Japanese official reported that the missiles travelled 400kms (250 miles) and at a maximum altitude of 50km (30 miles).
North Korea has fired two short-range ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area towards the country’s east coast, according to South Korean and Japanese officials, marking Pyongyang’s fourth missile test launches in a week.
Japan’s NHK national television said multiple missiles were fired from North Korea on Saturday morning and were believed to have landed in the Sea of Japan though outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
“What appears to be a ballistic missile was launched from North Korea,” the Japanese coast guard said in a statement issued at 6:47 am (21:47 GMT) local time on Saturday.
In a second statement issued about 15 minutes later, the coast guard said another apparent ballistic missile was launched.
NHK said the projectiles seemed to have fallen outside Japan’s exclusive economic zones, citing government sources.
The office of Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida tweeted that the latest missile launch was being analysed and instructions issued for the safety of people, aircraft and vessels.
▼ Instructions by the Prime Minister in Response to the Missile Launch by North Korea (06:47)https://t.co/5mdyBVeuYz (October 1)
The latest launch also follows after the navies of South Korea, the United States and Japan staged trilateral anti-submarine exercises on Friday for the first time in five years.
Japan’s Vice Defence Minister Toshiro Ino said North Korea’s repeated missile firings are “persistently escalating provocations”.
“North Korea’s actions threaten the peace and safety not only for Japan but also the region and the international community, and are absolutely impermissible,” Ino said, calling the four launches in one week “unprecedented”.
The missiles rose to a maximum altitude of 50km (30 miles) and flew as far as 400km (250 miles) before landing in the Sea of Japan in areas outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, Ino said.
The missiles may have been on “irregular” trajectory, which makes tracking more difficult.
North Korea has conducted a record number of weapons tests this year and analysts see the increased pace of testing as an effort to build its ballistic weapons capacity, as well as to take advantage of a world distracted by the Ukraine conflict and other crises.
Nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by North Korea have long been banned by the United Nations Security Council.
“Despite North Korea’s internal weaknesses and international isolation, it is rapidly modernising weapons and taking advantage of a world divided by US-China rivalry and Russia’s annexation of more Ukrainian territory,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
A South Korean legislator said on Wednesday that the North has completed preparations for a nuclear test, and a window for such a test could open between China’s party congress in October and the US mid-term elections in November.
Dozens more were wounded at the Kaaj tuition centre, in the Dasht-e-Barchi area in the western part of the capital, which the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) noted in a tweet, is a Hazara and Shia-majority area.
No group has yet claimed the attack, but affiliates of the terrorist group ISIL, or Daesh, have often targeted the Hazara minority in Afghanistan.
Appalling outrage
“The UN family condemns the outrage, extending its deep condolences to all those in mourning”, said the mission.
News reports said that the attacker shot at guards outside the facility, and then entered a classroom before detonating a bomb. Hundreds of students are reported to have been in the room at the time.
UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, issued a statement saying it was “appalled the by horrific attack” early on Friday morning.
‘Heinous act’
“This heinous act claimed the lives of dozens of adolescent girls and boys and severely injured many more. The victims were practising for the entrance exam to university.
“UNICEF offers its heartfelt condolences to all families affected by this terrible event and wishes a swift recovery to the injured.”
The agency said that any violence in any educational environment was “never acceptable”.
“Such places must be havens of peace where children can learn, be with friends, and feel safe as they build skills for their futures”, the statement continued.
“Children and adolescents are not, and must never be, the target of violence. Once again, UNICEF reminds all parties in Afghanistan to adhere to and respect human rights and ensure the safety and protection of all children and young people.”
Large cardamom grower Kaushila Moktan at her farm in Salakpur, eastern Nepal. Credit: Birat Anupam/IPS
by Birat Anupam (salakpur, nepal)
Inter Press Service
SALAKPUR, Nepal, Sep 29 (IPS) – Two and a half hours’ drive north from Kakarbhitta, Nepal’s eastern-most border crossing with giant neighbour India, lies the hilly hamlet of Salakpur where lives Kaushila Moktan, a famed farmer of large cardamom.
“I run a homestay for guests visiting our village, I also grow green vegetables and do beekeeping,” said Moktan. “However, our biggest source of family income is alaichi (large cardamom, in the Nepali language).”
The plant has helped keep her family of three — including her husband and 31-year-old son —afloat, said Moktan. “This year we produced some 24 man (960 kg) of cardamom,” she added in an interview at her farm. “I have sold 5man for 160,000 rupees (Rs) (equivalent to US$1,229 ).”Locals have their own cardamom measurement. Forty kg equals one man. A man currently sells for about Rs 30,000.
