North Korea appeals to foreign governments for food aid (NK Has ordered all its embassies to appeal)

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

Embassies ordered to approach foreign capitals directly as international food needs assessment gets under way

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor | Thursday 10 February 2011 13.35 GMT

North Korea has ordered all its embassies to appeal to foreign governments for food aid in a sign of growing desperation in Pyongyang, according to diplomatic sources.

=snip=

The WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has begun a food needs assessment in North Korea, but the WFP said that last year it managed to raise only a fifth of the budget it needed for its North Korean aid programme.

That shortfall may be one of the reasons Pyongyang is trying a direct approach this year, observers said.

"This year, all 40 North Korean embassies have been ordered by Pyongyang to ask governments for food. They have each been given a quota," an Asian diplomat said.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/10/north-korea-appeals-foreign-food-aid

[Roland99]

1. Imagine the culture shock if NK suddenly opened to the world.

[AngryAmish]

8. Bring it on

Those people have been through enough/

[WatsonT]

16. A comparison could be children who grew up in concentration camps

how did they deal with the world once they got out? Perhaps some cult groups might compare.

Now consider they've been in there for generations.

[LuckyLib]

2. NK needs to stop it's military build-up and put that money into food. Criminals.

[WatsonT]

17. Sadly they don't

they ruling class has remained in power for over half a century following this exact same strategy.

In addition we are providing them with food to offset the most extreme famine conditions.

[L0oniX]

3. What if we gave them food with no strings?

[Old Troop]

10. It would go primarily to the military and the rest would be sold by

government officials.

[L0oniX]

13. What if that's just propaganda from our side?

[Stella_Artois]

15. What if they attacked their neighbour and then asked for help ?

Well, its not too hard to imagine, because thats what they have just done. I pity the innocent population of that country because their leadership is criminally incompetent.

[WatsonT]

18. I suppose we could always see what kind of stories

North Koreas free and vibrant media is reporting.

Oh it seems dear leader is a superb golfer and is descended from a god.

[Posteritatis]

22. Then we'd be living in a fictional world. (nt)

[PavePusher]

36. You can always go and find out for yourself.

Good luck with that.

[Hubert Flottz]

4. Do we feel sorry for a country that spends it's lunch money on...

atom bombs and ICBMs? A country with one of the planet's largest standing armies?

[thelordofhell]

9. Yeah, you would think they would just fight 2 wars and give money to the rich

[L0oniX]

24. Feel sorry for the USA?

[bowens43]

5. What? Dear Leader can't provide? nt

[jwirr]

6. I imagine NK is blacking out any coverage of Egypt. That would be

the solution. Toss out their rulers and appeal to SK for unity.

[Old Troop]

11. The nightmare scenario for both SK and China is an abrupt end to

the NK regime. Neither country wants to deal with millions of near-starving people or the wreck that is the NK industrial and agricultural base.

[WatsonT]

19. Won't happen

Mubarak is mother theresa compared to the Kim regime.

This is a combination of the worst kind of fascism mixed with a particularly vicious cult. It's as close to the world of 1984 as we are likely to ever get (I really hope).

[Posteritatis]

23. NK blacks out foreign coverage, period, aside from a few carefully sanitized things

I wouldn't be too surprised if the population didn't know anything was going on in Egypt at all.

[L0oniX]

25. Well the USA is blacking out Al Jazeera ain't it?

[FLPanhandle]

26. Really? News to me. I've been watching it most of the last couple of days

If the USA is blacking it out, they are doing a piss poor job of it.

[L0oniX]

31. *

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=400866&mesg_id=400866

[FLPanhandle]

33. Not being part of a cable package isn't the same as being "blacked out"

Anyone with a computer can watch them all day long. Fail.

[Throd]

27. Not here (Northern California) they aren't

[L0oniX]

30. *

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=400866&mesg_id=400866

[Posteritatis]

28. No. (nt)

[L0oniX]

29. *

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=400866&mesg_id=400866

[Posteritatis]

32. So?

I can't subscribe to al-Jazeera as part of my cable package, but that doesn't mean Canada's blocking it, and I've been viewing it online just fine for days.

Comparing having to jump through a tiny hoop to get access to a news station that is not, in any way, shape or form, censored by the government to North Korean media practices is naive and ignorant in the extreme. Stop embarrassing yourself.

[totodeinhere]

35. No it is not being blacked out. Anyone with free to air satellite equipment can get it on

Galaxy 19 on the Ku band in DVB format. It's true that not too many people have that type of equipment, but if you want to view Al Jazeera bad enough on your TV then you can get the necessary equipment at an electronics shop. Just Google "free to air satellite equipment." And as another poster already mentioned, it is streamed on line.

[LeftinOH]

7. Sending their ambassadors out like schoolkids who are forced to sell candy/magazines

..and there's even a quota! Hopefully, each and every one of these ambassadors will get an earful from whomever they approach about the Dear Leader's ridiculous military expenditures.

[truebrit71]

12. A terrible crime has been committed on the NK people, the sooner they go all Egypt on Kim's ass...

...the better...

[Javaman]

14. typical pattern of the passive aggressive north korean government...

bomb first then ask for food later.

this is a pattern they have repeated time and time again.

[ItNerd4life]

20. But they have plenty of money for soldiers and bombs. hmm. nt

[FLPanhandle]

21. I'd tell them we'd be perfectly happy to sell them some food

If they stop spending all that money on their military, they might be able to afford some.

When they have stripped the military to zero and if they still need food, I'd give them some.

[christx30]

34. What would everyone think

of a secret campaign to get everyone of North Korea that would want to come? There are people there want to leave, otherwise they wouldn't have so much firepower directed back into their own land preventing escapes. The people of science, such as they are, or anyone that could work the machines, the power plants, ect. Remove their minds, and the regime would crumble that much faster. What would happen if the people that ran the power plants just vanished, along with their families? Or a few of the farmers or food distributors? I don't know how it would happen, but anything in this world is possible. We choke off all supply to them. It'd be bad for a few months or a couple of years, but eventually they would not have enough fuel or food to keep their military going.
It is foreign aid that is propping up Kim and his son. The governments of the world, through short sighted acts of "compassion" keep the people more or less fed, and delay the end of the Kim Regime. They delay the time of freedom, and the unity of the Korean people.

[pampango]

37. Global Post: Does North Korea deserve aid?

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/south-korea/110211/north-korea-aid-kim-jong-il

Should countries that abhor North Korea’s system respond to appeals for food aid to keep its people from starving? It’s a question that arises whenever the dreadfully misruled country fails to grow enough food. In recent decades, that means every year.

Some years’ shortages are worse than others and manage to grab the attention of the global media. This week the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported that North Korean ambassadors in a number of countries have been begging for handouts. The United Nations’ World Food Program says the country’s food problems are very real.

Even in the United States and South Korea — both officially at war with the North since 1950 — the instinct used to be to help out, separating humanitarian concerns from politics. But over the years two things have become clear. First, donors are denied the ability to make sure the aid gets to needy civilians. Much of it in fact is siphoned off by officials who eat it themselves, supply it to the military or sell it to market traders.

Second, the regime has the effrontery to use the aid, judo-style, as a political weapon. It boasts in its internal propaganda that enemy countries give not out of charity but because the brilliant “general,” dictator Kim Jong Il, by turning North Korean into a nuclear armed, ferociously war-ready country, has frightened them into paying tribute.