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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s President William Ruto has declared Friday a public holiday to mourn the 238 people who have died due to ongoing flooding.

The president on Wednesday said the day will be observed by national tree planting activities to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

Kenya, along with other parts of East Africa, have been overwhelmed by floods. More than 235,000 people are displaced and living in dozens of camps.

President Ruto also announced the reopening of schools countrywide, after two weeks delay due to heavy rains that have destroyed hundreds of schools.

The government had said more than 1,000 schools were affected by the heavy rains and flooding and set aside funds for renovations.

The metrology department in its daily weather forecast has continued to predict moderate to heavy rainfall in most parts of the country.

The government is in the process of forcefully evacuating people living in flood prone areas and those near rivers and dams as water levels in the country’s major hydroelectric dams rise to “historic levels”.

This week, the government bulldozed houses in informal settlements of Mathare and Mukuru in the capital Nairobi and the president promised evicted families the equivalent of $75 to relocate after a deadline passed to evacuate amid deadly rains.

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By Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand will re-list cannabis as a narcotic by year-end, its prime minister said on Tuesday, in a stunning U-turn just two years after becoming one of the first countries in Asia to decriminalise its recreational use.

The moves comes despite rapid growth of a domestic retail sector for marijuana, with tens of thousands of shops and businesses springing up in Thailand in the past two years in an industry projected to be worth up to $1.2 billion by 2025.

“I want the health ministry to amend the rules and re-list cannabis as a narcotic,” Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on social media platform X.

“The ministry should quickly issue a rule to allow its usage for health and medical purposes only.”

Cannabis was decriminalised for medical use in 2018 and recreational use in 2022 under a previous government, but critics say its liberalisation was rushed through, causing huge confusion about rules and regulations.

Srettha’s comments followed a meeting with agencies involved in narcotics suppression, where he vowed to take a tough stand on illicit drugs and ordered authorities to deliver results and show “clear progress” in the next 90 days.

“Drugs is a problem that destroys the future of the country, many young people are addicted. We have to work fast, to confiscate assets (of drug dealers) and expand treatment,” he said.

He also asked authorities to redefine what constitutes drug possession under the law, from “small amount” to “one pill”, to to enable tougher enforcement by authorities.

Srettha’s government had earlier said it wants to push out a cannabis law by year-end that would ban recreational marijuana and allow its use for medical and health purposes only.

It was not immediately clear when cannabis will be re-listed as a narcotic or what processes must first take place.

Prasitchai Nunual, secretary-general of Thailand’s Cannabis Future Network, said re-criminalising cannabis would be a bad move for the economy and deal big blow to small businesses and consumers.

“Many people have been growing cannabis and opening cannabis shops. These will have to close down,” he told Reuters.

“If scientific results show that cannabis is worse then alcohol and cigarettes then they can re-list it as a narcotic. If cannabis is less harmful, they should list cigarettes and alcohol as narcotics too.”

(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat; Editing by Martin Petty)

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By Emily Rose and Alexander Cornwell

JERUSALEM/DUBAI (Reuters) – The war in Gaza has cooled Israeli business activity with the United Arab Emirates, with the once-celebrated relationship now conducted away from public scrutiny amid anger in the Arab world over the conflict.

The UAE became the most prominent Arab state in 30 years to establish formal ties with Israel under a U.S.-brokered agreement in 2020, dubbed the Abraham Accords. It has maintained the relationship throughout Israel’s more than six-month war in Gaza.

In the wake of the accords, Israeli entrepreneurs began flocking to the Gulf state on direct flights from Tel Aviv, establishing new business ties and expanding existing relationships that were once kept a secret. Deals announced before the war included investments in cyber security, fintech, energy and agri-tech.

Ten Israeli officials, executives and entrepreneurs told Reuters that business ties with the influential Gulf state remain intact but, in a sign of how the conflict has dented enthusiasm, they declined to discuss any recent deals.

