Article

2007-01-22 China-Japan-Koreas

North Koreans cut off and freezing to death

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by tu3031 2007-01-22 12:21|| || Front Page|| [11136 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 What % is a 900,000 ton shortfall? How many lbs / person / year?

Seems like this has gotta be a shortfall of greater than 25% or 30%.

Posted by AlanC">AlanC 2007-01-22 12:38|| 2007-01-22 12:38|| Front Page Top

#2 900,000 tons grain is enough to feed 4.5 million on a 2,000 Calorie/day diet.

Posted by ed 2007-01-22 12:52|| 2007-01-22 12:52|| Front Page Top

#3 Damn that global warming.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-01-22 12:53|| 2007-01-22 12:53|| Front Page Top

#4 the villagers had suffered a macabre fate that has exposed both the desperate poverty and callous misrule blighting the Stalinist state.

More than 300 people are thought to have perished from cold so far this winter in North Korea's mountainous north, victims of temperatures as low as -30C and of an arrogant ruling clique.

Would any major American media outlet speak so plainly? Even Fox tempers their NKor coverage with more "neutral" language.

Posted by xbalanke 2007-01-22 12:56|| 2007-01-22 12:56|| Front Page Top

#5 The only constant source of light is the giant illuminated copper statue of Kim il Sung on a hill top overlooking the city.

Nice to know the Dear Leader has his priorities straight.

Posted by Mike 2007-01-22 13:20|| 2007-01-22 13:20|| Front Page Top

#6 I wonder if it rotates with the sun like Turkmenbashi's?

Posted by tu3031 2007-01-22 14:02|| 2007-01-22 14:02|| Front Page Top

#7 The earth rotates around Great Leader.

Posted by ed 2007-01-22 14:08|| 2007-01-22 14:08|| Front Page Top

#8 So as Dear Leader causes his population to die off through various mis-steps, when will he wake up to see there are no more young people available to serve in his army?

Posted by USN, Ret. 2007-01-22 14:48|| 2007-01-22 14:48|| Front Page Top

#9 One of those little daily items Diane Sawyer and ABC News missed, I guess.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2007-01-22 14:50|| 2007-01-22 14:50|| Front Page Top

#10 This is a bit much and blaming Kim for this is like blaming Bush for global warming. Even if this report was 100% true, the retoric attached to it makes it nothing more than propaganda and destroys all credibility.

Kim needs to go away and most everyone knows this, but a -30 cold snap will kill just about any third world provance, hell they live in shacks.

Posted by 49 Pan">49 Pan 2007-01-22 15:10|| 2007-01-22 15:10|| Front Page Top

#11 Burn a few Taepo Dongs, then eat the ashes. You'll feel better.

Posted by Mark Z">Mark Z 2007-01-22 16:05|| 2007-01-22 16:05|| Front Page Top

#12 North Korea will be 900,000 tons short

How much would that be in lawn seed?

Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839">AlmostAnonymous5839 2007-01-22 16:22|| 2007-01-22 16:22|| Front Page Top

#13 Of that 900,000 tons, the ruling elite would steal about 300,000 and the rest would go to the army. They are beyond trusting, the people that need the food wouldn't see a grain of rice.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2007-01-22 16:53|| 2007-01-22 16:53|| Front Page Top

#14 No, blaming Kimmie is right on target, Pan. If Kimmie had shown the political sense of Deng, Giap, or the Iraqi Communist Party, the NorKors would not be literally dying in the dark and cold. The innate ability of Kimmie to reverse the stupidity of the NorKor nuke program and thereby gain all the economic and political benefits that would entail lays the blame squarely at his feet. Hell, he could simply announce "a nuclear freeze on the Korean peninsula", and scored huge with the international community; add in a mealy-mouthed non-apology to the Japanese {"I am sorry that my missile tests showed your vulnerabilities and made you pee your pants"}, and he could even get the cash freeze lifted.
But, because of his ego and stupidity, his people are dying like starving rats in an icehouse. Even Saddam was smart enough to play the sanctions game, with controlled TV coverage of the sick and dying. Kimmie could gangsta literal tons of food and coal from South Korea with televised pictures of the suffering of the common man in NorKor. Add in the kneejerk reaction of Oxfam, HRW, and the UN, and you are talking enough food, oil, medicine, and clothing to take care of the whole freaking population for at least 3 years.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2007-01-22 17:09|| 2007-01-22 17:09|| Front Page Top

#15 And just a few MOABs in that central compound in Pyongyang might mean the downfall of the entire regime.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-01-22 17:33|| 2007-01-22 17:33|| Front Page Top

#16 Anonymoose - and then Kimmie will be warm for eternity.

