Page 10 - ATD 05 DEC,2015

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WORLD NEWSSaturday 5 December 2015

South India rains ease; poor urban planning feeds misery

MUNEEZA NAQVI ital, reeled from the heavi- still after several days of coast, the heaviest rainfall news channel that she
Associated Press est rains in over a century, monsoon rains. Last year, is from October to Decem- was finally able to get on
NEW DELHI (AP) — The re- experts said the devasta- Srinagar in Indian Kashmir, ber — also called the re- a rescue boat Friday, three
lentless rains that lashed tion was in large part due saw massive devastation treating monsoon. days after the rains began
southern India’s Tamil to the same breakneck as flood waters swallowed This year’s deluge — which to lash the city.
Nadu state for three days and haphazard urban a city where unchecked experts linked to the El Nino The government has set up
eased Friday, but the mis- planning that has marked construction had blocked weather pattern, when 97 relief camps, which are
ery of tens of thousands many of India’smajor cit- rainwater channels and the waters of the Pacific currently providing food
of people was far from ies. eaten into wetlands. Ocean get warmer than and shelter to an estimat-
over, with large parts of It’s a pattern that’s been India’s main monsoon usual — caught Chennai, ed 62,000 people.
the main city still underwa- repeated for at least season runs from June with a population of 9.6 Dozens of homes across
ter along with the region’s a decade. In 2005, In- through September, but million, completely unpre- Chennai remained sub-
biggest airport. dia’s commercial capital for Chennai and the rest pared. merged too despite the
As Chennai, the state cap- Mumbai came to a stand- of India’ssoutheastern One woman told NDTV rain ebbing.q

China’s Xi pledges $60 billion to African development

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers his speech during the opening ceremony of the Speaking at the Forum package promised at the
on China Africa Coopera- last China Africa coopera-
Johannesburg Summit for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation at the Sandton Convention tion in South Africa, Xi out- tion summit in 2012, said
lined 10 areas that will re- economist Aubrey Hruby.
Centre in Johannesburg Friday Dec. 4, 2015. (AP Photo) ceive funding including in- With China’s recent eco-
frastructure projects, aid for nomic woes, the Washing-
LYNSEY CHUTEL nese and African leaders Africa’s President Jacob drought-stricken countries ton D.C.-based economist
have called “win-win co- Zuma, Nigerian President and thousands of scholar- was expecting a more
Associated Press operation.” Muhammadu Buhari, Ke- ships for African students. modest fund.
President Xi Jinping made nyan President Uhuru Ke- The Chinese government Hruby added the package
JOHANNESBURG (AP) the announcement to rous- nyatta and African Union will also cancel outstand- is likely to be distributed
ing applause from an audi- Commission Chairwoman ing debts for Africa’s least through numerous state-
— China’s president ence that included South Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. developed countries in the owned agencies and it
form of zero interest loans will be difficult to track the
pledged $60 billion to de- that mature at the end of funding’s successes or fail-
2015, he said. ures.
velopment in Africa on Fri- Xi also promised to provide “There’s not a lot of trans-
assistance to help upgrade parency in how it’s broken
day, as part of what Chi- African health care facili- down,” she said.
ties, train hundreds of jour- As with pledges from pre-
nalists and provide satellite vious summits, the funding
reception in 10,000 African will be distributed over the
villages. next three years, she add-
China has the world’s ed.
largest foreign currency At the last summit in Bei-
reserves at $3.514 trillion. jing, China pledged to
State owned banks have provide a $20 billion credit
often looked to develop- line to African countries for
ing countries for invest- development projects and
ment opportunities. boosted the China Africa
The $60 billion pledge is development fund by $5
three times as much as the billion, as it has this year.q

Rural North Korea hunkers down for harsh winter season

ERIC TALMADGE cartloads of firewood and are not ventilated prop- The combination of the vest is still growing.
cabbage and stockpiling erly. limited variety of foods Conditions have also im-
Associated Press whatever else they can for They will also be stretching that are available and the proved dramatically since
the months ahead. Most out their supply of kimchi, stresses on the body from the widespread famine in
HYANGSAN COUNTY, have just finished prepar- government rations and enduring the frigid weather the 1990s, when a com-
ing their kimchi — the pick- whatever they can grow is a major hardship for most bination of bad weather,
North Korea (AP) — North led and spiced cabbage from their own “kitchen North Koreans. a dysfunctional distribu-
that is a staple of the Ko- gardens” — small plots of But while it has the added tion system and the fall of
Koreans are hunkering rean diet. land that families are al- burden of being bitterly the Soviet Union and other
To get through the winter, lowed to maintain to grow cold, winter is generally not Eastern bloc benefactors
down for a harsh winter many rural North Koreans food for their own needs. the toughest time of year led to a massive calam-
will be using charcoal bra- If they are lucky enough as far as the food supply ity euphemistically referred
that some fear could be ziers or burning wood or to have a chicken, they goes. North Korea’s “lean to here as the “Arduous
corn husks for heat, which may have an egg or two. season” is actually from March.” North Korea is
made worse by a poor can lead to asphyxiation In some regions they might March to August, when now closer to food self-suf-
if homes shut tight against have access to a very small leftover supplies are de- ficiency than it has been in
harvest following summer the sub-zero temperatures amount of meat and fish. pleted and the next har- decades.q

floods.

In rural areas like Hyang-

san County, in North Pyon-

gan Province, about 130

kilometers (80 miles) from

Pyongyang, people are

out each day on snow-

covered roads pulling