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N. Korea Says it Has Been Hit by Worst Drought in 100 Years

Seoul (AFP) - North Korea's food supply faces a gloomy forecast this year due to a damaging drought which has sparked fears of worsening shortages in the impoverished communist country, experts said Wednesday.

Concern grew after Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Tuesday that North Korea has been hit by its worst drought in a century.

"The worst drought in 100 years continues in (North Korea), causing great damage," it said, adding more than 30 percent of paddy fields across the country were "parching up".

The North's main rice-growing provinces -- South Hwanghae, North Hwanghae, South Pyongan and South Hamgyong -- have been badly damaged by a severe drought, KCNA said.

It is hard to get reliable information on the reclusive state, but South Korean weathermen said this year's rainfall across North Korea has been far lower than the annual average, especially in its traditional rice belt.

"It is true that the northern part of the peninsula has been battered by a severe drought so far this year," Kim Young-Jin, an official at the Korea Meteorological Administration, told AFP.

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The United Nations has warned that a food crisis on the scale of the mid-1990s famine could reoccur …

"The North's traditional rice belt encompassing South and North Hwanghae provinces has been hit hard, receiving less than half the rain of an average year," he said.

Last week the South's unification ministry predicted North Korea's food production this year could fall by as much as 20 percent from last year if the shortage of rainfall lasts until early July.

The prospects for this year are distinctly gloomy, given a prolonged drought and lack of fertiliser, it said.

North Korea has imported a large amount of fertiliser from China each year but fertiliser imports this year have dwindled significantly from a year ago, said Kwon Tae-Jin, a researcher at GS&J Institute, a Seoul-based think tank on agriculture.

"I don't think the North's exaggerating ... The situation looks pretty serious," he said, adding drought has already damaged the spring harvest of wheat, barley and potatoes, which account for 10 percent of total production.

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North Korea suffers regular chronic food shortages and had to rely on donations from the World Food …

In the past two years, North Korea has managed to avoid a food crisis despite a damaging drought, largely because of no summer flood and a favourable weather ahead of the main harvest season in the fall, Kwon said.

"But I see the likelihood for the same luck to be repeated for three years in a row extremely low," he said.

- Regular food shortages -

"The situation is serious" in the North's western region near Pyongyang, which produces nearly 70 percent of its entire crop production, he said.

North Korea has suffered regular chronic food shortages -- hundreds of thousands are believed to have died during a famine in the mid-to-late 1990s -- with the situation exacerbated by floods, droughts and mismanagement.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (centre) has overseen agricultural reforms to allow farmers to keep …

International food aid, especially from South Korea and the United States, has been drastically cut amid tensions over the communist state's nuclear and missile programmes.

UN figures show up to 70 percent of the country remains food insecure and 28 percent of children under the age of five are stunted due to malnutrition.

In April the United Nations launched an appeal for $111 million dollars to help 70 percent of North Korea's population now facing a food crisis.

David Kaatrud, the regional director of the World Food Programme, said in Seoul last week that the UN agency was closely monitoring the North's weather conditions in order to send emergency assistance in case of a protracted dry spell.

"The concern is going to grow week by week until we get closer to the traditional July harvest," he told the South's Yonhap news agency.

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The drought has already damaged the spring harvest of wheat, barley and potatoes, which account for …

North Korea has staged a desperate campaign to overcome drought and water shortages, vowing to continue its push to ease chronic food shortages.

Prime Minister Pak Pong-Ju told a parliamentary session in April: "The main thrusts for this year are to organise the economic work with a main emphasis on solving the food problem of the people."

"The situation is not favourable at all, but it is premature to say whether North Korea may face a food crisis," Kim Young-Hoon of the Seoul-based Korea Rural Economic Institute, said.

"Last year there was no serious food shortage in the North despite a damaging spring drought," he said, citing partial agricultural reforms and refurbished irrigation facilities which have improved crop yields.

Kim Jong-Un, who became leader after the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il, in December 2011, allowed farmers to keep 30 percent of their production quota, plus any excess. Their portion was raised to 60 percent last year.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Guantanamo Bay detainees are using President Barack Obama's own words to argue that the U.S. war in Afghanistan is over — and therefore they should be set free.

The court cases from detainees captured in Afghanistan ask federal judges to consider at what point a conflict is over and whether Obama, in a written statement last December, crossed that line by saying the American "combat mission in Afghanistan is ending."

The questions are important since the Supreme Court has said the government may hold prisoners captured during a war for only as long as the conflict in that country continues.

