25-06-2022

SATuRDAY, June 25, 2022
11
N. Korea approves new frontline
army duties amid tensions
SEOUL : North Korean leader Kim
Jong Un doubled down on his nuclear
arms buildup to overwhelm "hostile
forces" at a key meeting where military
leaders approved unspecified new
operational duties for frontline army
units, reports UNB.
Members of the ruling Workers'
Party's Central Military Commission
decided to supplement an "important
military action plan" on the duties of
frontline troops and further strengthen
the country's nuclear war deterrent,
state media said Friday.
North Korea hasn't specified the new
operational duties for frontline army
units, but analysts say the country could
be planning to deploy battlefield nuclear
weapons targeting rival South Korea
along their tense border.
While North Korea's pursuit of
nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that
could reach the U.S. mainland gets
much of the international attention, it is
also developing a variety of nuclearcapable,
short-range missiles that can
target South Korea. Experts say its
rhetoric around those missiles
communicates a threat to proactively
use them in warfare to blunt the
stronger conventional forces of South
Korea and the United States. About
28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in the
South to deter aggression from the
North.
Kim during the military commission's
three-day meeting that ended Thursday
called for his entire army to "go all out"
in carrying out the plans to bolster the
nation's military muscle and
consolidate "powerful self-defense
capabilities for overwhelming any
hostile forces and thus reliably protect
the dignity of the great country."
The commission's members
discussed ways to strengthen the party's
leadership over the entire armed forces
and ratified plans for unspecified
changes in "military organizational
formations," North Korea's official
UN chief warns of
'catastrophe' from
global food shortage
Berlin : The head of the
United Nations warned
Friday that the world faces
"catastrophe" because of the
growing shortage of food
around the globe, reports
UNB.
U.N. Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres said the
war in Ukraine has added to
the disruptions caused by
climate change, the
coronavirus pandemic and
inequality to produce an
"unprecedented global
hunger crisis" already
affecting hundreds of
millions of people.
"There is a real risk that
multiple famines will be
declared in 2022," he said in
a video message to officials
from dozens of rich and
developing countries
gathered in Berlin. "And
2023 could be even worse."
Guterres noted that
harvests across Asia, Africa
and the Americas will take a
hit as farmers around the
world struggle to cope with
rising fertilizer and energy
prices.
"This year's food access
issues could become next
year's global food shortage,"
he said. "No country will be
immune to the social and
economic repercussions of
such a catastrophe."
Guterres said U.N.
negotiators were working on
a deal that would enable
Ukraine to export food,
including via the Black Sea,
and let Russia bring food
and fertilizer to world
markets
without
restrictions.
He also called for debt
relief for poor countries to
help keep their economies
afloat and for the private
sector to help stabilize global
food markets.
The Berlin meeting's host,
German Foreign Minister
Annalena Baerbock, said
Moscow's claim that
Western sanctions imposed
over Russia's invasion of
Ukraine were to blame for
food shortages was
"completely untenable."
Russia exported as much
wheat in May and June this
year as in the same months
of 2021, Baerbock said.
Korean Central News Agency said.
Some analysts say North Korea's
possible plans to deploy tactical nuclear
weapons to frontline artillery units may
require command-and-control changes
as the country's nuclear-capable
weapons have so far been handled by
the army's strategic force.
State media reports of the meeting did
not include any direct criticism toward
Washington or Seoul amid a prolonged
stalemate in nuclear negotiations.
The meeting came amid signs that
North Korea is preparing to conduct its
first nuclear test explosion since
September 2017, when it claimed to
have detonated a thermonuclear
weapon that could be tipped on its
intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Experts say North Korea may use its
next nuclear test to claim that it has
acquired the ability to build a small
nuclear warhead to fit its short-range
missiles or other weapons it recently
tested, including a purported hypersonic
missile and a long-range cruise missile.
Smaller warheads would also be
necessary for the North's stated pursuit
of a multiwarhead ICBM.
While North Korean reports of the
meeting didn't mention plans for a
nuclear test, a South Korean
government spokesperson said Seoul is
keeping a close watch for related
developments.