“It’s still happening. It’s happening less; it’s less in your face,” said Raphael Nagel, a German Jewish entrepreneur living in the UAE who heads a private business group that promotes business ties between Israel and the Gulf Arab state.

Six bankers and lawyers in the UAE also said that business ties between Israeli and Emirati companies have endured the war but that few new deals were happening.

The UAE government was wary about promoting relations with Israel, they said. In Israel, meanwhile, many businesses have had staff called up for military service, impacting operations.

A UAE official did not directly respond to Reuters’ questions about how the economic relationship with Israel had been affected by the war. The official said, however, the UAE’s diplomatic and political dialogue with Israel had facilitated humanitarian efforts to assist the people of Gaza.

The UAE is the only Arab state still hosting an Israeli ambassador. Tel Aviv recalled its diplomats from other Arab states it has ties with following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that prompted its invasion of Gaza. 

Israel’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

After establishing formal diplomatic ties in 2020, Israel and the UAE rapidly built a close economic partnership, unlike the decades-long peace deals with Egypt and Jordan that have failed to establish significant business relations. A trade deal was signed in 2022.

Last year, trade grew 17% to reach $2.95 billion, according to data from the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Despite cooling in the wake of the war, trade remained 7% higher year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024, the bureau said.

But Israeli tourists, who became frequent visitors to the UAE, now no longer fill Dubai’s hotels, restaurants and bars – although Israelis and Jews say they continue to feel safe in the country.

Unlike other Arab countries, in the UAE there have been no public demonstrations in support of the Palestinians or against Israel. However, symbols associated with Palestinian nationalism, like the black-and-white keffiyeh headdress, can be seen worn by people on the streets of Dubai.

“Things have become more discreet and October 7 does have quite a lot to do with it,” said Bruce Gurfein, an American Jew and entrepreneur who first moved to the UAE in the late 1990s. 

Hamas militants killed more than 1,000 Israelis and took more than 250 hostage in a cross-border attack on Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7. In response, Israel launched an invasion of the Gaza Strip – with the aim of destroying Hamas and releasing the hostages – that has killed more than 34,000 people, according to Palestinian officials.

International efforts to mediate a ceasefire are ongoing.

‘CHILLING’ EFFECT

Several Israelis who were already doing business in the UAE before the war said their personal and commercial relationships with Emiratis and other Arabs in the UAE remain unaffected. But they also say that there is a demand, on both sides, not to disclose business ties publicly.

“I think chilling is a fair word,” said Elie Wurtman, co-founder of Israeli venture capital firm PICO Venture Partners. “But, on the other hand, … it’s business as usual.”

Wurtman believes close ties forged in the immediate period after normalisation have helped sustain the business relationship with the UAE, a sentiment echoed by the Israeli officials and other executives that Reuters spoke to.

An Israeli executive at UAE-IL Zone, a non-government Israeli-based platform that aims to develop UAE-Israel business links, said Emirati officials had assured them that investments into Israel would not be stopped over the war but have asked the Israelis to refrain from making any announcements of deals.

The executive asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media. The UAE official did not comment.  

Michael Mirilashvili, the CEO of Watergen, an Israeli company that developed machines that can produce drinking water from the air, signed a three-way water research partnership deal in June 2021 with Abu Dhabi firm Baynunah and Tel Aviv University to advance research in water technology.

Mirilashvili said the partnership with Emirati counterparts remains warm and he hasn’t noticed a difference in relations since October 7.

“We continue to work together,” he said. “We are having very strong bonds with the people that we work with over there.”

Tel Aviv University and Baynunah did not respond to a request for comment.

Robert Mogielnicki, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said the war in Gaza was a “big disincentive” for the UAE to undertake major new economic initiatives.

He noted that there was growing anger and concern over the war among UAE citizens, a minority of about 1 million people in the Gulf state whose population totals around 10 million.

Abu Dhabi state oil company Adnoc and BP put on hold plans to take a $2 billion stake in Israeli gas producer NewMed, the Israeli company said in March, citing regional uncertainty.