"The lawyers for the detainees are asking the right questions," said Stephen Vladeck, a national security law professor at American University. "And what's really interesting is that the government can't quite seem to figure out its answer."

The Justice Department is opposing the detainee challenges, arguing that the conflict in Afghanistan has clearly not concluded and the president didn't say that all fighting had ended.

The court challenges are the latest example of the yearslong legal wrangling tied to Guantanamo, whose status as a prison for terrorism suspects has long defied resolution. Obama promised to close the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, and has transferred out more than half the detainees who were there when he took office in 2009. In just the last week, six detained Yemenis were relocated to Oman, leaving 116 prisoners.

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A detainee in an orange jump suit at the Guantanamo Naval Base on January 17, 2002 (AFP Photo/Robert …

At its peak, in June 2003, Guantanamo held nearly 700 prisoners. More than 500 were released under President George W. Bush. Obama came into office pledging to close the prison in a year, but Congress stopped him by imposing restrictions on transfers.

Over the last decade, detainees have challenged the military tribunal process used to prosecute them, their treatment behind bars and efforts to force-feed them, among other issues.

The latest arguments, which could presumably be adopted by other detainees captured in Afghanistan, have played out in recent months in the federal court in Washington. No judge has yet ruled, though legal experts say they expect an uphill battle for the detainees, given the deference courts generally afford to the government on matters of national security.

One of the petitions was brought by Faez Mohammed Ahmed al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti who was shipped to Guantanamo following his 2001 capture after the battle of Tora Bora. Another came from Muktar Yahya Najee al-Warafi, a Yemeni whom a judge has determined aided Taliban forces.

The two men, both held without charges, argue that an end to the fighting in Afghanistan means their detentions are now unlawful under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. That law provided the legal justification for the imprisonment of foreign fighters captured on overseas battlefields. The Supreme Court stressed in a 2004 opinion, Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld, that such detention is legal only as long as "active hostilities" continue.

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In this Oct. 18, 2012 file photo, towers overlooking a U.S. detention facility are silhouetted again …

Defense lawyers say Obama unequivocally signaled an end to the military conflict when, on Dec. 28, he declared that "our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion."

In a court filing, lawyers for al-Kandari wrote that "there is no longer a battlefield in Afghanistan in which the United States is sustaining active combat operations. Accordingly, there is no longer a basis under the international laws of war to detain" their client.

But the Justice Department says "active hostilities" clearly persist against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and that Obama never suggested that all military and counterterrorism operations would be coming to an end.

The government says Obama noted at the time that the U.S. would maintain a limited military presence, and about 9,800 troops remain there, advising and assisting the Afghans and conducting some counterterror missions. Besides, the Justice Department says, questions about the status of war are for Congress and the president to decide, not the courts.

"Simply put, the president's statements signify a transition in United States military operations, not a cessation," government lawyers wrote in April in a reply in al-Warafi's case.

Legal experts expect the Justice Department to fend off the challenges.

"Presidents say things," said Eugene Fidell, a Guantanamo expert who teaches military justice at Yale Law School. As one example, he recalled President George W. Bush's celebratory Iraq War speech in 2003, delivered from the deck of an aircraft carrier under a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

"Well, the mission wasn't accomplished," Fidell said. "Perhaps some presidential statements of fact have an aspirational flavor."

Vladeck, from American University, said that "the real question is not whether the government is going to win this round, but how."

"There's going to be some skepticism from the judges about the inconsistencies in the government's position and its limitlessness," he predicted.

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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

Associated Press Videos
Inside the Caliphate-Nation of Fear

ESKI MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — When the Islamic State fighters burst into the Iraqi village of Eski Mosul, Sheikh Abdullah Ibrahim knew his wife was in trouble.

Buthaina Ibrahim was an outspoken human rights advocate who had once run for the provincial council in Mosul. The IS fighters demanded she apply for a "repentance card." Under the rule of the extremist group, all former police officers, soldiers and people whose activities are deemed "heretical" must sign the card and carry it with them at all times.

"She said she'd never stoop so low," her husband said.

Buthaina Ibrahim was an outlier in her defiance of the Islamic State. It would cost her dearly.

The "caliphate," declared a year ago, demands obedience. Untold numbers have been killed because they were deemed dangerous to the IS, or insufficiently pious; 5-8 million endure a regime that has swiftly turned their world upside down, extending its control into every corner of life to enforce its own radical interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah.

The Islamic State is a place where men douse themselves with cologne to hide the odor of forbidden cigarettes; where taxi drivers or motorists usually play the IS radio station, since music can get a driver 10 lashes; where women must be entirely covered, in black, and in flat-soled shoes; where shops must close during Muslim prayers, and everyone found outdoors must attend.

