North Korea's Kim Opens Key Meeting on Agriculture

(FILES) This undated file picture released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on December 7, 2021 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending the eighth conference of military educationists of the Korean People’s Army at the April 25 House of Culture in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
(FILES) This undated file picture released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on December 7, 2021 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending the eighth conference of military educationists of the Korean People’s Army at the April 25 House of Culture in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
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North Korea's Kim Opens Key Meeting on Agriculture

(FILES) This undated file picture released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on December 7, 2021 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending the eighth conference of military educationists of the Korean People’s Army at the April 25 House of Culture in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
(FILES) This undated file picture released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on December 7, 2021 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending the eighth conference of military educationists of the Korean People’s Army at the April 25 House of Culture in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has opened a key party meeting to discuss agricultural development, state media said Monday, following a report of "grave" food shortages in the isolated country.

Normally such meetings are convened only once or twice a year, but the plenary comes just two months after a previous one, which also focused on agricultural issues, AFP said.

The unusual frequency of the meetings focused on agriculture has fueled speculation that there may be serious food shortages in North Korea now.

Kim chaired the opening on Sunday of a plenary meeting of top ruling party officials to "analyze and review... the program for the rural revolution in the new era, and decide on the immediate important tasks and the urgent tasks," the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

The participants "unanimously approved the agenda items and went into discussion" on the topic, the KCNA said without giving further details.

South Korea's unification ministry says there have been reports of starvation deaths in the North.

"We judge the food shortages there to be grave," ministry spokesman Koo Byoung-sam said last week, adding Pyongyang appeared to have requested food aid from the World Food Program.

North Korea monitoring site 38 North said it judged the current food shortages in the country to be the worst in decades.

The Pyongyang regime was being forced to deal with "a complex humanitarian emergency that has food insecurity at its core", it said in a January 2023 assessment.

An analysis of rice and corn prices globally and in North Korea show "significant" price divergence since early 2021 -- meaning food is far more expensive in the North -- "signaling a breakdown" in supply, it added.

- Official denial -
But a recent commentary carried by North Korea's main state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun said the country should continue to stick to the "self-sufficient economy" as part of its fight against "the imperialists".

"The imperialists, under the cloak of the so-called 'collaboration' and 'aid', are clamoring as if some countries in economic difficulties could not tide over crises without their support."

But such support are efforts to "make the countries their sources of raw materials and market after completely demolishing the barrier of their national economy", Rodong said.

Nuclear-armed North Korea, which is under multiple sets of sanctions over its weapons programs, has long struggled to feed itself.

It is highly vulnerable to natural disasters including floods and drought due to a chronic lack of infrastructure, deforestation and decades of state mismanagement.

This has been compounded by a years-long self-imposed border closure since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which has only recently been eased to allow some trade with neighboring China.

The country has periodically been hit by famines, one of which in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands of people -- some estimates range into millions.



India and Bangladesh Leaders Meet for First Time since Revolution

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus in Thailand. Bangladesh's Chief Advisor Office of Interim Government/AFP
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus in Thailand. Bangladesh's Chief Advisor Office of Interim Government/AFP
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India and Bangladesh Leaders Meet for First Time since Revolution

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus in Thailand. Bangladesh's Chief Advisor Office of Interim Government/AFP
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus in Thailand. Bangladesh's Chief Advisor Office of Interim Government/AFP

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Friday with the leader of neighboring Bangladesh, the first such meeting since a revolution in Dhaka ousted New Delhi's long-term ally and soured relations.

Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, 84, took charge of Bangladesh in August 2024 after India's old ally Sheikh Hasina was toppled as prime minister by a student-led uprising and fled by helicopter to India.

India was the biggest benefactor of Hasina's government, and her overthrow sent cross-border relations into a tailspin, culminating in Yunus choosing to make his first state visit last month to China -- India's biggest rival.

Tensions between India and Bangladesh have prompted a number of tit-for-tat barbs between senior figures from both governments.

New Delhi has in the past has repeatedly accused Muslim-majority Bangladesh of failing to adequately protect its minority Hindu citizens -- charges denied by the caretaker administration of Yunus.

On Friday, Yunus posted a picture on social media showing him shaking hands with Modi, and his press secretary Shafiqul Alam later said the "meeting was constructive, productive, and fruitful".

Their meeting took place on the sidelines of a regional summit in Thailand.

Yunus also shared a photograph of the two men smiling as he handed Modi a framed picture of themselves a decade ago -- when the Indian leader in 2015 honored the micro-finance pioneer with a gold medal for this work supporting the poorest of society.

There was no immediate statement from New Delhi.

Yunus, according to his press secretary, also raised with Modi the issue of Dhaka's long-running complaint at what it says are Hasina's incendiary remarks from exile.

Hasina, who remains in India, has defied extradition requests from Bangladesh to face charges including mass murder.

Dhaka has requested that India allow Hasina's extradition to face charges of crimes against humanity for the killing of hundreds of protesters during the unrest that toppled her government.

Yunus also raised concerns of border violence along the porous frontier with India, as well as issues of the shared river waters that flow from India, as the Ganges and the Brahmaputra wind towards the sea.

The caretaker government of Yunus is tasked with implementing democratic reforms ahead of fresh elections slated to take place by June 2026.

Modi and Yunus had dinner on Thursday night -- sitting next to each other alongside other leaders from the BIMSTEC bloc in Bangkok -- but the bilateral sit-down on Friday was the first since relations frayed between the neighboring nations.