From East Asia Intel, subscription req'd.UN relief sources say North Korea's ration for cereals has been cut from 300 grams [10.5 ounces] to 250 grams, half the daily requirement. Economic reforms in 2002 that freed some prices and wages has brought inflation and increased unemployment worsening that country's endemic shortages.
Still the Military First policy is in place.
Two-thirds of the 23.7 million North Koreans depend on rations supplied by the government-run Public Distribution System, which in turn is largely fed by imported aid.
Norks threaten starvation, lay a guilt trip on the world. Keeps the army fed and the just-plain-joes weak and divided.
During the 1990s, 2 million North Koreans died from starvation due to natural disasters and the regime's diversion of both financial and manpower resources to the military. North Korea has the world's fifth-largest military, and is the most militarized nation in proportion to population with more than 1.2 million people in uniform. Military spending is estimated at a third of North Korea's gross domestic product.
2 million starve to death and the LLL says nothing. We are talking 2 million people!!!! As far as the GDP percentage, under Stalin, the USSR spent about 25% of the GDP on the military sector.
Some 3.8 million people in North Korea are "core recipients" of aid from the United Nations World Food Program. Another 2.7 million receive aid through other schemes. The UN agency said it may have to cut off all aid by October unless it receives new donations.
People are getting tired of enabling Kimmie's behavior.
It will halt cereal aid in June to 2.1 million North Korean primary school children, old people and poor urban residents.
Just like Saddam. He took the Oil-for-Food program, bribed his cronies and enablers, starved the children and built up his Baathist Regime. Kimmie read and implemented Saddam's Playbook™.
Washington hasn't decided whether to provide food but stressed that the decision was unrelated to the standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons.
The trouble is that the decision affects the standoff. Give civilian food and the military is stronger for it. It is a plan of truly evil people that prey on the goodness of normal people.
Last year's 50,000 ton U.S. commitment was half that provided in 2003. Washington is concerned that relief meant for civilians is diverted to feed the military. Seoul's representatives at the recent North-South talks, resumed after Pyongyang's refusal for almost a year, were apparently unsuccessful in persuading a Pyongyang to return to the six-power talks.
Why should the Norks give in? Their brinksmanship threats are working against the SKors.
Much of the talks centered on the North's request for fertilizer pending since January. Although Seoul's public stance is that increased interactions and trade with the North will modify the Pyongyang regime, Seoul demanded official talks to discuss such aid rather than accepting food requests from the North Korean Red Cross. The urgency of the North's situation was demonstrated by South Korea recent agreement to send 50 trucks across the Demilitarized Zone, the first time fertilizer has been moved by land. A South Korean official said 10,000 tons would move that way while the remaining 190,000 tons would go by sea, still well under the half million tons Pyongyang has been requesting. At the same time, North Korea will send its cargo vessels into South Korean waters for the first time since 1984 to pick up the fertilizer augmenting a fleet of South Korean ships.
A non-compromising hard nosed attitude is what is needed. The sooner the Norks fall, the sooner the North Korean people can be rescued. But witholding food aid to people in need is an agonizing thing to decent people.