"As North Korea said it discussed and
ratified important plans to expand and
strengthen its war deterrent, (our)
government will prepare for all
possibilities while carefully monitoring
related trends," said Cha Duck-chul
from Seoul's Unification Ministry,
which handles inter-Korean affairs.
North Korea has already set an
annual record in ballistic testing
through the first half of 2022, firing
around 30 missiles, including its first
tests involving intercontinental ballistic
missiles in nearly five years.
Kim has punctuated his recent tests
with repeated comments that North
Korea would use its nuclear weapons
proactively when threatened or
provoked, which experts say portend
an escalatory nuclear doctrine that may
create greater concerns for neighbors.
South Korea has been spending
heavily to expand its conventional arms
in recent years, but some analysts say
the country has no clear way to counter
the threat posed by Kim's growing
arsenal of nuclear weapons and
missiles.
While the Biden administration has
reaffirmed U.S. commitment to defend
allies South Korea and Japan with its
full range of military capabilities,
including nuclear, there are concerns
in Seoul that Kim's ICBMs could make
the United States hesitant in the event
of another war on the Korean
Peninsula.
Opinion polls show growing support
among South Koreans for a
redeployment of U.S. tactical nukes
that were withdrawn from the South in
the 1990s or even the South's pursuit
of its own deterrent, which some
experts say would increase pressure on
Pyongyang and create conditions for
mutual nuclear disarmament.
North Korea's apparent push to
deploy battlefield nuclear weapons at
frontline units had been predicted since
April, when Kim supervised a test of a
new short-range missile that state
media said would "drastically" improve
the firepower of frontline artillery units
and "enhance the efficiency in the
operation of tactical nukes."
Experts say North Korea's unusually
fast pace in testing activity this year
underscores Kim's dual intent to
advance his arsenal and pressure
Washington over long-stalled nuclear
diplomacy. Talks have stalled since
early 2019 over disagreements in
exchanging the release of crippling U.S.-
led sanctions against the North and the
North's disarmament steps.
73rd founding anniversary of Bangladesh Awami League has been
observed in Dhobaura on Thursday.
Photo : Azharul Islam
North Dakota farmland purchase
tied to Gates stirs emotion
FARGO: The sale of a couple thousand acres
of prime North Dakota farmland to a group
tied to Bill Gates has stirred emotions over a
Depression-era law meant to protect family
farms and raised questions about whether the
billionaire shares the state's values, reports
UNB.
Gates is considered the largest private
owner of farmland in the country with some
269,000 acres across dozens of states,
according to last year's edition of the Land
Report 100, an annual survey of the nation's
largest landowners. He owns less than 1
percent of the nation's total farmland.
The state's attorney general has asked the
trust that acquired the North Dakota land to
explain how it plans to use it in order to meet
rules outlined in the state's archaic anticorporate
farming law. It prohibits all
corporations or limited liability companies
from owning or leasing farmland or
ranchland, with some exceptions.
"I don't know that it's quite as volatile a
situation as some have depicted," North
Dakota Republican Attorney General Drew
Wrigley told The Associated Press Thursday.
"It's taken off, it's all over the planet, but it's
not me sticking a finger in the eye of Bill
Gates. That's not what this is."
Meanwhile, the state's Agriculture
Commissioner, Republican Doug Goehring,
told a North Dakota TV station that many
people feel they are being exploited by the
ultra-rich who buy land but do not
necessarily share the state's values. About
2100 acres (849.84 hectares) of land were
sold in the deal, AgWeek reported.
Goehring, who is currently on a statesponsored
trade mission to the United
Kingdom, did not immediately respond to a
list of questions emailed by the AP.
"I've gotten a big earful on this from clear
across the state, it's not even from that
neighborhood," Goehring told KFYR-TV.
"Those people are upset, but there are others
that are just livid about this." Charles V.
Zehren, a spokesman for Gates' investment
firm, declined Thursday to comment to the
AP.