Posted by DMFD 2007-01-22 18:01|| 2007-01-22 18:01|| Front Page Top

#17 I'll give ya Kim is an ass, can't manage geopolitical issues, and cares less about the people in his country than his atomic plans. I frankly thought we would have gone to blows with him right after his father died and I wonder why we allow him to continue.

I just can't stand the running editorial and cheap propaganda effort of this article. This is the kind of journalism that signifies everything wrong with todays MSM.

Posted by 49 Pan 2007-01-22 19:41|| 2007-01-22 19:41|| Front Page Top

#18 2000 is only the minima - true threshold is 5000-plus for normal human activity be it active or passive. 2000 a day > are still gonna hear desperate? complaints "I'm so hungry/thirsty", becuz it taint enuff. AND, when considering that to offset famine large numbers of local MOSTLY MEN + MOSTLY MALE YOUTHS to keep working the fields 24-7-365 in attempts to grow satisf yields of edible crops, then we're actually talking 10,000-plus MINIMUM A DAY, NOT COUNTING WATER. * WHY OIL-FOR-FOOD/KOFI-GATE(S) BECUZ, BY THE ABOVE, UNO DONATIONS > BARELY ENUFF TO RELIEVE SOME OF DAILY HUNGER PAINS OF THE STARVING. IFF ANYTHING, JUST PROLONGING THEIR DEATH AGONY.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-01-22 19:53|| 2007-01-22 19:53|| Front Page Top

#19 No blaming Kimmie-boy is exactly right. Odd you don't hear of this type of thing in Siberia or China. Heck doesn't Harbin China (NW of N. Korea) regularly put on an ice festival in February?

No it is Kimmie's fault for not providing for his people. He is the 'Dear Leader' - he is responsible. He should make sure that there is food available - and ample fuel for heat and cooking. Instead he blows it on Nuclear Weapons - which isn't cheap.

Perhaps this article is a bit over-the-top. But look at the byline - By Sergey Soukhorukov in Pyongyang. This guy is right there.

I noticed lately that Kim isn't missing any meals.

Remember - This is the Workers Paradise the left worships.

Posted by CrazyFool 2007-01-22 22:08|| 2007-01-22 22:08|| Front Page Top

#20 Ok OK ouch! I give! Uncle.

Posted by 49 Pan 2007-01-22 22:18|| 2007-01-22 22:18|| Front Page Top

#21 Don't be silly, read the story not the fluff.

Wild koreans heat their one room stick and sheet metal hovels with charcoal/wood firepit/stoves. The fumes are vented thru hollow floor tiles. The exhaust warms the floor, which heats the room pretty well...until it leaks.

During winter cold, cold damp arctic winds blow across Siberia, out of Mongolia across the yellow sea (yellow from the desert dust). Block the leaks where the wind comes in (and it always comes in), the CO builds up and you either wake up puking, or don't wake up and they find you blue...and frozen in the morning. Hundreds of families die every winter.

Joe's nuts, again. MRE's are 4000 calories, a fat american diet is 1500-2000. The wild koreans get by on 800-1000 while working the fields. The diet is mostly carbs with little protein so little free thought.

They don't vote, they don't revolt either.

Posted by Skidmark 2007-01-22 22:55|| 2007-01-22 22:55|| Front Page Top

#22 Looks like the Evil Bush Neocon Clique put the "brutal Afghan winter" into cold storage for a few years, then shifted it to the northwest and brought it out to massacre another victim of American imperialism.
/channeling moonbats

Whenever I think of campus activists denouncing American imperialism, I have this vivid flashback to that ape mob chanting and beating their chests in one of the Planet of the Apes sequels.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2007-01-22 23:38|| http://www.nuclearspace.com]">[http://www.nuclearspace.com] 2007-01-22 23:38|| Front Page Top

23:49 gromgoru
23:42 gromgoru
23:38 Atomic Conspiracy
23:24 Skidmark
22:58 Skidmark
22:56 Pappy
22:55 Skidmark
22:47 Pappy
22:27 Barbara Skolaut
22:18 49 Pan
22:17 Atomic Conspiracy
22:08 CrazyFool
22:06 Skidmark
21:59 JosephMendiola
21:57 Chuck Simmins
21:56 JosephMendiola
21:48 JosephMendiola
21:37 Frank G
21:33 twobyfour
21:17 Chuck Simmins
21:01 Swamp Blondie
20:52 KBK
20:52 JosephMendiola
20:45 JosephMendiola