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In this May 26, 2015 photo, Bilal Abdullah poses for a portrait in the village of Eski Mosul in nort …

There is no safe way out. People vanish — their disappearance sometimes explained by an uninformative death certificate, or worse, a video of their beheading.

"People hate them, but they've despaired, and they don't see anyone supporting them if they rise up," said a 28-year-old Syrian who asked to be identified only by the nickname he uses in political activism, Adnan, in order to protect his family, which still lives under IS rule. "People feel that nobody is with them."

The Associated Press interviewed more than 20 Iraqis and Syrians describing life under the group's rule. One AP team travelled to Eski Mosul, a village on a bend in the Tigris River north of Mosul where residents emerged from nearly seven months under IS rule after Kurdish fighters drove the extremists out in January. IS forces remain dug in only a few miles away, so close that smoke is visible from fighting on the front lines.

Another AP team travelled to the Turkish border cities of Gaziantep and Sanliurfa, refuges for Syrians who have fled IS territory.

The picture they paint suggests the Islamic State's "caliphate" has evolved into an entrenched pseudo-state, based on a bureaucracy of terror. Interviewees provided AP with some documents produced by the IS ruling machine — repentance cards, lists inventorying weapons held by local fighters, leaflets detailing rules of women's dress, detailed forms for applying for permission to travel outside IS territory. All emblazoned with the IS black banner and logo "Caliphate in the path of the prophet."

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In this Wednesday, May 27, 2015 photo, a resident sits on a hill overlooking the town of Eski Mosul, …

Adnan described the transformation that the Syrian city of Raqqa underwent after the Islamic State took it over in January 2014. At the time, he fled, but after a few months of missing his family, the 28-year-old returned to see if he could endure life under the extremists. He lasted for almost a year in the city, now the IS de facto capital. He spoke to AP in the Turkish border town of Gaziantep.

The once colorful, cosmopolitan Syrian provincial capital has been transformed, he said. Now, women covered head to toe in black scurried quickly to markets before rushing home. Families often didn't leave home to avoid any contact with the "Hisba" committees, the dreaded enforcers of the innumerable IS regulations.

IS fighters turned a soccer stadium into a prison and interrogation center, known as "Point 11." The city's central square was referred to by residents as "Jaheem" Square — Hell Square, an execution site where Adnan said he saw the corpses of three men left dangling for days as a warning.

Armed members of the Hisba patrolled the streets, cruising in SUVs and wearing Afghan-style baggy pants and long shirts. They sniffed people for the odor of cigarettes, and chastised women they considered improperly covered or men who wore Western clothes or hair styles. Adnan said he once was dealt 10 lashes for playing music in his car.

In this world, the outspoken Buthaina Ibrahim was clearly in danger. The sheikh tried to save his wife, sending her away to safety, but she soon returned, missing their three daughters and two sons, he said. In early October, the militants surrounded the house and dragged her away.

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In this Wednesday, May 27, 2015 photo, a girl holds a broom in the town of Eski Mosul, Iraq, which h …

Not long after, Ibrahim received the death certificate. A simple sheet of paper from an "Islamic court" with a judge's signature, it said only that Buthaina's death was verified, nothing more. He has no idea where her body is.

Delivery from IS came to Eski Mosul at the hands of Kurdish fighters. Amid the joy over liberation, many residents discarded documents from the Islamic State.

But Ibrahim is keeping the death certificate as a connection to his wife, "because it has her name on it."

A former soldier in the village, Salim Ahmed, said he is keeping his repentance card. IS might be gone, but the fear it instilled in him is not.

"We live very close to their front line," he said. "One day, they might come back and ask me for my repentance card again."

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A white man opened fire during a prayer meeting inside a historic black church in downtown Charleston on Wednesday night, killing nine people, including the pastor, in an assault that authorities described as a hate crime.

The shooter remained at large Thursday morning and police released photographs from surveillance video of a suspect and a possible getaway vehicle.

Police Chief Greg Mullen said he could not offer a make and model on the dark colored sedan because investigators were not certain about what is shown in the video.

Mullen said he believed the attack at the Emanuel AME Church was a hate crime. The suspect was described as a white man in his early 20s.

"This is a very dangerous individual," Mullen said during a 6 a.m. news conference.

"We want to identify this individual and arrest him before he hurts anyone else," the chief said.