Wrigley said the corporate farming inquiry
goes out "as a matter of course" when his
office is notified of farmland sales, in this case
Red River Trust's $13.5 million purchase of
property in two counties from wealthy
northeastern North Dakota potato growers
Campbell Farms. Phone calls to Campbell
Farms went unanswered.
"It's meant to get everybody up to speed on
what the ownership arrangement is and what
their intentions are for the land," Wrigley
said. "If it complies with state law, the matter
goes forward. If not, they're informed they're
going to have to divest of the land."
Corporations are exempted from the law if
the land is necessary "for residential or
commercial development; the siting of
buildings, plants, facilities, industrial parks,
or similar business or industrial purposes of
the corporation or limited liability company;
or for uses supportive of or ancillary to
adjacent non agricultural land for the benefit
of both land parcels," the law reads.
It's not the first test for a statute that was
passed in 1932. A federal judge in 2018 ruled
the law constitutional after a conservative
farm group argued that it limits business
options for producers and interferes with
interstate commerce by barring out-of-state
corporations from being involved in North
Dakota's farm industry.
North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug
Burgum, a former Microsoft executive whose
campaign received $100,000 from Microsoft
co-founder Gates when Burgum first won in
2016, declined to comment on the farmland
sale. The Republican governor stayed down
the middle when asked his opinion of the
anti-corporate farming law, which he and the
Legislature expanded in 2019 to allow second
cousins in the mix of ownership.
State Minister for Youth and Sports Zahid Ahsan Russel, MP distributing relief among the flood hit
people in Sylhet.
Photo : PID
Death toll from
Afghanistan's quake
rises to 1,150 people
GAYAN : The death toll from
a devastating earthquake in
Afghanistan continued to
climb days after it turned
brick and stone homes into
rubble, killing 1,150 people
and wounding scores more,
according to the latest
figures carried in state
media on Friday, reports
UNB.
The country of 38 million
people was already in the
midst of a spiraling
economic crisis that had
plunged millions deep into
poverty with over a million
children at risk of severe
malnutrition.
The magnitude 6 quake
has left thousands without
shelter. State media
reported that close to 3,000
homes were destroyed or
badly damaged in
Wednesday's earthquake.
Aid organizations like the
local Red Crescent and
World Food Program have
stepped in to assist the most
vulnerable families with
food and other emergency
needs like tents and sleeping
mats in Paktika province,
the epicenter of the
earthquake,
and
neighboring Khost province.
Ukrainians cheer
nation's EU candidacy
amid wartime woes
Kyiv: The European Union's
decision to make Ukraine a
candidate for EU
membership offered warweary
Ukrainians a morale
boost and hope of a more
secure future Friday as the
country's military ordered
its fighters to retreat from a
key city in the eastern
Donbas region, reports
UNB.
Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed
the decision of EU leaders as
vindication for his nation's
fight against Russia's
aggression and said he was
determined to ensure
Ukraine retained the ability
to decide if belonged in
Europe or under Moscow's
influence.
"This war began just when
Ukraine declared its right to
freedom. To its choice of its
future. We saw it in the
European Union,"
Zelenskyy told the nation in
a televised address late
Thursday. "That is why this
decision of the EU is so
important, motivates us and
shows all this is needed not
only by us."
Others recalled the 2014
revolution that ousted
Ukraine's pro-Moscow
president, sparked in part by
his decision not to complete
an association agreement
with the EU. Russian
President Vladimir Putin had
opposed the agreement, just
as he demanded before he
sent troops into Ukraine on
Feb. 24 that Ukraine never be
allowed to join NATO.
6 die in crash of Vietnam-era
helicopter in West Virginia
LOGAN: A Vietnam-era helicopter
showcased in action movies crashed on a
rural West Virginia road, killing all six
people on board, during an annual
reunion for helicopter enthusiasts,
reports UNB.
The Federal Aviation Administration
said the Bell UH-1B "Huey" helicopter
crashed along Route 17 in Logan County
about 5 p.m. Wednesday.
All six people on board were killed, said
Ray Bryant, chief of operations for the
Logan County emergency ambulance
service authority. The helicopter crashed
in clear weather on a road near the local
airport, he said.