Moktan has stored a large part of her harvest in hopes of a better price in the days ahead. “I have experience of selling 1 man for Rs 98,000 some six years ago. This time, the price has been reduced to around Rs 30,000.”
She added that beekeeping has improved her cardamom harvest. “This year, we fetched 30 kg of honey and 24 man of cardamom, but last year the cardamom harvest was just around 9 man and the honey harvest was 3 kg. I have seen that good pollination leads to better productivity both for cardamom and honey,” said Moktan.
Used as a cooking spice, large cardamom has a smoky, camphor-like flavour. It is also an ingredient in traditional medicine in countries including India and China.
A close-up of a large cardamom plant, post-harvest. Credit: Birat Anupam/IPS
Farmers can’t get enough
Moktan’s neighbours tell similar positive stories about the crop. “I have a grocery shop, homestay and beekeeping but the good source of stable income is cardamom,” said Laxmi Tamang. She added that her farm produces around 5 man of the crop and that she recently sold this year’s harvest for Rs 160,000.
Nearby, Pabitra Gahatraj said she produces around three man per year. “We sell milk to the dairy, but if we had more land, we would plant more large cardamom.”
The three women are among the 300 households of Salakpur, in Rong Rural Municipality-6 of Ilam District, which rely on the crop. “Every household in our locality has large cardamom farming,” said Ward Chairperson Satyam Rai.
Located on the bank of the Mechi River, which runs between India and Nepal, Salakpur’s large cardamom production emerged because of cross-border migration. “This village had no trend of cardamom faming because we did not have much water and the soil wouldn’t grow the regular variety,” said Moktan. “But, relatives coming from India suggested that we try their variety, which is grown in water-scarce areas.”
The formula proved successful some 15 years ago. Soon word of the new crop spread to other districts of Nepal, bringing hordes of people looking to buy saplings. “We would sell them for Rs 5 per sapling and people as far as Dolakha district (500 km west of Ilam) came here to buy this plant,” said Moktan. “Even today, people occasionally arrive to buy saplings.”
The Government of Nepal has taken notice of the boom in large cardamom. Working with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) it has singled out the crop, and four others, as strong candidates for investment in a new project, the Hand in Hand Initiative (HiH).
Large cardamom grower Kaushila Moktan with sacks of large cardamom she has stored in hopes that prices will rise. Credit: Birat Anupam/IPS
Investment in production and processing
“In terms of production, we will aim to create quality planting material which is disease-free, expand the production area, and provide capacity-building, including for post-harvest marketing,” said Ken Shimizu, FAO Representative in Nepal and Bhutan, in an interview. “For processing, there is a shortage of drying and storage facilities, which will be addressed,” he added in his office in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.
The other crops identified under Nepal’s HiH are mountain potato, ginger and timur (Szechuan pepper). All have been assessed using the government’s Climate-Smart Agriculture Investment Plan, which FAO says identifies climate-smart farming practices and aims for higher yields, better climate resilience, sustainability and efficiency. The crops targeted under HiH generate a rate of return on investment of 20-25 percent.
Shimizu said that the agency plans to reach 100,000 producers of large cardamom production through HiH. “What we want to see is impact. First, more income generated from cardamom, which will help to enhance livelihoods and increase income for farmers.”
HiH is an evidence-based, country-owned and led initiative of the FAO to accelerate agricultural transformation, which also aims to eradicate poverty, end hunger and malnutrition, and reduce inequalities. The initiative supports 52 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East as of May 2022.
Locals in Salakpur call the large cardamom they grow Pakhe alaichi, which refers to cardamom grown on slopes. The responsible Nepal Government office has given it another name — jirmale. According to Anupa Subedi, Horticulture Development Officer and the Information Officer at the Cardamom Development Centre, jirmale is grown at an altitude varying from 600 m to 1,200 m, in water-scarce areas. It is harvested in the last three weeks of August.
Cardamom is grown is 46 districts of Nepal, the vast majority in the eastern hills. Harvested on 17,015 hectares (ha), large cardamom production was 11,621 tonnes in 2021, said Subedi. She added that less than five percent of cardamom is consumed in country and the rest is exported, mainly to India. Nepal is one of the world’s largest cardamom exporters, accounting for 68 percent of global production. It earns around $37 million from its cardamom exports, according to FAO data.