Four sources familiar with Adnoc’s position said the war in Gaza had influenced the decision to suspend negotiations, citing the optics of moving forward with such a big deal.

Didier Toubia, chief executive of alternative meat start up Aleph Farms, which received investment from an Abu Dhabi state fund during a 2021 financing round, told Reuters that there were now more sensitivities around Israeli companies doing business with Emirati firms.

He predicted that there would be an acceleration in business activity once the war ends. 

FRUSTRATION AT NETANYAHU

UAE officials have maintained that forging ties with Israel was a strategic decision that they did not intend to reverse. Some of them, however, have in private expressed frustration at Israel over its prosecution of the war and the high civilian death toll.

Israel has strongly denied deliberately targeting civilians.

The war has fractured the UAE’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to four sources familiar with the matter.

They said that the UAE now rarely speaks directly with Netanyahu and that President Isaac Herzog was a key interlocutor in the Israel-UAE relationship.

The UAE had increasing engaged with former prime ministers Yair Lapid and Nafatali Bennet since as Emirati frustrations at Netanyahu grew, the sources said.

Netanyahu’s office did not comment. Herzog’s office, as well as spokespeople for Lapid and Bennet, declined to comment.

The UAE official did not respond directly to questions about the relationship with Netanyahu’s government, but called for intensified efforts to achieve a “a comprehensive and just peace” based on the two-state solution.

Israeli opposition leader Lapid met with foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi on May 2.

(Reporting by Emily Rose and Alexander Cornwell; Additional reporting by Maha El Dahan; Editing by Daniel Flynn)

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BERLIN (AP) — A prominent Berlin politician was violently assaulted and suffered injuries to her head and neck, police said Wednesday, in the latest attack on elected officials that raises concern over rising political violence in Germany.

Franziska Giffey, the city’s top economic official, a former mayor and an ex-federal minister, was attacked at an event in a Berlin library on Tuesday by a man who approached her from behind and hit her with a bag containing a hard device, police said.

Giffey was taken to a hospital and treated for head and neck pain, police said. A 74-year-old man was detained and police searched his home, police said. They said the suspect was known to police, but did not give any indication for a motive.

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner strongly condemned the attack.

“Anyone who attacks politicians is attacking our democracy,” said Wegner, according to German news agency dpa. “We will not tolerate this. We will oppose all forms of violence, hatred and agitation and protect our democracy.”

Giffey wrote on Instagram that “we live in a free and democratic country in which everyone is free to express their opinion … and yet there is a clear limit. And that is violence against people who hold a different opinion, for whatever reason, in whatever form.”

“They are a transgression of boundaries that we as a society must resolutely oppose,” she said.

Later on Wednesday, Giffey, protected by several bodyguards, told reporters at a public event in Berlin that she was feeling fine but that “we also have to make it possible for us to live in a country where those who bear social and political responsibility can move freely.”

Last week, a candidate from the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz was beaten up in the eastern city of Dresden while campaigning for next month’s election for the European Parliament and had to undergo surgery.

Police detained four suspects, aged between 17 and 18, and said that the same group had apparently attacked a Greens party worker minutes before they attacked Matthias Ecke. At least one of the teens is said to be linked to far-right groups, security officials said.

Also on Tuesday, a 47-year-old Green Party politician was attacked by two people while putting up election posters in Dresden, dpa reported.

The incidents have raised political tensions in Germany.

Both government and opposition parties say their members and supporters have faced a wave of physical and verbal attacks in recent months, and have called on police to step up protection for politicians and election rallies.

In February, the German Parliament said in a report there were a total of 2,790 attacks on elected representatives in 2023. Representatives of The Greens were disproportionally affected in 1,219 cases, those from the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, in 478 cases and representatives of the SPD in 420 cases.

