'Too many soldiers to feed': North Koreans fear more sanctions as drought threatens famine

Plight of ordinary people being overlooked amid focus on missile launches and rising tensions between Pyongyang and Washington

UN agencies believe a drought that ravaged crops this summer will leave the North unable to properly feed many of its people Photograph: James Gourley/REX/Shutterstock

Justin McCurry in Osaka

Sanctions and the worst drought for almost two decades threaten to cause severe hardship for millions of people in North Korea, while the country’s leadership continues to plough scarce resources into its missile and nuclear programmes, according to UN agencies and those with contacts in the impoverished nation.

A drought that ravaged crops earlier this summer will leave the North unable to properly feed many of its people, including soldiers in the country’s million-strong army, the groups have warned.

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While living standards have improved for some North Koreans under Kim Jong-un’s leadership, many of the country’s 25 million people face a struggle to secure enough food while others risk losing their jobs due to sanctions, according to Jiro Ishimaru, a Japanese documentary maker who runs a network of citizen journalists inside North Korea.

“For one thing, there are too many soldiers to feed,” Ishimaru, whose contacts are equipped with contraband mobile phones, told the Guardian at his Asia Press office in the western Japanese city of Osaka.

“And corruption is rife, so that by the time senior military officers have taken their share of food provisions to sell for profit on the private market, there is next to nothing left for ordinary soldiers.”

Ishimaru, who spoke to several contacts about living conditions in North Koreafrom the Chinese border earlier this month, added: “One of them told me that there was talk of war with the US, but that many North Korean soldiers are in poor physical condition and in no fit state to fight.”

Many North Korean soldiers are in poor physical condition and in no fit state to fightJiro Ishimaru

Ishimaru fears the focus on missile launches and rising tensions between Pyongyang and Washington means the plight of ordinary North Koreans is being overlooked.

“This is exactly what Kim Jong-un wants – to project an image of strength, that he and the people are one and the same. In an ordinary country there would be riots over the food shortages, but not in North Korea.”

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The state’s inability to provide has spawned a private market in food and Chinese-made clothes that is tolerated, if not encouraged, by officials. “The authorities allow it to continue because they know the state would collapse otherwise,” he added.

The UN, concerned about the prospect of widespread malnutrition and other illnesses after the country suffered its worst drought since 2001, has approved $6.3m in aid to help it cope with shortages of corn, rice, maize, potatoes and other essential crops.

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers’ party of Korea, reported that “prevention battles” had been launched to counter an “abysmal drought” that began in May according to the NK News website.

In a special alert last month, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated North Korea’s early-season crop production was down almost a third from the same period last year.

“More rains are urgently needed to avoid significant decreases in the main 2017 cereal production season,” the report said. “Should drought conditions persist, the food security situation is likely to further deteriorate.”

It added: “Most of the country’s population is critically dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. At this point, it is vital that farmers receive appropriate and timely agricultural input assistance.”

UN officials are determined to prevent a repeat of a famine in the mid-1990s that, according to some estimates, killed as many as one million North Koreans.

Ishimaru, who last week witnessed “clearly undernourished” soldiers washing their uniforms in the Yalu river near the Chinese border, said: “The drought, combined with sanctions, will take the North Korean economy in a dangerous direction by next spring. This is a time of real hardship for ordinary people.”

As Kim and Donald Trump traded verbal blows over Pyongyang’s missile tests, reports emerged of public discontent towards the regime’s focus on weapons development.

Soon after North Korea successfully launched a Hwasong-14 ICBM late last month, some residents in the country’s North Pyongan province questioned the wisdom of inviting more international reprisals by testing ballistic missiles.

The Daily NK website quoted a source in North Korea as saying that some residents felt “disillusioned by the Kim Jong-un regime, which spends more money on developing missiles than improving their livelihoods”.

This undated picture released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un visiting a pig farm at Taechon Air Base of the Korean People’s Army. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images

The anonymous source added: “Everyone is aware that whenever the regime launches a missile, economic sanctions will follow. There’s nothing to celebrate for ordinary citizens. In the beginning, the residents were proud of the regime openly opposing the US with nuclear development and missiles, but these days, anti-US sentiment has weakened, while respect for the regime has plummeted.”

New UN sanctions that aim to slash by a third North Korea’s $3bn annual export revenue risk creating an extra layer of misery for ordinary North Koreans.

The measures are expected to threaten export-dependent jobs, including those at Musan mine, the country’s biggest producer of iron ore. The ban on seafood exports will hit fishermen whose livelihoods depend on selling part of their catch to China.

