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2004-05-14 China-Japan-Koreas
North Korea Calls U.S. Demands at Talks `Humiliating,’ AP Says
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Posted by Zenster 2004-05-14 2:56:45 AM|| || Front Page|| [11136 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 In agrarian societies June and July are known as the 'hungry months' when the previous year's crops have run out and the current years crops are yet to be harvested.
Posted by Phil_B 2004-05-14 6:40:25 AM||   2004-05-14 6:40:25 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 You know, I couldn't see them feeling humiliated if they were confident of their position. Humiliation is something you experience when you have lost power.

What's going on, that the NorKs are feeling powerless? Just the loss of face from the train disaster? Or is the famine starting to bite?
Posted by Mitch H.  2004-05-14 7:41:35 AM|| [http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]  2004-05-14 7:41:35 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 You think this is humiliating? You want humiliation, Kimmie, we can show you what real humiliation looks like.
Posted by Mike  2004-05-14 9:07:53 AM||   2004-05-14 9:07:53 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Anyone catching on to the new Anti-American phrase after Abu-Garib? Oh, dear, I'm humiliated...maybe they can all get together for a class action lawsuit against us and be represented by that f#ck#@g lawyer from France who's repping Saddam. Sounds like he's beginning to see that we'll be pulling some troops out on July 1 and that ridin' the train isn't gonna work anymore!
Posted by BA  2004-05-14 10:55:35 AM||   2004-05-14 10:55:35 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 
North Korea Calls U.S. Demands at Talks `Humiliating’
The Norks are Arabs? Who knew?
Posted by Barbara Skolaut  2004-05-14 11:10:35 AM||   2004-05-14 11:10:35 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Re: Humiliation

Hey, folks, can't fault Kimmie for trying. It worked on the congress. I know it is a long shot, but desperate people in desparate times require desparate measures, even though it may be desparately humiliating.
Posted by Alaska Paul 2004-05-14 12:12:33 PM||   2004-05-14 12:12:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 They're short, they're retarded, they're psychos.
I'd be humiliated too.
Posted by tu3031 2004-05-14 12:26:26 PM||   2004-05-14 12:26:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 In agrarian societies June and July are known as the 'hungry months' when the previous year's crops have run out and the current years crops are yet to be harvested.

For more insight into the intricacies of how to police food production in true Stalinist style, continue on:

It encouraged farmers to divert production from the agricultural system before the harvest. The sudden drastic reduction in the food ration meant that farmers were given the choice of letting their families starve or secretly preharvesting and saving food to build up family stocks before the harvest was actually taken. Kim Jong Il complained bitterly about this secret preharvesting in a speech (December 1996). One defector said that he had seen reports of the roofs of many farmers' homes collapsing under the weight of hidden grain. The fall 1996 WFP/FAO agricultural assessment acknowledges that half the corn harvest was missing--nearly 1.3 million metric tons (MT). This hoarding began an undeclared war between the central authorities and the individual farmers. According to defector and refugee interviews, soldiers--called corn guards--were dispatched to protect the fields as the harvest matured in an effort to prevent this enormous diversion. However, this command and control tactic failed when farmers simply bribed the soldiers, hungry themselves because of a breakdown in the military distribution system, to join them in the diversion.

NOTE: Those of you with a full stomach may wish to stop here.

Famine-struck N Koreans 'eating children'

August 03, 2003

By Mark Nicol

Cannibalism is increasing in North Korea following another poor harvest and a big cut in international food aid, according to refugees who have fled the stricken country. Aid agencies are alarmed by refugees' reports that children have been killed and corpses cut up by people desperate for food. Requests by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to be allowed access to "farmers' markets", where human meat is said to be traded, have been turned down by Pyongyang, citing "security reasons".

Anyone caught selling human meat faces execution, but in a report compiled by the North Korean Refugees Assistance Fund (NKRAF), one refugee said: "Pieces of 'special' meat are displayed on straw mats for sale. People know where they came from, but they don't talk about it." The NKRAF, an aid body set up in China five years ago which helps to smuggle food and medicines into parts of North Korea off-limits to WFP officials, interviewed 200 refugees for the report.

"If a funeral takes place during the day and the burial is performed that evening, the grave may be dug open and the body stolen before morning," said one refugee. Another witness, named only as Lee, 54, said he feared that his missing grandsons, aged eight and 11, had been killed for food. As he searched widely for them, they boys' friends said they had vanished near a market.

Mr Lee said police who raided a nearby restaurant found body parts. The business's owners were shot. Gerald Bourke, the WFP's representative in Beijing, said it was difficult for his organisation to substantiate the reports of cannibalism as they were unable to get to the markets. "As in any desperately poor country, it is something we might stumble on," he said. "It's not just a problem for us, but also our donors." Because of the food shortages, many people were having to survive on nine ounces of rations a day - less than half the recommended minimum daily intake.

North Korea's ability to feed itself has been hit by floods, deforestation and lack of farm fertilisers and equipment. The WFP says Japan provided 500,000 tons of food aid in 2001, making it the biggest donor, but sent nothing last year. Food aid from America has been cut from 340,000 tons in 2001 to 40,000 tons so far this year. Washington has pledged to send a further 60,000 tons if Pyongyang lifts restrictions on the operations of agencies such as the WFP.

-----------------------------------------

For a "don't worry be happy" view on North Korea, get out a barfbag and read the National Lawyers Guild "Korean Peace Project" article.
Posted by Anonymous4842 2004-05-14 2:06:10 PM||   2004-05-14 2:06:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 #8: What is with the Nat'l Lawyers Guild? I noted they're based in New Mexico (that would explain some of it). Don't ya love the sarcasm on that link? Remember, UNICEF says the Iraq sanctions after GWI killed 500,000 children! Where in the freakin' world did they get that number (and I would bet the NLG is opposed to GWII, which is ending the sanctions...have your cake and eat it too). And WTF is with their final statement...ya know with all the axis of evil/regime change talk, getting out of the ABT and Kyoto, lil' Kim Jong Il has reason to worry! WTF does Kyoto have to do with Il starving his own people in pursuit of nuclear blackmail? Oh, I see, you oppose all things Bush, so you gotta throw in your $.02.
Posted by BA  2004-05-14 2:53:00 PM||   2004-05-14 2:53:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 I seem to remember seeing somewhere that the National Lawyers Guild is a Communist Front organization. Literal Stalinists.
Posted by Mitch H.  2004-05-14 4:43:51 PM|| [http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]  2004-05-14 4:43:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]
Posted by Gentile 2004-05-14 4:42:15 PM||   2004-05-14 4:42:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]
Posted by Gentile 2004-05-14 4:42:15 PM||   2004-05-14 4:42:15 PM|| Front Page Top

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