Thread: North korea cutting food rations by almost half

Oh these lovely Dictators; OhOh, SKkin and little OhOh wannabe Foobar will be wanking themselves silly in delight. No doubt they will try and blame the US for this, conveniently ignoring NK's shameful history of starving its own people.

North Korea says it is facing a food shortage for 2019 that will require rations be reduced by almost half for its citizens.


Reuters reports that the country revealed the information to the United Nations in a two-page memo, although the document is not dated. However, the information comes a week before North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam. The summit will be the second between the two nations.

According to Reuters, the memo says that the country produced 503,000 tons less of food in 2018 as compared to 2017. The country estimates that its food shortage will equal 1.4 million tons in 2019.

NBC News reports that Kim Song, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, wrote the memo. Song said the combination of high temperatures, drought and typhoons, as well as sanctions against the country are to blame for the shortage.

The memo, issued from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), North Korea's official name, urges the United Nations to provide assistance.

“The DPRK government calls on international organizations to urgently respond to addressing the food situation,” the memo says.

North Korea plans to import 200,000 pounds of food and grow roughly 400,000 pounds of crops, but a gap still remains in supplying food for the country. Because of the gap, North Korea said in the memo that it planned to reduce food rations by 10.5 ounces for a "family of blue or white collar workers," going from 1.2 pounds (550 grams) of food per day to 0.66 pounds (300 grams) per day. The ration reductions were scheduled to begin in January, according to Reuters.

According to a March 2018 report from the United Nations, 10.3 million people — nearly half the population of the country — are in need. Of those people, 41 percent are undernourished.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Reuters that UN officials and other aid groups were working with North Korean officials "in order to take early action to address their humanitarian needs" for the country's "most vulnerable people."

The memo says that sanctions issued against North Korea have contributed to the shortage by “restricting the delivery of
farming materials in need."

“All in all, it vindicates that humanitarian assistance from the UN agencies is terribly politicized and how barbaric and inhuman sanctions are,” the memo reads, according to NBC News.

Data to verify the claims made in the memo are hard to come by, though the United Nations did confirm that the numbers in the memo match what the country reported at the end of January.

Several experts have said that the memo could be a negotiating ploy for Kim ahead of the summit with Trump.

“Just look at the way the letter is worded. They want to make it sound like sanctions equals starvation so the U.S. should really be benevolent and give them up,” Benjamin Silberstein, co-editor of North Korean Economy Watch and an associate scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told Reuters.


Sue Mi Terry, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former CIA analyst that tracked North Korea, echoed Silberstein.

“What they want is sanctions relief. That’s the main thing that they’re looking for. They are laying the groundwork for this meeting with Trump. This makes sense," she told NBC News.


https://www.newsweek.com/north-korea...0098?piano_t=1

they were getting too fat anyhow, a little diet won't do any harm

you should try it, harry

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

OhOh, SKkin and little OhOh wannabe Foobar will be wanking themselves silly in delight.

Nice OP in the news section.

cutting food rations by almost half

That's an awfully small reduction. What are they complainin' bout?

......

North Korean Soldiers Raid Homes in Search of Food

Driven by hunger onset by food shortages caused by lack of supplies and corruption, North Korean soldiers stationed in the countryside are resorting to stealing from civilian homes, sources say.


Residents whose homes have been looted have little recourse other than to report the crime to the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party, but the military seems to be ignoring the problem.


“An increasing number of soldiers are breaking into civilian homes recently,” said a source from Kangwon province to RFA’s Korean Service on Wednesday.


“They are in the middle of the winter training period, where they have strict rules to keep, but soldiers are able to sneak out at night when their superiors are not watching and break into homes or threshing floors at farms,” the source said.


“The soldiers get hungry because the bases don’t provide enough food,” said the source, adding, “It’s the young guys, the new recruits that are suffering the worst starvation and malnutrition.”


The problem is acute in mountainous Kangwon province, an area that which borders South Korea and is difficult to deliver supplies to.


“Starving soldiers will break into civilian homes and public facilities, and they even break into military homes,” said the source.


“There have been reports of thefts coming in every single day from civilians, so the military officials are scrambling to deal with the situation,” the source said.


Central Committee orders to boost military living standards and make military commanders responsible for problems arising from looting have gone unheeded amid dire conditions on the bases.


“The reality is that the military doesn’t have enough supplies. They are short on rice for soldiers so there’s no way they’ll stop them from stealing,” said the source.


”Military commanders are in a very awkward situation,” the source added.


Soldiers perished along with civilians when North Korea suffered severe food shortages in the mid-1990s that claimed as many as a million lives in the country of 23 million people and left children stunted from malnutrition. The U.N. Says one in five North Koreans face food insecurity.


A Japanese media report in 2017 cited multiple sources in North Korea as saying the state's neglect had forced families to provide food for children serving in the military.


There were more than 1.3 million North Korean active military personnel in 2018, according to figures published by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.


Another source, from South Pyongan province, said that corruption is also part of the problem.


“The authorities send official orders every day for military commanders, instructing them to feed their soldiers better,” the source said.


“If they don’t improve the quality of the food [they are feeding their men], they will be harshly punished, but there’s no way to do this if military officials don’t stop stealing all the supplies [before they are delivered to the soldiers].