Theresa May accused of U-turn over EU court’s role after Brexit

Latest Brexit policy paper leaves open possibility of European court of justice retaining say on UK law

The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, said European judges would have to be involved in a system to address Brexit issues. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Heather Stewart and Rowena Mason

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Theresa May was accused of a climbdown over the future sovereignty of British courts after a newly published government paper appeared to leave open the possibility that the European court of justice would influence UK law after Brexit.

The latest of a flurry of Brexit policy papers, due to be published on Wednesday, will repeat the government’s insistence that the “direct jurisdiction” of the Luxembourg-based ECJ must end when Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.

But it will set out a range of options for resolving future disputes between Britain and the EU – over the rules of any new trade deal, for example – some of which are likely to involve European judges, or the application of ECJ case law.Q&A

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A UK government spokesperson said: “We have long been clear that, in leaving the EU, we will bring an end to the direct jurisdiction of the court of justice of the European Union in the UK.”

The spokesperson added: “It is also in everyone’s interest that, where disputes arise between the UK and the EU on the application or interpretation of these obligations, those disputes can be resolved efficiently and effectively.”

Judicial independence is a totemic issue for Brexiters, and May sought to reassure them in her Lancaster House speech in January that she would “take back control of our laws and bring an end to the jurisdiction of the European court of justice in Britain”.

She added: “Leaving the European Union will mean that our laws will be made in Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. And those laws will be interpreted by judges not in Luxembourg but in courts across this country.”

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Opposition politicians said that the paper represented a U-turn by ministers. The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, said: “The repeated reference to ending the ‘direct jurisdiction’ of the ECJ is potentially significant. This appears to contradict the red line laid out in the prime minister’s Lancaster House speech and the government’s white paper, which stated there could be no future role of the ECJ and that all laws will be interpreted by judges in this country.”

Chuka Umunna, a Labour MP and supporter of the Open Britain group said: “Nothing the government says it wants to deliver from Brexit – be it on trade, citizens’ rights or judicial cooperation – can be achieved without a dispute resolution system involving some role for European judges.”

The Liberal Democrat leader, Vince Cable, said: “We welcome this sensible and long overdue climbdown by the prime minister. It shows Theresa May’s red lines are becoming more blurred by the day.

“The government seems to have belatedly accepted it won’t be possible to end the EU court’s influence in the UK without damaging our free trade and security cooperation with Europe.”

Senior sources at DExEU denied that they were planning a retreat on the principle of judicial sovereignty – but as the government has laid out more details of the “deep and special partnership” it hopes to negotiate after Brexit, it has become clear that the UK and the EU will not diverge significantly.

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That is likely to mean shadowing EU law in some significant areas and legal experts have warned that will make it difficult to avoid a key role for the ECJ.

Sir Paul Jenkins, who was the government’s most senior legal official for eight years until 2014, said at the weekend that the prime minister’s policy of seeking to avoid ECJ involvement was “foolish”. He insisted that if the UK wanted to retain close links with the single market and customs union it would have no option but to observe EU law “in all but name”.

Wednesday’s paper is likely to point to precedents for international dispute resolution that do not involve a direct role for the Luxembourg court, including disputes between Switzerland and the EU, which are settled through a series of joint committees – though the EU is unhappy with that arrangement, and would like a more judicial approach.

It will also use the example of the Canadian free trade deal, Ceta, which includes an investor-dispute mechanism involving expert arbitrators, rather than judges. That would be controversial with campaigners concerned that such a body may be more opaque and less consistent than a court.

The paper will not identify a preferred model, but will stress that the government is willing to be flexible, and could consider the creation of new arbitration bodies for different types of dispute.

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Britain’s objection to ECJ oversight has already become a sticking point in talks with Brussels, with the EU insisting that it sees the Luxembourg-based court as the best arbiter of future disputes over the rights of the EU citizens who currently live in Britain. The government will underline on Wednesday that it still believes UK courts should be the guarantors of these rights – and EU courts for British citizens living abroad.

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Tory MP and leading Leave campaigner Bernard Jenkin said: “The ECJ should not have any role in interpreting any agreement between the EU and the UK.”

He told the Daily Telegraph: “No non-EU country will be much interested in talking to us about a free trade agreement if we still look hobbled by our relationship to the EU.”

Another political hurdle to a successful Brexit deal was made clearer on Tuesday when the Welsh first minister, Carwyn Jones, and his Scottish counterpart, Nicola Sturgeon, announced they would be jointly drawing up amendments to the government’s EU (withdrawal) bill, in a bid to ensure that powers returned from Brussels flow to Edinburgh and Cardiff, not Westminster.

