Norks short of food, need charity from those they threaten
The Guardian:
"The UN world food programme (WFP) has been forced to cut off food aid to 2.7 million North Korean women and children during the country's harsh winter due to lack of foreign donations, a spokesman for the agency said today.
"The WFP received new promises of aid from the US, the EU and Australia after warning in December of an impending crisis, but those supplies could take up to three months to arrive, said Gerald Bourke.
"The food crisis coincides with efforts to arrange new talks on the standoff over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Despite diplomatic tensions, two leading critics of the North's nuclear programme - the US and South Korea - are among its biggest food donors, and the WFP said that no governments had cited the nuclear issue as a factor in deciding whether or not to contribute.
...
"North Korea's isolated Stalinist regime has relied on foreign aid to feed its people since it revealed in the mid-1990s that its state-run farming industry had collapsed following decades of mismanagement and the loss of Soviet subsidies.
...
"This year's harvest is expected to fall 1m tons - or about 20% - short of the minimum the country needs to feed itself, according to aid agencies, which also say that it is difficult to foresee a time when the North will be able to feed itself without outside help.
"WFP had planned to feed a total of 6.2 million of the North's 20 million people this year.
"The cutbacks come as temperatures in the North drop below freezing, aggravated by a lack of fuel for heat and lighting. Daytime highs in Pyongyang this week are forecast to be as low as -14C (6F)."
There is nothing like communism to create a famine. The only thing that comes close is anywhere where Osama bin Laden is effecting food distribution.
The Guardian:
"The UN world food programme (WFP) has been forced to cut off food aid to 2.7 million North Korean women and children during the country's harsh winter due to lack of foreign donations, a spokesman for the agency said today.
"The WFP received new promises of aid from the US, the EU and Australia after warning in December of an impending crisis, but those supplies could take up to three months to arrive, said Gerald Bourke.
"The food crisis coincides with efforts to arrange new talks on the standoff over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Despite diplomatic tensions, two leading critics of the North's nuclear programme - the US and South Korea - are among its biggest food donors, and the WFP said that no governments had cited the nuclear issue as a factor in deciding whether or not to contribute.
...
"North Korea's isolated Stalinist regime has relied on foreign aid to feed its people since it revealed in the mid-1990s that its state-run farming industry had collapsed following decades of mismanagement and the loss of Soviet subsidies.
...
"This year's harvest is expected to fall 1m tons - or about 20% - short of the minimum the country needs to feed itself, according to aid agencies, which also say that it is difficult to foresee a time when the North will be able to feed itself without outside help.
"WFP had planned to feed a total of 6.2 million of the North's 20 million people this year.
"The cutbacks come as temperatures in the North drop below freezing, aggravated by a lack of fuel for heat and lighting. Daytime highs in Pyongyang this week are forecast to be as low as -14C (6F)."
There is nothing like communism to create a famine. The only thing that comes close is anywhere where Osama bin Laden is effecting food distribution.
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