The country’s vice chancellor, Robert Habeck, who is a member of The Greens, was prevented from disembarking a ferry for hours by a group of angry farmers in January, and the vice president of the German Parliament, Katrin Goering-Eckardt, also from The Greens, was prevented from leaving an event in the state of Brandenburg last week when an angry crowd blocked her car.

Germany’s federal interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said after a special meeting of the country’s 16 state interior ministers on the issue of violence on Tuesday that possible measures included tightening Germany’s criminal law in order to “punish anti-democratic acts more severely,”

Many of the incidents have taken place in the former communist east of the country, where Scholz’s government is deeply unpopular. The Interior Ministry in the state of Saxony said it had registered 112 election-related crimes so far this year, including 30 against elected officials or representatives.

Mainstream parties have accused AfD of links to violent neo-Nazi groups and of fomenting an intimidating political climate. One of its leaders, Bjoern Hoecke, is currently on trial for using a banned Nazi slogan.

Alternative for Germany, which campaigns against immigration and European integration, is expected to make gains in the European polls as well as in elections in Saxony and two other eastern German states in the fall.

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CAIRO (Reuters) – A Canadian man “of Jewish Israeli descent” has been shot dead during a robbery in the Egyptian city of Alexandria and authorities are investigating the incident as a criminal case, a security source said late on Tuesday.

The security source told Reuters the man had been killed “with the motive of robbery”. The source made no link between the shooting and the dead man’s ethnic background.

The interior ministry confirmed the shooting and said the man had been a permanent resident of Egypt. Neither the ministry nor the source gave any further details.

A statement claiming the killing by a previously unknown group called “Liberation Vanguards” was circulating on social media, but security sources said they had no information on the existence of such a group or whether it had been involved in the incident.

The shooting happened on Tuesday as Israeli forces seized the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in Rafah, where more than one million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter during Israel’s seven-month-old offensive.

One day after the war in Gaza began last October following an attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel, two Israeli tourists and their Egyptian guide were shot dead in Alexandria, in the first such attack on Israelis in Egypt in decades.

A policeman who said he had “lost control” was placed in custody regarding that incident.

(Reporting by Enas Alashray and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan; Editing by Gareth Jones)

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MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia accused Germany on Wednesday of using baseless myths about Russian hackers to escalate tensions and said Berlin’s decision to recall its ambassador would lead to further deterioration of bilateral ties.

Germany said it had recalled its ambassador to Russia for consultations after Berlin accused Moscow of launching cyberattacks on its defence and aerospace firms and ruling party.

“Berlin regularly exploits the myth of malicious activity of allegedly Russian hackers in Germany, this is done to escalate tensions in bilateral relations,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. “No evidence was presented.”

Berlin said the attacks that started two years ago targeted Germany’s governing Social Democrats as well as companies in the logistics, defence, aerospace and IT sectors. It said it had not provided details of the damage caused for security reasons.

Zakharova said the West was engaged in an information war against Russia which included fictitious and false stories and claims aimed at stoking fears about Russia.

“The recall of the German ambassador from Moscow is nothing more than another unfriendly step aimed at inciting anti-Russian sentiments in Germany, leading to further degradation of bilateral ties,” Zakharova said.

“The entire responsibility for this lies with the German side.”

(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

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JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli tanks that entered the periphery of Rafah early Tuesday stoked global fears that an offensive on Gaza’s southernmost city could endanger the more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there.

The ground assault dimmed hopes of an immediate cease-fire deal that the U.S., Egypt and Qatar have spent months pushing for. In the hours before the attack began, Hamas agreed to a cease-fire proposal that the Israeli government swiftly rejected.

About 1.3 million Palestinians — more than half of Gaza’s population — are jammed into Rafah and face the prospect of having to evacuate with no good plan for where to find adequate shelter.

Here’s what we know so far about the operation and evacuation plan.

Now that Israel has begun ordering Palestinians to evacuate parts of Rafah, it is sending them to a patch of land whose current inhabitants say is little more than a makeshift tent camp with squalid conditions.