The pair had already pledged to withhold consent from the legislation, triggering a constitutional crisis, unless it is amended. After meeting Sturgeon in Edinburgh, Jones said: “The Welsh parliament is never going to support something that deprives the people of powers that would otherwise come to them.” He added: “The UK government has not done enough to build trust.”

May has not been fronting the publications of the Brexit position

papers, after a low-key summer in which she spent almost four weeks on holiday. She returned last week but only made one public appearance, in Portsmouth, where she welcomed the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to its home port for the first time.

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After spending time working from her constituency earlier in the week, May will reappear in the public eye on Wednesday at a factory that makes red double-decker buses in Guildford, Surrey. She is visiting the Alexander Dennis site to announce £44m of government financial guarantees to enable the sale of 90 low-emission vehicles to Mexico City.

However, the prime minister will not address staff at the factory for a speech or question and answer session, and journalists will not be allowed to attend apart from a shared broadcast camera.

Before the visit, she said the guarantee was a sign the UK was “building a truly global Britain by helping UK companies win multimillion-pound contracts to export their products across the globe, and supporting high-value jobs here in this country”.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, will spend the day campaigning in the Western Isles as part of his tour of Scotland this week. He will be visiting a Harris tweed mill, an education organisation which helps with broadband connections, meeting business and community leaders, and visiting an art exhibition, followed by a rally at a sports centre where about 1,000 people are expected.

MKOA WA IRINGA UNAKABIRIWA NA TATIZO LA HOSTELI

Mkoa wa Iringa unakabiriwa na tatizo la hosteli kwa wanafunzi kwa kiasi kubwa si tu kwa wanafunzi wa vyuo vikuu, bali hata kwa wanafunzi wanaosoma katika shule za sekondari. 

Hayo yalisemwa jana na Katibu Tawala Msaidizi, Uchumi na Sekta za Uzalishaji, Fikira Kisimba kwa niaba ya Mkuu wa Mkoa wa Iringa Amina Masenza wakati wa akifungua semina ya elimu kwa uma kuhusu mikopo ya nyumba Tanzania. 

Alisema kuwa wanafunzi wengi hasa vijijini wanakaa mbali na maeneo ya shule hivyo huwapasa kutembea muda mrefu na kufika shuleni wamechoka na kushindwa kufuata vizuri mosomo yao. 

Aidha Kisimba alisema kuwa Mkoa wa Iringa umejipanga vyema kuwa kitovu cha utalii na uwekezaji, juhudi hizo zote zinahitaji ukuaji wa haraka wa sekta ya nyumba. Alisema kuwa wanahitaji kuwa na hoteli za kisasa, super markets za kisasa, kumbi za mikutano na hasa kwa kuzingatia makao makuu ya serikali sasa yamehamia mjini Dodoma, mji ambao ni jirani na Iringa. 

“Tunajukumu kubwa la kuendeleza nyumba na makazi yetu ili kukidhi azma hii,” alisema Kisimba. 

Kisimba alitoa wito kwa Benki Kuu kuhimiza mifuko hiyo ya mikopo midogo midogo ya nyumba isogeze huduma zake ndani ya mkoa, manispaa na halmashauri ili kusaidia kuboresha makazi hasa kwa watumishi na wakazi wa Mkoa wa Iringa. 

Naye Mratibu wa Mafunzo Elimu ya Mikopo ya Nyumba Tanzania, Dkt Felician Komu alisema serikali inatekeleza mradi wa mikopo ya nyumba kupitia Benki Kuu ya Tanzania. 

Alisema kuwa madhumuni makuu ya mradi ni kuandaa mazingira rafiki ya kukuza soko la mikopo ya nyumba nchini na yenye riba nafuu. 

Komu alisema kuwa mkopo wa nyumba ni utaratibu wa utoaji wa mkopo kati ta taasisi za fedha au benki na mkopaji mwenye kuhitaji fedha kwa ajili ya ama kugharamia ununuzi wa nyumba, ujenzi wa nyumba au maboresho na ukarabati wa nyumba kwa ajili ya mkopo wa muda mrefu. 

Aidha, Manispaa ya Iringa ni kati ya miji minane iliyopewa nafasi maalum katika kuenza elimu ya mikopo ya nyumba nchini. Kampuni ya Tanzania Real Estate Settlement and title Assurance Co Ltd (TRESTA) ya jijini Dar es Salaam inasimamia utekelezaji wa mafunzo ya mikopo ya nyumba Tanzania. 

Aliongeza kuwa mwananchi yeyote anastahili kupata mkopo ilimradi athibitike; ana uwezo wa kurejesha mkopo kwa kiwango kitakachokubaliwa kwa kila mwezi pamoja na kuwa na historia nzuri kurejesha madeni.