I've been hungry for some Korean stories.
"N. Korea food shortage is worst in years" by Jean H. Lee, Associated Press / July 26, 2011
SUNAN, North Korea - It’s an unlikely sight: hundreds of ostriches, a bird native to sunny Africa, squatting and squabbling in the morning chill on a sprawling farm in North Korea. Even stranger: In winter, some wear quilted vests.
Built after a 1990s famine, the ostrich farm was a bold, expensive investment that the state hoped would help feed its people and provide goods to export. Years later, ostrich meat is the specialty at some of Pyongyang’s finest restaurants, but little is reaching the millions of hungry North Koreans.
North Korea’s food shortage has reached a crisis point this year, aid workers say, largely because of shocks to the agricultural sector, including torrential rains and the coldest winter in 60 years.
In this era of global warming?
Six million North Koreans are living “on a knife edge’’ and will go hungry without immediate food aid, the World Food Program said....
North Korean officials have made quiet pleas for help, citing rising global food prices, shortfalls in fertilizer, and the winter freeze that killed their wheat harvest. In return, they agreed to strict monitoring conditions - a rare concession.
Donations, however, have not been flooding the nation considered a political pariah for its nuclear defiance and alleged human rights abuses. The European Union is pitching in $14.5 million, enough to feed only one-tenth of the hungry until the October harvest. The United States has not said whether it will provide aid.
Skeptics suspect officials are stockpiling food for gift baskets to be distributed during next year’s celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the late President Kim Il Sung’s birth. Others wonder whether the distribution of food can be monitored closely enough to ensure it gets to the hungry, not the military and power brokers in Pyongyang.
As the political debate continues, aid workers say shelves are bare and stomachs empty outside Pyongyang. And the question of how to feed the North Korean people remains unanswered.
In Pyongyang, food appears plentiful, with sidewalk vendors doing brisk business selling roasted sweet potatoes and chestnuts, ice cream bars, and pancakes. Those with cash can splurge on hamburgers and pizza. But aid workers say the food shortage is very real in the poor provinces far from the comparatively prosperous capital.
Is it really any different in AmeriKa today?
“It’s now very common to see people with little wicker baskets or plastic bags collecting whatever is edible’’ - even roots, grasses, and herbs, said Katharina Zellweger, the longtime Pyongyang-based North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
A whole generation of children is not getting the well-rounded diets needed to develop mentally and physically, she said. UNICEF estimates one-third of North Korean children suffer malnutrition and are showing signs of stunted growth.
North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, who based his nation’s policy on the concept of “juche,’’ or self-reliance, had made it his creed to ensure the people would eat “rice and meat soup.’’ But the loss of Soviet aid, followed by natural disasters and a famine that killed up to 1 million people, forced North Korea to stretch out its hand for help in the mid-1990s.
However, his nation has never had it easy when it comes to agriculture. Rugged mountains blanket much of North Korea, leaving less than a fifth of the land suitable for farming. Winters are long and harsh, weather conditions volatile.
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Related: Starving North Korea
Korea: Meals or Missiles?
Slow Saturday Special: North Korea's Gnawing Hunger
It's one serving per year.
Plenty of these stories though:
"N. Korea wants US treaty ending war" July 28, 2011|Associated Press
SEOUL - North Korea demanded yesterday that the United States sign a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War, as a senior North Korean diplomat visited New York to negotiate ways to restart six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.
In an editorial marking the 58th anniversary of an armistice that ended the 1950-53 war, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency insisted a peace treaty could go a long way....
Is that why the U.S. keeps saying no?
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"S. Korea deluge stirs land mine warning" July 29, 2011|Associated Press
SEOUL - South Korea’s military warned yesterday that buried land mines may have slid down mountains eroded by heavy rains this week as the death toll from the downpours rose to at least 57.
Massive rainfall since Tuesday has disrupted life in Seoul and surrounding areas, submerging streets filled with idled cars, flooding subway stations, and forcing businesses to shut. The rain stopped or decreased yesterday, but more was forecast through this morning....
At least they are not starving.
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Related:
"A powerful tropical storm destroyed houses, damaged crops and caused more than 10 deaths and injuries Tuesday in North Korea, already struggling after deadly flooding last month....
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"The firing follows a recent easing of animosity between the Koreas and could be a warning about joint US-South Korean military drills set for next week....
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