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Alias
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:37 am Post subject: Official: N. Korea urgently needs food |
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SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea urgently needs food after devastating floods and is willing to accept aid from the South Korean government, a North Korean official said Friday.
North Korea earlier this week refused to accept flood relief from the South's Red Cross society, apparently in anger over Seoul's decision to suspend food aid because of the North's missile launches last month. The North's about-face underscored the seriousness of floods, which began in mid-July.
"The most pressing thing for now is to address the issue of eating," Kim Song Won, head of the North's Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Committee in Dandong, China, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "We cannot help but suffer hunger unless the food problem is resolved at an early date."
Kim indicated the North would be willing to accept relief supplies from Seoul. "There is no reason to reject it if (the South's government) sincerely wants to help with no political intentions," he said.
The U.N. has said floods that began in mid-July killed at least 154 people and left another 127 missing. A South Korean activist group has claimed about 10,000 people were dead or missing.
The reclusive North tightly controls all information and doesn't allow free travel by the relatively few foreign aid workers in the country, making it difficult to get precise casualty figures.
Earlier Friday, South Korea said it was considering contributing to non-governmental aid shipments for the flood victims, trying to balance its decision to halt aid over the missile tests.
"We're considering participating in aid provision by civilian groups," said Yang Chang-seok, a spokesman for the Unification Ministry, which deals with inter-Korean affairs.
Yang said a decision to indirectly provide flood relief would not represent a change in Seoul's position to withhold formal aid until the communist nation resolves concerns over its missile program.
The North's July 5 missile launches sharply escalated tensions in the divided Korean peninsula and broke Pyongyang's self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile tests.
South Korea, a key donor to the North, has said aid will resume only if Pyongyang returns to international talks on its nuclear program.
North Korea, angered by the decision, cut off all government-level exchanges with the South.
On Thursday, the South Korean aid group Join Together Society sent food, clothes and candles to the North in the first aid shipment from the South since the floods.
North Korea has relied on foreign food handouts since the mid-1990s, when famine caused by natural disasters and decades of mismanagement is believed to have killed up to 2 million people.
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:00 am Post subject: |
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| Dont give them anything. Make the people choose. Kim and starvation or overthrowing that piece of garbage and food. NK is on its last egs, bailing them out again is a mistake. A big one. |
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cwemory
Joined: 14 Jan 2006
Location: Gunpo, Korea
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| Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:11 am Post subject: |
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| why will they except food aid from SK, but not from the UN? |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:14 am Post subject: |
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| cwemory wrote: |
| why will they except food aid from SK, but not from the UN? |
The UN doesnt just give them rice. They monitor where it goes. SK doesnt. The rice ends up going to the army and those Kim approves of, the people get nothing. |
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soviet_man
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 5:19 am Post subject: |
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South Korea has only itself to blame.
Because it's a CYCLE that repeats itself OVER and OVER constantly.
The way these things ALWAYS play out:
STEP 1. Some incident happens in North Korea
flood / landslide / explosion / natural disaster / shortage / nuclear mishap / missile test / Kim has bad day at office / train derailment / industrial accident / etc.
STEP 2. South Korea tries to take advange of the situation
SK pretends to be the big man on campus, offers to solve the whole problem by offering bribes to NK to do something in return
STEP 3. North Korea doesn't budge
NK realizes the stupidity of the SK position: that SK doesn't have any other options but to play on terms defined by NK
STEP 4. South Korea then caves in
it delivers assistance anyway - still clinging to the hope of NK doing something in return.
STEP 5. North Korea wins again!
when North Korea does precisely NOTHING - South Korea then returns to sulking, frowning, finger pointing and playing the victim having just poured money and resources into DPRK coffers once again.
The only people who don't see is this cycle - are South Korean.
The DPRK (correctly) knows EXACTLY what it is doing. |
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flip ant
Joined: 01 Jul 2004
Location: He's got high hopes!
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| Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Send NK some seed and a tractor or two. |
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W.T.Carl
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Send them nothing. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 3:27 pm Post subject: |
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| W.T.Carl wrote: |
| Send them nothing. |
I agree. Nothing. Dont bail them put again. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Make the people choose. Kim and starvation or overthrowing that piece of garbage and food. |
So, how would that work? Donor countries announce that the North Koreans have to overthrow KJI in order to get food. Okay, but how does the news of this offer get to the North Korean people? |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 6:00 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Make the people choose. Kim and starvation or overthrowing that piece of garbage and food. |
So, how would that work? Donor countries announce that the North Koreans have to overthrow KJI in order to get food. Okay, but how does the news of this offer get to the North Korean people? |
When they are suffering enough, they will do something. if they dont, screw them they deserve their leaders and deserve whatever happens to them. However neither SK nor any other country should give them any help whatsoever. Human nature will take over. When the people are sufficiently pissed of and pushed to the brink, they will do something. And if they dont, as I said, they deserve whetever the hell happens to them. It may sound cruel and heartless but this is an opportunity to have NK finally collapse. They have been bailed out before, time now NOT to bail them out. |
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cubanlord
Joined: 08 Jul 2005
Location: In Japan!
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| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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| jinju wrote: |
| Dont give them anything. Make the people choose. Kim and starvation or overthrowing that piece of garbage and food. NK is on its last egs, bailing them out again is a mistake. A big one. |
exactly. I do believe that if no one helps them, the people of N.K. will have no one to blame but their leader and themselves. They have been isolationists for some time now. This will serve as a perfect lesson why being an isolationist has no place in this world. Hopefully, S.K. will realize what needs to be done.
delusion & perplexity the fathers of war; reverence & resolve the mothers of peace. |
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indiercj
Joined: 30 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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So they have to choose between being killed while uprising against the current regime and starving to death? Sounds like a quite difficult one. But of course it all seems so clear and simple to you right?  |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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| indiercj wrote: |
| So they have to choose between being killed while uprising against the current regime and starving to death? Sounds like a quite difficult one. But of course it all seems so clear and simple to you right? |
We all have chouces to make. We have to choose between propping up a murderous regime yet again. I really couldnt give a rats ass about the North Koreans. Let them all starve if they dont have the guts to rise up and overthrow their killers the way people in other communist countries did before. I care about he world outside North Korea, the one the Norks are threatening. if Im to choose between a peaceful world and a whole bunch of starving norks, the choice is easy for me. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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I do believe that if no one helps them, the people of N.K. will have no one to blame but their leader and themselves. They have been isolationists for some time now. This will serve as a perfect lesson why being an isolationist has no place in this world. Hopefully, S.K. will realize what needs to be done.
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You make it sound as if the North Korean people have made a conscious and informed choice to be isolationist, after a comprehensive examination of all the relevant information. When in all probability most of them are isolationist simply because they're been fed a steady stream of isolationist propaganda by their education system and the state media, with any outside voices heavily censored. So, I don't see how you can expect that the onset of another famine will make ordinary North Koreans more critical of the regime. KJI would just go on state radio and say that the famine is all the fault of the Americans and/or the Japanese, but he's doing everything in his power to alleviate it. And there would be no reason why that wouldn't make sense to the average North Korean. |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 7:57 pm Post subject: |
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Yes the populace sounds absolutely terrible, and thanks to Jinju I now have some empathy for KJI- that obstinate country is quite a handful- it can't be easy for him to find the strength to get up and go to work each day.
Last edited by Bulsajo on Sun Aug 06, 2006 8:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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