| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Six million N Koreans face chronic food shortage: UN |
| 2008-02-25 |
| Nearly six million North Koreans are in chronic need of foreign food aid this year with children, nursing and expectant mothers and the poor most at risk, the World Food Programme said Sunday. The UN agency said the nation would be short of an estimated 1.4 million tonnes of food this year, nearly a quarter of its total needs, following severe floods last August which wiped out more than 10 percent of the grain harvest. “Young children, pregnant and breast-feeding women and poor families in both urban and rural areas will be most at risk of hunger,” the WFP said in a statement. “Many already struggle to feed themselves on a diet critically deficient in protein, fats and micronutrients.” The communist state was hit by famine in the mid- to late-1990s which killed hundreds of thousands. Since then, the country has relied on international food aid to help feed its people. The agency said malnutrition rates had fallen since the late 1990s. But it said 37 percent of young children are still chronically malnourished, and one third of mothers are malnourished and anaemic, citing a 2004 survey. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #13 Funny, it doesn't look like a chocolate chip... |
| Posted by: Raj 2008-02-25 19:13 |
| #12 Soylant yellow is made of insects!!! |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2008-02-25 13:17 |
| #11 Feeding the starving of the dictatorships world wide helps keep them in power by pushing out the date where the people are fed up enough to overthrow the tyrants. every penny of food aid sent to these holes translated directly to the dictators and tyrants in these places being able to loot their economies further to stay in power and to, in Nork's case, enhance their military. the cold war was won when the Russians couldn't afford to both feed their people and to compete militarily at the same time. how many years of suffering behind the iron curtain did jimmy carter add to the human condition by sending all that wheat to the USSR in the 70's? how long much longer will the Norks be able to hold out and crush their enslaved population because of our food aid? take Kimmie of life support... no more aid. |
| Posted by: Abu do you love 2008-02-25 12:46 |
| #10 She suggested a more practical benefit might be adding insects to animal feed or crushing them into a meal powder that could be used to make cookies or cakes. Let them eat bug cake! Now off to a seven course meal at the Hilton on the UN's expense account. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-02-25 10:49 |
| #9 mmmm, mmmm, good! That's what FAO food is, mmmm, mmmm, good! |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-02-25 10:38 |
| #8 This is novel UN thinking outside the box: The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates 1,400 species of insects and worms are eaten in almost 90 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Researchers at the conference detailed how crickets and silk worms are eaten in Thailand, grubs and grasshoppers in Africa and ants in South America. "In certain places with certain cultures with a certain level of acceptance, then insects can very well be seen as part of the solution" to hunger, said Patrick Durst, a Bangkok-based senior forestry officer at the FAO....She suggested a more practical benefit might be adding insects to animal feed or crushing them into a meal powder that could be used to make cookies or cakes. Meyer-Rochow said aid agencies might even find a way to harvest crop-destroying swarms of locusts and crickets. "These mass outbreaks could be a valuable food source," he said. "If the technology is available, they could be ground up like a paste and added to the food humans eat." |
| Posted by: Danielle 2008-02-25 10:30 |
| #7 Kimmie-boy simply repackages the food (after skimming off a good percentage for the party and military of course) and then sends it to the people. The people themselves have no idea that the food actually comes from abroad - to them the 'Great Leader' provides all. And of course having the food provided by the UN frees up funds for Kimmie to develop nuclear tech and missiles and, of course, oppress his people even more... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2008-02-25 08:32 |
| #6 I'd rather divert food to the Norks than the USA continue feeding the entire Somali population gratis. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-02-25 08:28 |
| #5 We know the Army is better feed these days. Make the Norks draft the entire population and put them in uniform. Maybe some of the food won't get diverted to little fiefdoms in the uniformed bureaucracy. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-02-25 08:05 |
| #4 If we scrapped the UN altogether, we could take the money that is saved and feed the starving. And the children would not even need to prostitute themselves for the food. Imagine that. |
| Posted by: Crease Poodle1618 2008-02-25 07:46 |
| #3 Send all you want, it will just go to the military. It always has, in fact the average NKor probably has never heard about the US or UN sending food to their country. Kimmie steals every last grain for his army and his political cadres, and we keep sending it over there like a bunch of rubes. We need to get smart on this little dude. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-02-25 06:56 |
| #2 Shades of the future. The poorest of the poor get hit first by food shortages. And the poorest of the poor are concentrated in Norkland. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2008-02-25 06:15 |
| #1 I don't believe they're suffering as much as Gazans do. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2008-02-25 04:06 |