Large cardamom growing near a house in Salakpur, eastern Nepal. Credit: Birat Anupam/IPS
Growers see warning signs
Despite its booming success in recent years, the large cardamom growers of Salakpur are not optimistic the trend will continue. Moktan said yellowing leaves have been sounding a warning bell to the farmers for a couple of years. Previously the locals farmed oranges and ginger, but eventually those crops too declined.
“Once there used to be huge cultivation of ginger. We would fetch around Rs 100,000 in a year,” she said. “This ended some 10 years ago, and orange cultivation has been non-existent for the past five years.” Where once Moktan and her neighbours earned a healthy living, and reputation, growing the two crops, today the orange trees are withering, as did the ginger plants before them.
“We are now unable to grow and earn from ginger and orange for reasons we do not know,” said Tamang. “We are asking ourselves: how long will cardamom farming last?”
The women have heard that climate change might have contributed to the problems, and there are other theories. “Some people said the orange trees died because we planted cardamom saplings around them,” said Moktan. But in some cases the trees died even in the absence of cardamom.”
However, she is confident that support to deal with any growing issues will be provided by the local government, Cardamom Development Centre, and international organizations like FAO. ”We cannot solve any technical problems on our own,” said Moktan. “We need support from outside.”
Self-ruled island is among the last economies to reopen to the world after shutting its borders to keep out COVID-19.
Taiwan will end its mandatory COVID-19 quarantine for arrivals from October 13 and welcome tourists back, the government has announced, completing a big step on its plan to reopen to the outside world.
Taiwan had kept some of its entry and quarantine rules in place as large parts of the rest of Asia relaxed or lifted them completely, although in June it cut the number of days required in isolation for arrivals to three from seven previously.
Taiwan has reported 6.3 million domestic cases since the beginning of the year, driven by the more infectious Omicron variant. With more than 99 percent of those showing no or only mild symptoms, the government has relaxed restrictions in its “new Taiwan model”.
Cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng told reporters on Thursday that with a well-vaccinated population and the pandemic under control at home, the time had come to reopen borders.
Arrivals will still need to monitor their health for a seven-day period and take rapid tests, but tourists will be allowed to return, he added.
A series of other measures came into force on Thursday, including ending PCR tests for arrivals and resuming visa-free entry for citizens of all countries that previously had that status.
Throughout the pandemic, Taiwanese citizens and foreign residents have not been prohibited from leaving and then re-entering, but have had to quarantine at home or in hotels for up to two weeks.
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Standing in line to try to buy food, Rekha Begum is distraught. Like many others in Bangladesh, she is struggling to find affordable daily essentials like rice, lentils and onions.
“I went to two other places, but they told me they don’t have supplies. Then I came here and stood at the end of the queue,” said Begum, 60, as she waited for nearly two hours to buy what she needed from a truck selling food at subsidized prices in the capital, Dhaka.
Bangladesh’s economic miracle is under severe strain as fuel price hikes amplify public frustrations over rising costs for food and other necessities. Fierce opposition criticism and small street protests have erupted in recent weeks, adding to pressures on the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which has sought help from the International Monetary Fund to safeguard the country’s finances.
Experts say Bangladesh’s predicament is nowhere nearly as severe as Sri Lanka’s, where months’ long unrest led its long-time president to flee the country and people are enduring outright shortages of food, fuel and medicines, spending days in queues for essentials. But it faces similar troubles: excessive spending on ambitious development projects, public anger over corruption and cronyism and a weakening trade balance.
Such trends are undermining Bangladesh’s impressive progress, fueled largely by its success as a garment manufacturing hub, toward becoming a more affluent, middle-income country.
The government raised fuel prices by more than 50% last month to counter soaring costs due to high oil prices, triggering protests over the rising cost of living. That led authorities to order the subsidized sales of rice and other staples by government-appointed dealers.
The latest phase of the program, which began Sept. 1, should help about 50 million people, said Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi.
“The government has taken a number of measures to reduce pressures on low-income earners. That is impacting the market and keeping prices of daily commodities competitive,” he said.
The policies are a stopgap for bigger global and domestic challenges.
The war in Ukraine has pushed higher prices of many commodities at a time when they already were surging as demand recovered with a waning of the coronavirus pandemic. In the meantime, countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Laos — among many — have seen their currencies weaken against the dollar, adding to the costs for dollar-denominated imports of oil and other goods.
To ease the strain on public finances and foreign reserves, the authorities put a moratorium on big, new projects, cut office hours to save energy and imposed limits on imports of luxury goods and non-essential items, such as sedans and SUVs.