On Monday, Israel issued a warning to evacuate an area of eastern Rafah where approximately 100,000 Palestinians are sheltering. Israel encouraged the evacuees to move to Muwasi, an Israeli-declared safe zone that it says has expanded and will be equipped with field hospitals, shelter materials and other facilities. The United Nations and aid organizations say Muwasi is not ready to shelter the tens of thousands who might seek refuge there.

Muwasi stretches roughly 8 kilometers (5 miles) along the coastline from Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, to its other major southern city, Khan Younis.

Israel unilaterally declared the area a “humanitarian zone” early in the war, telling residents they would be safe there. According to the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, Muwasi is now home to more than 450,000 displaced Palestinians, including many who arrived in recent months as Israel has intensified its ground offensive in central and southern Gaza.

An Associated Press journalist saw dozens of Palestinians arriving in northern Muwasi on Monday. Although there were dozens of empty tents nearby, there were few signs of widescale preparations being made to accommodate the large influx of evacuees that was expected. Other Palestinians across Rafah, even those outside the evacuation zone, have decided to head to central Gaza or to Khan Younis instead of Muwasi.

UNRWA didn’t assist in preparation efforts in Muwasi, as it didn’t want to entice people to move to an area that isn’t prepared to accept them, said Scott Anderson, the agency’s Gaza director. However, UNRWA will provide aid to new evacuees who arrive there moving forward, he said.

Residents say toilets are scarce and there is little running water in Muwasi. Many relieve themselves in walled holes they dig outside of their tents to avoid long queues at the public latrines and maintain privacy. Palestinians say they sometimes wait hours to collect drinking water from the tankers that deliver it to various locations in the camp.

A number of stalls in the camp sell tent-building equipment, canned foods and basic vegetables such as tomatoes and potatoes at inflated prices. A kilogram (roughly 2 pounds) of potatoes goes for around $6 — a high price for the vast majority of people.

Building a large tent from wood and nylon costs about $500, people there said, while buying a ready-made version costs about double.

“The area of Al-Mawasi is overcrowded with more than 400,000 people,” UNRWA’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, posted on X. “It does not have the facilities to take more people & is not safer than other parts of Gaza.”

U.N. officials say an attack on Rafah will collapse the aid operation that is keeping the population across the Gaza Strip alive, and potentially push Palestinians into greater starvation and mass death.

The Rafah crossing has a main route for aid entering the besieged enclave and the only exit for those able to flee into Egypt. Early Tuesday, Israel seized control of the Gaza side of the crossing, saying militants had staged attacks from the area.

Both Rafah and Kerem Shalom, the other main aid entry point, have been closed since a Hamas mortar attack killed four Israeli soldiers. Though smaller entry points still operate, the closure is a blow to efforts to maintain the flow of food, medicine and other supplies that are keeping Gaza’s population alive.

Some entry points have been opened in the north, and the U.S. has promised that a port to bring in supplies by sea will be ready in weeks. Bringing aid into Gaza through Rafah would likely be impossible during an invasion.

Since Israel declared war in response to Hamas’ deadly cross-border attack on Oct. 7, Netanyahu has said a central goal is to destroy its military capabilities.

Israel says Rafah is Hamas’ last major stronghold in Gaza, after operations elsewhere dismantled 18 out of the militant group’s 24 battalions, according to the military. But even in northern Gaza, the first target of the offensive, Hamas has regrouped in some areas and continued to launch attacks.

Israel says Hamas has four battalions in Rafah and that it must send in ground forces to topple them. Some senior militants could also be hiding in the city.

Hamas continues to launch projectiles from Rafah. Hamas launched half a dozen mortars and rockets toward Kerem Shalom again on Tuesday.

Israeli strikes continued throughout Tuesday in Rafah, largely in the city’s eastern section. Plumes of thick black smoke rose over the horizon after several of the strikes.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the “dangerous escalation threatens the lives of more than a million Palestinians who depend primarily on this crossing as it is the main lifeline of the Gaza Strip,” referring to the Rafah crossing.