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This image has been provided by the Charleston Police Department, Thursday, June 18, 2015. A man ope …

Mullen said the scene at the church was chaotic when police arrived, and the officers thought they had the suspect tracked with a police dog, but he got away.

"We will put all effort, we will put all resources and we will put all of our energy into finding this individual who committed this crime tonight," he said.

The FBI will aid the investigation, Mullen told a news conference that was attended by FBI Special Agent in Charge David A. Thomas.

Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley called the shooting "the most unspeakable and heartbreaking tragedy."

"The only reason that someone could walk into a church and shoot people praying is out of hate," Riley said. "It is the most dastardly act that one could possibly imagine, and we will bring that person to justice. ... This is one hateful person."

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Police stand outside the Emanuel AME Church following a shooting Wednesday, June 17, 2015, in Charle …

State House Minority leader Todd Rutherford told The Associated Press that the church's pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, was among those killed.

Pinckney 41, was a married father of two who was elected to the state house at age 23, making him the youngest member of the House at the time.

"He never had anything bad to say about anybody, even when I thought he should," Rutherford, D-Columbia, said. "He was always out doing work either for his parishioners or his constituents. He touched everybody."

The attack came two months after the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man, Walter Scott, by a white police officer in neighboring North Charleston that sparked major protests and highlighted racial tensions in the area. The officer has been charged with murder, and the shooting prompted South Carolina lawmakers to push through a bill helping all police agencies in the state get body cameras. Pinckney was a sponsor of that bill.

In a statement, Gov. Nikki Haley asked South Carolinians to pray for the victims and their families and decried violence at religious institutions.

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A distraught man is comforted as a group of concerned people arrive inquiring about a shooting acros …

"We'll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another," Haley said.

Soon after Wednesday night's shooting, a group of pastors huddled together praying in a circle across the street.

Community organizer Christopher Cason said he felt certain the shootings were racially motivated.

"I am very tired of people telling me that I don't have the right to be angry," Cason said. "I am very angry right now."

Even before Scott's shooting in April, Cason said he had been part of a group meeting with police and local leaders to try to shore up relations.

The Emmanuel AME church is a historic African-American church that traces its roots to 1816, when several churches split from Charleston's Methodist Episcopal church.

One of its founders, Denmark Vesey, tried to organize a slave revolt in 1822. He was caught, and white landowners had his church burned in revenge. Parishioners worshipped underground until after the Civil War.

9 dead in South Carolina church shooting

Authorities are calling the assault during a prayer service inside a historic black church a hate crime.
Suspect at large

Inmate Michelle-Lael Norsworthy smiles after a parole hearing at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, Calif. She is locked in a legal battle with The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation over her request for sex reassignment surgery. (Photo: Steve Yeater/AP)

The Supreme Court will announce whether it has found a fundamental right to same-sex marriage any day now, dramatically altering the course of gay rights history. But a much lower-profile case that is currently wending its way up through the federal courts could offer the Supreme Court an opportunity for another potentially transformative decision on LGBT rights as soon as next year.

The case — about whether the California state prison system should be required to pay for an inmate’s sex reassignment surgery — may change public perceptions about medical care for transgender people at a time when Caitlyn Jenner and other high-profile trans people are lending more visibility to the group.

The gay rights movement has been breathtakingly successful at changing public perceptions about gay people in the country in only a few decades, in part because of a well-organized legal campaign to win the right to gay marriage. One successful feature of the campaign: sympathetic plaintiffs. But the transgender movement has always lagged a bit behind. One reason is that while most Americans now say they know a gay person, the vast majority does not know a trans person. That is beginning to change, according to polling by advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign. Twenty-two percent of likely voters now say they know a transgender person, a five percentage point jump from even just one year earlier. And that’s already affecting public perceptions: 44 percent said in January that they viewed trans people favorably, compared to just 26 percent in 2011. A big Supreme Court case could do a lot to boost those numbers by bringing even more awareness of transgender people.

The law on transgender issues is something of a Wild West — very few states make clear that the government will recognize a person’s post-transition gender, for example, and some states have explicitly passed laws refusing to acknowledge a trans resident’s gender, even after sex reassignment surgeries. The Supreme Court has declined to wade into case after case affecting transgender people — including job discrimination cases. But this could all change soon.