“The Bangladesh economy is facing strong headwinds and turbulence,” said Ahmad Ahsan, an economist and director of the Dhaka-based Policy Research Institute, a thinktank. “Suddenly we are back to the era of rolling power cuts, with the taka and the forex reserves under pressure,” he said.
Millions of low-income Bangladeshis, like Begum, whose family of five can barely afford to eat fish or meat even once a month, still struggle to put food on the table.
Bangladesh has made huge strides in the past two decades in growing its economy and fighting poverty. Investments in garment manufacturing have provided jobs for tens of millions of workers, mostly women. Exports of apparel and related products account for more than 80% of its exports.
But with fuel costs so high, authorities shut diesel-run power plants that produced at least 6% of total production, cutting daily power generation by 1,500 megawatts and disrupting manufacturing.
Imports in the last fiscal year, ending in June, 2022, rose to $84 billion, while exports have fluctuated, leaving a record current account deficit of $17 billion.
More challenges are ahead.
Deadlines are fast approaching for repaying foreign loans related to at least 20 mega infrastructure projects, including the $3.6 billion River Padma bridge built by China and a nuclear power plant mostly funded by Russia. Experts say Bangladesh needs to prepare for when repayment schedules ramp up between 2024 and 2026.
In July, in a move economists view as a precautionary measure, Bangladesh sought a $4.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, becoming the third country in South Asia to recently seek its help after Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Finance Minister A.H.M. Mustafa Kamal said that the government asked the IMF to begin formal negotiations on loans “for balance of payments and budgetary assistance.” The IMF said it was working with Bangladesh to draw up a plan.
Bangladesh’s foreign reserves have been falling, potentially undermining its ability to meet its loan obligations. By Wednesday they had dropped to $36.9 billion from $45.5 billion a year earlier, according to the central bank.
Usable foreign reserves would be about $30 billion, said Zahid Hussain, a former chief economist of the World Bank’s Dhaka office.
“I would not say this is a crisis situation. This is still enough to meet three months of imports, three and half months of imports. But it also means that … you do not have a lot of room for maneuvering on the reserve front,” he said.
Still, despite what some economists say is excessive spending on some costly projects, Bangladesh is better equipped to weather hard times than some other countries in the region.
Its farm sector — tea, rice and jute are major exports — is an effective “shock absorber,” and its economy, four to five times larger than Sri Lanka’s, is less vulnerable to outside calamities like a downturn in tourism.
The economy is forecast to grow at a 6.6% pace this fiscal year, according to the Asia Development Bank’s latest forecast, and the country’s total debt is still relatively small.
“I think in the current context, the most important difference between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is the debt burden, particularly the external debt,” said Hussain.
Bangladesh’s external debt is under 20% of its gross domestic product, while Sri Lanka’s was around 126% in the first quarter of 2022.
“So, we have some space. I mean debt as a source of stress on the macroeconomy is not much of a much problem yet,” he said.
Waiting in a line to buy subsidized food, 48-year-old Mohammed Jamal said he was not feeling such leeway for his own family.
“It has become unbearable trying to maintain our standard of living,” Jamal said. “Prices are just out of reach for the common people,” he said. “It’s tough living this way.”
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A court in northern China sentenced one man to 24 years in jail Friday for his role in a vicious attack on four women, as well as other crimes including robbery and opening an illegal gambling ring.
The Guangyang Disrict People’s Court in northern Hebei province announced in a statement that the man, Chen Jizhi, was a ringleader of a criminal gang and had conducted criminal activities for years.
The court also sentenced 27 others. The charges against them include opening casinos, robbery, assisting in cybercrime activities, picking quarrels and provoking trouble and sentences range from 6 months to 11 years.
Authorities had started the investigation into Chen after a video came to light in early June in which he and some other men started beating up four women at a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan, a city in Hebei. The men spared no force, using glass bottles and their fists to attack the women and even throwing a chair.
Chen had started the assault on a woman after she rejected his advances and pushed away his hand. He then put his hands on her, and dragged her out of her chair. He was joined quickly by members of his crew as the woman’s friends tried to stop his attack. The incident was caught on video from surveillance cameras in the restaurant.
The graphic videos set off public anger and despair as many women raised concerns for their personal safety.
It also recalled the public sense of despair over violence against women that went unpunished, such as a case earlier in the year where a video circulated of a woman chained to the wall in a home in the country side. Authorities later found in an investigation that the woman had been trafficked and sold as a bride.
