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Axis of Evil
North Koreans Face Cold, Hungry Winter
2002-12-27
When North Korean leader Kim Jong Il visited a factory where none of the workers was wearing an overcoat, he took off his own before having his picture taken with them. The gesture from their Great Leader deeply touched the workers, state-run media said.
It was cheaper than buying them coats, wasn't it?
Such tales abound these days from the communist state's Korean Central News Agency as the isolated regime tries desperately to boost the morale of people in one of the world's poorest countries. This year, North Koreans face the prospect of their coldest, hungriest winter in years. The United States and its allies have stopped supplying fuel oil ever since the North revealed that it has been running a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 accord with Washington. And the World Food Program said it will not be able to reach 2.9 million vulnerable North Koreans - barring immediate contributions from major donors such as the United States and Japan, which are increasingly unhappy about helping the recalcitrant Pyongyang regime.
If the U.S. contributes, I'm gonna bitch. If we have to contribute to someone, pick a country that's not run by lunatics. Of course, the countries that aren't run by lunatics or infested by lunatics usually don't need so much aid, do they?
The immediate victims will be the North's children and elderly - including 760,000 children in nurseries - who depend on outside relief, says the WFP, the Rome-based U.N. relief agency that coordinates aid shipments to North Korea.
I'd call them the responsibility of the NKor government, not ours. When they've hung their Dear Leader and his henchmen, then we should send them lots of groceries until they're on their feet.
North Korea advocates ``juche,'' or self-reliance, as a national philosophy. But it was reduced to begging for outside aid starting in the mid-1990s when its house of economic cards started collapsing floods devastated its already inefficient, Soviet-style economy, and triggered widespread hunger.
Ethel! My violin, please!
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#4  I'll give you $100 for that Dear Leader bobble-head.
Posted by: Anonymous   2002-12-28 06:16:32  

#3  Taking all things in good measure, we have begun our new "Cheese Ramen For Defectors Program". The first 10,000 arrivals will also receive a limited edition Kimche Pot and a Dear Leader Bobble-Head Doll.
Posted by: Speed Bump   2002-12-27 20:43:31  

#2  We also gave food to the Taliban...we feed our enemies, rather then prosletyze. Therein lies part of the problem. The solution is convert NK to Islam and then when they become martyrs they can have their 72 raisins...
Posted by: Brian   2002-12-27 12:54:54  

#1  Trouble is, the NKor military takes a large portion of any aid that's distributed. I understood they were not allowing NGO's to do the distribution of food to the starving rural areas.
Posted by: Frank G   2002-12-27 11:06:48  

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