The source added, “Military training hours have been extended but there aren’t enough supplies for the intense training.”


It is very difficult for the soldiers to survive the cold winter weather in this situation,” said that source.


“How can we have a strong military power if they are going to completely ignore the situation on the ground, demanding only a clear focus on intensive training and leaving the commanders high and dry, making them take responsibility for everything?”



https://www.rfa.org/english/news/kor...019135228.html

https://www.theamericanconservative....with-our-help/

Yemen’s civilian population has been starved of basic necessities for the last five months, and this has happened almost entirely because of the Saudi-led blockade that has mostly cut the country off from the outside the world. The U.S. not only endorses and aids the bombing campaign, but has assisted in enforcing the blockade. I know I’ve said this before, but it can’t be emphasized enough that the U.S. is actively supporting a war effort that is creating famine conditions in one of the world’s poorest countries. Because of the relatively limited coverage of the war and its effects, there is almost no awareness of this and even less outrage about what our government is helping the Saudis to do. Because it is being done by U.S. clients with our support, it gets far less attention and criticism than if it were being done by other governments.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

OhOh, SKkin and little OhOh wannabe Foobar will be wanking themselves silly in delight. No doubt they will try and blame the US for this, conveniently ignoring NK's shameful history of starving its own people.

Maybe not in NK...but I do know where I can place some blame on the US. That AC article was from 2015 and nothing has changed. But we're now terribly concerned about starving Venezuelans.

Originally Posted by SKkin

I do know where I can place some blame on the US.

'Course ya do, SKKin. You all gangsta, bro.

Originally Posted by Texpat

You all gangsta, bro.

not really...just paying attention

Originally Posted by SKkin

not really...just paying attention

It's all well and good you bleating about Yemen, but when are you going to criticise Iran for their part in that war?

(And when are you going to do it in a thread about Yemen, you chimp).

It's really heart-melting to see (and read) how some are concerned about the well being of the population in a state that threatens the whole world by its dangerous weaponry...

^ 50 million McDonald's in the US, I'm sure they're not starving too badly.

This is what happens in Asia, Africa and South America, when military governments are allowed to proper through corrupt practices.

Is regime change the answer? Ask the gulf states, Africa, Venezuela .......

Originally Posted by Switch

Is regime change the answer? Ask the gulf states, Africa, Venezuela .......

You'd get a wide variety of answers, so your point is unclear.

Originally Posted by cyrille

You'd get a wide variety of answers, so your point is unclear.

My point is quite simple old boy. Regime change is probably a bad idea, especially if it engineered by western agencies who don’t understand the local conditions, and have no idea about the wider impact of their altruism.

But you already knew that didn’t you?

No, I didn't.

It really doesn't take any pretence on my part to reply to your posts as if they are replete with preposterous, blinkered idiocy.

Most if not all Emiratis, for example, are very happy with their regime. I dare say Africans in differing countries disagree about whether they would like to go back to previous regimes too.

It's laughable that you appear to be convinced they'd all rather go back to the good old days of colonialism, but then your view of the world seems to have been set at about the time Winston Churchill had a full head of hair.

Originally Posted by Switch

My point is quite simple old boy. Regime change is probably a bad idea, especially if it engineered by western agencies who don’t understand the local conditions, and have no idea about the wider impact of their altruism.

But you already knew that didn’t you?

Simple question for you:

Do you think North Koreans would be starving in a democracy like, oh I don't know, South Korea?

^ And that's another aspect of how nonsensical that post was.

At no point have I suggested that they would. I am pointing out that regime change instigated by western agencies

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Simple question for you:

Do you think North Koreans would be starving in a democracy like, oh I don't know, South Korea?

At no point have I suggested that they would. I am pointing out that regime change instigated by western agencies in the last 20 years or so, has not benefitted either the recipients or the agencies who instigated it.

Regime change is probably not the answer ring any bells?

Look at Iran, Lybia and Venezuela today and tell me that they are better off for such interventions. Is there a common theme there? Saudi and the Emirates now seem more consumed by internal disputes, than they do about possible regime change. Are internal bullies more acceptable to you two?

For your information there are two common themes, and they are power and corruption. Military force will solve neither. It creates an unstable vacuum which is unpredictable and harder to manage.

Why not to print for them few more Food Stamps (SNAP)? (left over from - please no names here)...

Originally Posted by Switch

Saudi and the Emirates now seem more consumed by internal disputes, than they do about possible regime change.

What internal disputes are 'consuming' the UAE?

Your tendency to lump billions of 'darkies' together is worthy of a black comedy set in the days of the raj.

Originally Posted by Luigi

50 million McDonald's in the US

McDonald's operates 36,899 restaurants worldwide. None in North Korea; however the Norks do have a fast food chain.

<br>

You'll need US dollars or euros to pay for it.

Originally Posted by cyrille

What internal disputes are 'consuming' the UAE?

Your tendency to lump billions of 'darkies' together is worthy of a black comedy set in the days of the raj.

My reference was also to the ME in general. Saudi and the UAE are part of that.

I see. Qatar is not being harangued over perceived sleights then?

Originally Posted by stroller

What regime change has been engineered by Western agencies in Iran in the last 20 years, Commander?

Do try to keep up numb nuts. I know it’s a big world and you have a very small brain but ffs.