North Korea’s Kim visits farms hit by typhoon amid food lack

SEOUL—North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited typhoon-hit farms and oversaw military helicopters spraying pesticides to salvage key crops, state media said Friday.

Tropical Storm Khanun made landfall last week in the North, a country where natural disasters can be devastating due to weak infrastructure and widespread deforestation, which increases vulnerability to flooding.

The visit came hours after the UN Security Council accused the North Korean regime of spending heavily on its nuclear arms program while its people go hungry and lack basic necessities.

On Thursday, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers that around 240 North Koreans had starved to death between January and July this year, member of parliament Yoo Sang-bum told reporters after the briefing.

Kim visited rice paddy fields in Kangwon Province that had been flooded by the typhoon, but predicted a “complete recovery from the damage” thanks to the patriotism of soldiers who helped salvage the crop, the Korean Central News Agency reported.

KCNA images showed Kim, in a white jacket and trousers, squatting at the edge of the paddy field while military helicopters sprayed crops.

The North Korean leader said the rapid response of the military to the typhoon damage had been “performing a miracle of recovering flooded farmland

Moscow, Beijing hold joint naval maritime games

MOSCOW—Russian and Chinese warships are conducting joint maritime patrols in the Pacific Ocean involving rescue training and drills for countering air strikes, Moscow’s defense ministry said Friday.

Video released by Russian state news agency TASS showed nine large vessels sailing in a diamond formation as crew members stood to attention on deck.

The drills also included practicing the “replenishment of fuel reserves by ships and the transfer of cargo on the go”, the defense ministry said, adding that the joint detachment of ships had covered more than 6,400 nautical miles since the start of the exercises.

“A detachment of ships of the Russian Navy and the PLA Navy is currently operating in the waters of the East China Sea,” said the ministry, referring to China’s People’s Liberation Army.

“During this period, the sailors of the two countries conducted antisubmarine exercises, repulsed an air strike by a mock enemy, conducted rescue training at sea, and perfected the skills of taking off and landing helicopters on the decks of warships,” the statement read.

Ties between Moscow and Beijing have grown closer in recent years, as prolonged fighting in Ukraine has shattered Russia’s relationship with Western governments. AFP in a brief span of time.”

On Thursday, Seoul’s spy agency said people were starving in the North, with the country’s economy trapped in a “vicious cycle” with negative growth for three years from 2020 to 2022.

The North’s domestic product experienced a significant drop of 12 percent in 2022 compared to 2016, the agency told lawmakers during a briefing, according to lawmaker Yoo.

The number of North Koreans said to have died due to hunger between January to July was more than double the recent annual average of 110.

The North has periodically been hit by famine, with hundreds of thousands of people dying—estimates range into the millions—in the mid-1990s.

The country held a high-level party meeting in February to specifically address food shortages and agricultural problems.

As the storm approached the peninsula, the North had carried out “a dynamic campaign to cope with disastrous abnormal climate” and called for measures to minimize damage to the country’s economic output, state media reported.

Earlier this week, Kim berated “irresponsible” officials for failing to prevent damage from the storm. AFP

Strong quake rattles Colombian capital

BOGOTÁ, Colombia—A strong earthquake followed by dozens of aftershocks rattled central Colombia and the capital Bogota on Thursday, setting off sirens and sparking brief panic, including in one woman who died after jumping from a building, authorities said.

No major damage was reported, but Bogota’s mayor noted “reports of people trapped in elevators and other minor events.”

The Colombian Geological Survey put the quake’s magnitude at 6.1, while the US Geological Survey (USGS) reported it at 6.3.

The Colombian agency said the earthquake struck at 12:04 pm (1704 GMT), with its epicenter in the town of El Calvario, 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Bogota. It hit at a depth of less than 30 kilometers.

Buildings shook and sirens sounded as thousands of panicked residents poured into the streets of the capital, gripping their cell phones as they called loved ones, AFP journalists observed.

“The only serious incident reported was a woman who threw herself from the 10th floor of a residential building... apparently due to a nervous disorder,” said the mayor of the capital, Claudia Lopez, on the X social network, formerly known as Twitter.

Firefighters confirmed the woman’s death.

Social media users reported feeling the quake in the cities of Villavicencio, Bucaramanga, Tunja and Ibague, all near the epicenter.

“Strong tremor in Bogota. Let’s remain calm and cautious. Please take all precautions against possible aftershocks. Calm, serenity and caution,”

Lopez warned on X. US diplomat Francisco Palmieri was giving a speech at a Bogota hotel when the quake hit, as seen in a video of the session, which was attended by President Gustavo Petro. Palmieri stopped talking to ask out loud in English if there had been an earthquake, then resumed speaking, with a smile. The hotel was not evacuated.

A piece of the ceiling in the congress building detached but caused no injuries, according to videos released by the lower chamber on X.

A landslide was reported in Villavicencio, while reportedly only the windows of homes and businesses were affected in El Calvario, according to an update from the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management. AFP