Initially, police arrested nine people, seven men and two women, for the attack on the four women. Two of the women had to be hospitalized for their injuries.
The investigation over the public assault has evolved into a larger investigation over criminal activities and corruption. Prosecutors later said they were charging 27 other people for crimes uncovered during the investigation.
In August, Communist Party authorities from the Hebei Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection said they were investigating 15 officials over corruption that involved “evil organizations,” including those associated with the attackers.
The 15, including the director of Tangshan’s public security bureau and officers from several police stations, are suspected of abuse of power, bribery and other job-related crimes. Eight of them have been detained during the investigation.
BUSAN, South Korea (AP) — The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan arrived in the South Korean port of Busan on Friday ahead of the two countries’ joint military exercise that aims to show their strength against growing North Korean threats.
The joint drills will be the first involving a U.S. aircraft carrier in the region since 2017, when the U.S. sent three aircraft carriers including the Reagan for naval drills with South Korea in response to North Korean nuclear and missile tests.
The allies this year have revived their large-scale military drills that were downsized or shelved in previous years to support diplomacy with Pyongyang or because of COVID-19, responding to North Korea’s resumption of major weapons testing and increasing threats of nuclear conflicts with Seoul and Washington.
The South Korean navy said the training is meant to boost the allies’ military readiness and show “the firm resolve by the Korea-U.S. alliance for the sake of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”
“The commitment of the U.S. carrier strike group operating in and around the peninsula illustrates our commitment to stand together and our desire and focus ensuring that we are interoperable and integrated to face any challenge or threat whenever we are required,” Rear Adm. Michael Donnelly, commander of the carrier strike group, said in a news conference.
The North Korean threat is also expected to be a key agenda when U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visits South Korea next week after attending the state funeral in Tokyo of slain former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The Reagan’s arrival in South Korea comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told Pyongyang’s rubber-stamp parliament this month he would never abandon his nuclear weapons and missiles he needs to counter what he perceives as U.S. hostility.
North Korea also passed a new law that enshrined its status as a nuclear power and authorized the preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of scenarios where the country or its leadership comes under threat.
Sung Kim, the Biden administration’s special representative for North Korea, met with South Korean counterpart Kim Gunn on Thursday in Seoul, where they expressed “serious concern” over the North’s escalating nuclear doctrine spelled out in the new law, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said.
The diplomats reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to defend South Korea in the event of a nuclear war with the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear. The allies also maintained their months-old assessment that North Korea is gearing up to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017 and discussed “stern” countermeasures to such an action, the ministry said.
North Korea has dialed up weapons testing to a record pace in 2022, launching more than 30 ballistic weapons including its intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017, as it exploits a divide in the U.N. Security Council deepened over Russia’s war on Ukraine.
While North Korea’s ICBMs garner much of U.S. attention because they pose a potential threat to the American homeland, the North has also been expanding its arsenal of nuclear-capable, shorter-range missiles designed to evade missile defenses in South Korea.
North Korea’s expanding arsenal and threats of preemptive nuclear attacks have triggered concerns in South Korea over the credibility of the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” protecting its allies in the event of war.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who took office in May, has vowed to enhance South Korea’s conventional missile capabilities and work with the Biden administration to develop more effective strategies to deter North Korean attacks.
Senior U.S. and South Korean officials met in Washington this month for discussions on the allies’ deterrence strategies and issued a statement reaffirming that “any (North Korean) nuclear attack would be met with an overwhelming and decisive response.” The statement said the United States reiterated “its ironclad and unwavering commitment to draw on the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear (one)” to provide extended deterrence to South Korea.
North Korea has so far rejected U.S. and South Korean calls to return to nuclear diplomacy, which have been stalled since 2019 over disagreements in exchanging the release of U.S.-led sanctions against the North and the North’s disarmament steps.
North Korea has harshly criticized Yoon for continuing military exercises with the U.S. and also for letting South Korean civilian activists fly anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets and other “dirty waste” across the border by balloon, even dubiously claiming the items caused its COVID-19 outbreak.
South Korean activists have continued to launch balloons after North Korea last month warned of “deadly” retaliation, triggering concern North Korea may react with a weapons test or even border skirmishes.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which deals with inter-Korean affairs, pleaded for activists to stop, citing safety reasons. Lee Hyo-jung, the ministry’s spokesperson, also said Friday that South Korea was prepared to sternly respond to any North Korean retaliation over leafletting.
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AP video journalist Yong Jun Chang contributed. Kim Tong-hyung reported from Seoul.