"The entire cab of it was on fire,"
Bryant said in a phone interview
Thursday.
"It was recognized by the first
responders as being a helicopter from
this area because we see it a lot," he said.
The crash occurred during an annual
reunion for helicopter enthusiasts at
MARPAT Aviation in Logan. It was
scheduled to begin Tuesday and end
Sunday, according to MARPAT's website.
During the event, visitors could sign up
to ride or fly the historic helicopter,
described by organizers as one of the last
of its kind still flying.
The helicopter was flown by the 114th
Assault Helicopter Company, "The
Knights of the Sky," in Vinh Long,
Vietnam, throughout much of the 1960s,
according to MARPAT. After the Huey
returned to the U.S. in 1971, the website
says, it was featured in movies like "Die
Hard, "The Rock" and "Under Siege:
Dark Territory."
Neither reunion organizers nor
MARPAT officials returned requests for
comment Thursday.
Patty Belcher, who lives nearby, was
driving to the store when she came upon
the crash.
"There was smoke so thick that you
couldn't hardly see nothing but smoke
and flames," she said by phone Thursday.
"It was coming down the ditch line on the
righthand side, and I said, 'My God, I
better turn around. It might catch this
truck on fire.' So I turned around and
came back."
The crash was near the Battle of Blair
Mountain historic sites, where a deadly
clash erupted a century ago as thousands
of coal miners marched to unionize in
West Virginia.
Bobbi Childs saw smoke and flames
and got close enough to see a man who
was trapped.
"I saw that there was a guy trapped, I
guess the captain. I tried to get down to
the door where he was at. You could see
him plain as day. I tried to get to him, but
the fire was too hot. I couldn't get to
him," Childs told WOWK-TV.
The road was expected to remain closed
for at least 24 hours. The FAA and the
National Transportation Safety Board
will investigate.
Bogura district Awami League brought out a joyous rally on the occasion of
73rd founding anniversary of Bangladesh Awami League. Photo : Azahar Ali
UK's Johnson faces test in 2 special
parliamentary elections
LONDON: Polls opened Thursday in Britain
for two special elections that could deliver a new
blow to scandal-tainted Conservative Prime
Minister Boris Johnson, reports UNB.
Wakefield in northern England and the
southwestern constituency of Tiverton and
Honiton are both electing replacements for
Conservative lawmakers who resigned in
disgrace. One was convicted of sexual assault;
the other was caught looking at pornography in
the House of Commons chamber - an episode
he explained by saying he was searching for
pictures of tractors on his phone.
Defeat in either district would be a setback for
the prime minister's party. Losing both would
increase jitters among restive Conservatives
who already worry the ebullient but erratic and
divisive Johnson is no longer an electoral asset.
"For the Conservatives to lose one by-election
on Thursday might be regarded as
unfortunate," polling expert John Curtice of the
University of Strathclyde wrote in the
Independent newspaper. "However, to lose two
might look like much more than carelessness -
but a sign of a government that is at risk of
losing its electoral footing." Johnson was 4,000
miles (6,400 kilometers) away at a
Commonwealth summit in Rwanda as voters
went to the polls. He told reporters he would
not step down if the Conservatives lose both
elections, replying to the suggestion with: "Are
you crazy?"
"Governing parties generally do not win byelections,
particularly not in mid-term," he said.
"That's just the reality."
The electoral tests come as Britain faces the
worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, with
Russia's war in Ukraine squeezing supplies of
energy and food staples at a time of soaring
consumer demand while the coronavirus
pandemic recedes. Johnson won a big majority
in a 2019 general election by keeping the
Conservatives' traditional voters - affluent,
older and concentrated in southern England -
and winning new ones in poorer, postindustrial
northern towns where many
residents felt overlooked by governments for
decades, Thursday's elections are a test on both
fronts. Rural Tiverton and Honiton has voted
Conservative for generations, while Wakefield
is a northern district that the Tories won in
2019 from the left-of-center Labour Party.
Opinion polls suggest Labour is likely to
regain Wakefield, which would be a boost to a
party that has been out of office nationally
since 2010.