Egypt, a strategic partner of Israel, has said that an Israeli military seizure of the Gaza-Egypt border — which is supposed to be demilitarized — or any move to push Palestinians into Egypt would threaten its four-decade-old peace agreement with Israel.

The U.S. has urged Israel not to carry out the operation without a “credible” plan to evacuate civilians and says it still hasn’t seen one. The U.S. previously said Israel should use pinpoint operations inside Rafah without a major ground assault.

“The president doesn’t want to see operations in Rafah that put at greater risk the more than a million people that are seeking refuge there,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Monday.

The current operation, which is more limited in scope, could be a tactic by Netanyahu to appease ultranationalist and conservative religious partners in his government. They have threatened to pull out of the coalition if he signed onto a cease-fire deal without an operation in Rafah.

Netanyahu’s critics say he’s more concerned with keeping his government intact and staying in power than the national interest — an accusation he denies.

One of his coalition members, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has said that accepting a cease-fire deal without a Rafah operation would amount to Israel “raising a white flag” and giving victory to Hamas.

Now that the Rafah operation has begun, Netanyahu risks further isolating Israel and alienating its biggest ally, the U.S.

His vocal refusals to be swayed by world pressure and his promises to launch the operation could be aimed at placating his political allies even as an Israeli negotiating team was in Egypt attempting to revive the possibility of a cease-fire.

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OTTAWA (Reuters) – Persistent Chinese election meddling has the potential to undermine Canadian democracy, Canada’s main spy agency said on Tuesday in the latest official warning about clandestine activity by Beijing.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) made its comments in an annual report issued days after an official inquiry found China had tried to interfere in the last two Canadian elections.

CSIS said China, known formally as the People’s Republic of China, or PRC, used deceptive methods in a bid to influence policy-making at all levels of government as well as in academia and the media.

“Such activity, which seeks to advance PRC national interests, has the potential to undermine Canada’s democratic process and its institutions,” it said. China regularly dismisses such charges.

China and organisations linked to the ruling Chinese Communist Party “remain an enduring threat to Canadian information, technology, democratic institutions, and diaspora communities”, CSIS said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government on Monday introduced draft legislation designed to counter foreign interference. It proposes a registry for people lobbying on behalf of another country and would allow CSIS more freedom to share information with the public.

Last week, CSIS Director David Vigneault told legislators that Chinese efforts to steal technology were “mind-boggling”.

The official opposition Conservative Party, well ahead in opinion polls, regularly accuses Trudeau of not doing enough to combat Chinese interference.

Trudeau told the official inquiry last month that despite Chinese meddling in the last two elections, the results were not affected. The Liberals won both votes, in 2019 and 2021.

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa, asked for a response to the CSIS report, noted that a foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing said on Monday that “China has never and will never have any interest in interfering in Canada’s internal affairs”.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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By Maximilian Heath and Matias Baglietto

CORDOBA PROVINCE, Argentina (Reuters) – Global warming has brought Argentina’s corn farmers a dangerous new enemy: a yellow insect just four millimeters (0.16 inch) long that thrives in hotter temperatures and is threatening harvests of the crop. Meet the leafhopper.

The world’s No. 3 corn exporting country has slashed millions of tons from its harvest projections for the current crop due to a rare plague of the insect that can carry a stunt disease that damages the cobs and kernels of the plant.

Farmers fear such infestations could become more regular, with fewer frosts in recent years to check the insect’s spread, and forecasts for a warm winter ahead, farmers, weather experts and data analyzed by Reuters showed.

Some farmers already have said they will sow less corn for next season in favor of other crops such as soy, the South American country’s main cash crop, which is not affected by the bugs.

“Many are going to reduce their hectares of corn to zero,” said Anibal Cordoba, a producer in northern Chaco province, adding a hard freeze this winter is needed or leafhopper numbers will explode again next season.

