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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Norks fear country is on verge of new famine |
| 2010-03-25 |
| Long story with a number of interviews -- in China. Once again, rice has disappeared from tables in North Korea. A famine looms and -- as happened in the 1990s -- millions could die. Desperation is stamped on the faces of those few who have braved barbed-wire fences, armed guards and patrols to slip into neighbouring China. They seek food over freedom. The Times met four women in a safe house in China this week who fled recently across the frontier. They described despair in North Korea at the growing prospect of starvation in the Stalinist state. The youngest, only 16, crossed the frozen river last month. The other three, in their 50s, left last year and were tight-lipped about how they got out because they must go back to help the families they left behind. While snow falls outside, Choi Kum Ok squats on the floor of an anonymous apartment not far from the border. Her eyes fill with tears as she talks of the son she had to leave behind. "I came over to earn money for his medical care. I need to get him food or he will starve." She covers her face and sobs as she remembers the 1990s, when harvests failed and up to 10 per cent of the population starved. She lost a sibling. "I don't want to talk about it," she says. A former security guard and member of the elite ruling Workers' Party, she cannot understand how the leaders that she still worships could have failed their people so completely. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 The general [Kim Jung Il] is doing a bad job and people want change. Be careful of what you ask for. |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-03-25 11:04 |
| #2 Works for me. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2010-03-25 07:57 |
| #1 Broken link. |
| Posted by: gromky 2010-03-25 04:35 |