In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit Court will hear arguments in a case centering around Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, a 51-year-old who is serving time for second-degree murder at Mule Creek State Prison near Sacramento. She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria — the condition of feeling significant discomfort with the gender you were born as — and began taking female hormones in 2000. A physician assigned to her by the prison recommended Norsworthy for sex reassignment surgery, saying that the hormones and therapy were not enough to treat her gender dysphoria. Taking hormones long term could also lead to complications, because Norsworthy has hepatitis C, the physician said. Removing her male genitals would stop the production of male hormones and make taking female hormones unnecessary.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation denied Norsworthy’s claim, arguing that giving her expensive sex reassignment surgery would present security concerns. Male inmates might be more likely to assault her if she stayed in the men’s prison. (Norsworthy has already been raped six times while in prison, according to her lawyers, including a gang rape in 2009 during which she contracted hepatitis C.)

Norsworthy sued, saying the prison violated her right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment by denying her the surgery. The prison countered that hormones and therapy are adequate treatment for gender dysphoria, and that failure to provide surgery does not amount to deliberately ignoring her suffering.

A lower federal court sided with Norsworthy earlier this year and demanded the prison provide her with the surgery immediately. But the 9th Circuit has temporarily stayed that decision for now, pending its review of the case.The appeals court will hear arguments from both sides on Aug. 13. If the liberal-leaning court sides with Norsworthy, the Supreme Court may be forced to take up the case next year. That’s because a different appeals court, the 1st Circuit, ruled against a Massachusetts inmate’s claim for a sex reassignment surgery earlier this year. However, that inmate, Michelle Kosilek, did not have a condition that made taking female hormones dangerous, which makes Norsworthy’s claim potentially stronger. A split in the appeals courts — where one says sex reassignment surgery is necessary care that prisons must provide and the other says it’s not — may lead the Supreme Court to step in and sort out the conflict.

Robert Kosilek sits in Bristol County Superior Court, in New Bedford, Mass., where Kosilek was on trial for the May 1990 murder of his wife. (Photo: Lisa Bul/AP)

LGBT activists hope Norsworthy’s case will send a larger message about how sex reassignment surgeries are necessary medical treatment for a real condition. Many private companies and state Medicaid plans now cover sex reassignment surgeries, but the majority of private insurance plans do not.

“It’s clear that there are pervasive misunderstandings about the underlying medical condition, and many people presume incorrectly that surgery is not essential medical treatment,” said Jennifer Levi, the director of GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project. “Having a high court decision that recognizes what the medical community has already recognized could certainly help to change the public’s view of the importance of surgery for any individual.”

Though the case could affect trans people everywhere, it doesn’t have the clear-cut appeal of some of the cases that have expanded gay rights. For one, the plaintiff is a convicted murderer — she shot and killed an acquaintance after the two of them got into a bar fight when she was 21.And she is asking the state to provide her with an expensive medical procedure, instead of requesting that the state stop prohibiting her from doing something she wants, such as getting married. (The cases are also legally very different: The Supreme Court would see Norsworthy’s Eighth Amendment claim as completely different legal territory than the equal protection claims of same-sex couples.)

“There’s a challenge with how these cases are perceived among the public and even among trans folks themselves — there’s not unanimity on this particular issue,” said Jody Herman, the manager of transgender research at UCLA’s Williams Institute.

Sarah Warbelow, the Human Rights Campaign’s legal director, says cases of employment discrimination against trans people tend to “resonate” more with the American public. In 2011, the 11th Circuit, one of the most conservative appeals courts in the country, ruled in favor of a transgender woman in Georgia who was fired from her job when she began dressing and living as a woman. But less sympathetic prisoner cases are also important in expanding the rights of all transgender people.

“Providing protection is not always about playing favorites; it’s about making sure that all people have access to the rights that they’re entitled to,” said Warbelow.

Shawn Meerkamper, a member of Norsworthy’s legal team at the Transgender Law Center, said the inmate can help humanize transgender people and the issues they face.

“She is a very loving and sincere person,” Meerkamper said, adding that Norsworthy has become an activist for better protection from rape for transgender prisoners. “I think that when people know transgender people better, they’ll understand better.”

Norsworthy faces a tough road to victory, however. For one, a parole board declared her eligible for release in May. She could be released any time in the next five months, rendering her claim moot. (Her lawyers say she will seek the operation through Medi-Cal, which covers the procedure, if she’s released.) But Norsworthy’s lawyers haveanother case waiting in the wings if hers is overtaken by her release. Shiloh Quine, a transgender woman who is serving a life sentence for murder at the same prison as Norsworthy, is seeking sex reassignment surgery, too.

If the 9th Circuit sides with Norsworthy, the Supreme Court may have to tackle another hot-button LGBT case sooner than expected.

This March 28, 2014 photo provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows Michelle-Lael Norsworthy. (Photo: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation/AP)