Posted on 10/23/2011 8:53:29 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Wealthier countries need to put aside politics to help millions of North Koreans going hungry from food shortages, the U.N.'s top relief official said, renewing an appeal for assistance that has largely gone unmet.
Speaking at the end of a five-day visit to North Korea, Valerie Amos, a U.N. undersecretary-general, said Friday that 6 million North Koreans, particularly children, mothers and pregnant women, need help. The figures, she said, are borne out by UN data and by what she learned from visits to farms, hospitals and orphanages, as well as from officials.
People's diets, she said, consist of rice, corn, cabbage, little else and no protein or nutrient rich foods.
While she acknowledged concerns about whether the authoritarian government diverts food aid or underfunds agriculture, Amos urged donor countries to put the needs of North Koreans ahead of other considerations.
"This is about helping the people who are most in need. It's not about saying that this country has made a choice about spending its resources in one way rather than another. We don't make those judgments in other countries, on humanitarian grounds. There's no reason to begin to do it in" North Korea, Amos told The Associated Press before leaving Pyongyang.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.boston.com ...
Guess again. :’)
At the extremes, food is politics. Except in rare cases of natural disaster, famines are political, and even including natural disasters, famines are usually political. South Korea has almost the same weather as North Korea ... but no famine. So North Korea’s famine isn’t naturally-caused; it’s 100% political.
Their leaders are beyond evil and the situation is deplorable. However, I’m not interested in feeding a bunch of people who have been brainwashed to kill me just because I’m an American.
North Korea need the chia pets dead post haste.
If you acknowledge the government is divrrting food aid, how will sending food to he NK givernment help with the needs of North Koreans? That is a non-sequitur.
When they allow Christian missionaries into the country to distribute food then we'll know they're serious. Untul then, we should not be sendi g aid to the NK Army.
If they are really that hungry those prices are a bargain.
I feel for the folks suffering under the NK regime, I really do. But any aid sent will A) probably be diverted to their military and the regime’s favored cronies and/or B) throw a lifeline to one of the most oppressive governments left on this earth. In other words, it will probably just make things worse, long-term, for the average Korean living north of the DMZ.
“Asteroid To Hit North Korea Tomorrow. Children, Mothers, and Pregnant Women Hardest Hit”
Their government is killing them and it’s all your fault.
I hope you’re happy.
/sarc(?)
Seems that young men can enter the North Korean military at 16. The recruits are so severely undernorished that it is necessary to “fatten them up” for 6-8 weeks so they may withstand the rigors of basic training.
So we ship over a few thousand tons of food, the military takes it, and the people still starve.
Exactly what good does that do?
Give us back the USS Pueblo and maybe we’ll talk.
Let China do it.
I am certain that many times over the course of KIJ’s life, soldiers guarding him had the opportunity to kill him, if only they had been willing to sacrifice their own life for the sake of their repeatedly starving countrymen. No one did, either because of fear, or because of agreement with his rule. Either way, N.Koreans allowed his kind to come to power and stay in power, and they reap their rewards as a people.
And then the ingratitude the S. Koreans have shown our country after all we have sacrificed to keep their butts alive for over half a century pretty much rounds out the picture of this peninsula and its people for me. No food for the North, and bring our troops and treasure home from the South.
Buy this magazine or we’ll shoot this dog.
Oh please.
The food goes almost exclusively to the military and socialist leadership.
The North should spend less on WMDs and spend more on agriculture.
My Give A Damn’s busted.
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