“You normally found leafhoppers in the bud of the plants if you looked. But this year you go to the field and you find clouds of leafhopper. It’s just crazy.”

Agriculture and climate experts linked the unusual outbreak to rising global and local temperatures.

“The number of days with frost is becoming less frequent due to global temperatures rising,” said climate change specialist Matilde Rusticucci at the University of Buenos Aires, adding minimum temperatures in the country had “increased steadily”.

“The year 2023 was declared the warmest year in history,” Rusticucci said. This helped leafhoppers spread far beyond the warmer northern regions where they usually thrive and where farmers have adapted. Some 10 million tons of Argentine corn production has been lost already, and analysts say it could fall further.

“We should be talking about an Argentine production of more than 60 million tons of corn and because of this insect we are talking about 50.5 (million tons),” said Cristian Russo, head of agricultural estimates at the Rosario grains exchange (BCR).

“We all suspect that it still could get much worse than what we’re seeing,” he added. “It’s a big blow to corn.”

According to Russo, leafhopper numbers in northern Argentina are 10 times the normal level, while the insect has been found nearly 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) south of traditional areas, where previously it had been too cold.

Argentina’s government, which did not respond to a request for comment on this story, has looked to speed authorization for pesticides to fight leafhoppers and recently met with farm associations to coordinate how to mitigate leafhopper damage.

‘THIS IS A REAL, REAL PROBLEM’

In parts of Argentina, frosts have actually increased in recent winters, but some key farming areas have had a substantial decline. Nationally, minimum temperatures have been rising and cold nights decreasing over decades.

A study by scientists at Argentine universities and state institutes showed that from 1963 to 2013 the average number of cold nights decreased from 15 days per year to around eight.

Fewer frosty nights help leafhoppers, which cannot tolerate temperatures below 4 degrees Celsius, said Fernando Flores, entomologist at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA).

“One of the most important causes of the big increase in (insect) numbers was the decrease in the number of frosts in the country the previous winter,” Flores said.

In western central Cordoba province, the main corn region of Argentina, the provincial grain exchange has estimated leafhopper-related corn losses of $1.13 billion. Data from the Cordoba observatory show frosts down steadily over decades.

“What was planted late towards the end of December, beginning of January, was where the greatest damage was seen,” said Ramón Garcia, a farmer from the Cordoba farm town of Marcos Juarez. “There was a significant drop in yield.”

The outlook ahead is tough. Rusticucci said January, February and March 2024 already set records for global maximum temperatures.

Michael Cordonnier, Illinois-based agronomist at consultancy Soybean and Corn Advisor Inc, said what had happened with corn in Argentina was “very unusual” and it would take time for farmers there to adapt, as farmers in warmer corn-growing areas like Brazil have adapted over years.

“This is a real, real problem. Going forward, they will be able to solve this a few years down the road by getting hybrids that are more tolerant to corn stunt disease and registering more insecticides for this specific problem,” he said.

“But for the time being it’s just terrible.”

(Reporting by Maximiliano Heath and Matías Baglietto; Editing by Adam Jourdan and David Gregorio)

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LONDON (AP) — Prince Harry arrived in London on Tuesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games but won’t see his father during the visit, a spokesperson said.

King Charles III, who returned to his official duties last week after being sidelined for three months with cancer, is too busy to meet up with his youngest son, the spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex said.

“The duke of course is understanding of his father’s … commitments and various other priorities and hopes to see him soon,” a statement said.

Harry, who has a strained relationship with his family, rushed to London in February for a very brief visit after his father was diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer.

Harry, 39, has seen his father infrequently since the prince quit royal duties in 2020 and moved to California with his wife, Meghan, citing what they said were unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media. He has since detailed his rocky relationship with his family in TV interviews, a documentary and a memoir, “Spare.”

Shortly after his last quick trip to London, Harry told “Good Morning America” that he thought his father’s illness could help bring his family closer.

Harry was in London for events commemorating the tournament he founded for wounded troops and veterans.

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Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/royalty

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