ordered an independent review of a deal with the UK involving a strategically important US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, placing the agreement under fresh scrutiny. Under a pact signed last month, the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, while retaining control of Diego Garcia — the island where the base is situated. The deal was signed by then-Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct. 3 — a month before elections in Mauritius in which Navin Ramgoolam became premier. “I have asked for an independent review of the
France on Friday showed off to the world the gleaming restored interior of Notre-Dame cathedral, a week before the 850-year-old medieval edifice reopens following painstaking restoration after the devastating 2019 fire. French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the “impossible” by healing a “national wound” after the fire on April 19, 2019. While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor. The floor shimmers and
‘VIOLATIONS OF DISCIPLINE’: Miao Hua has come up through the political department in the military and he was already fairly senior before Xi Jinping came to power in 2012 A member of China’s powerful Central Military Commission has been suspended and put under investigation, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said on Thursday. Miao Hua (苗華) was director of the political work department on the commission, which oversees the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the world’s largest standing military. He was one of five members of the commission in addition to its leader, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Ministry spokesman Colonel Wu Qian (吳謙) said Miao is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline,” which usually alludes to corruption. It is the third recent major shakeup for China’s defense establishment. China in June
RSS