Maybe we should send them some..........
Posted on 04/23/2010 8:31:33 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
N.Korea Distributes Rice from Military Storage
Food prices in North Korea have stabilized because the regime took the emergency measure of distributing rice stored for the military, a high-ranking South Korean government official said Thursday.
The Unification Ministry told the National Assembly on April 13 that the price of rice in North Korea was around 20 won per kilogram right after the botched currency reform late last year but soared to 1,000 won in mid-March. In early April, the price dropped to 500-600 won. At the time, experts predicted that the lean season in April and May coupled with the failed currency reform would cause increasing starvation. North Korea is over 1 million tons of food short this year.
"It seems Kim Jong-il is starting to show some consideration for his people considering that the regime distributed rice buried deep in storage for the military," the senior official said Thursday.
Prof. Cho Young-gi, a professor at Korea University, said the North Korean regime "wants to hold out as long as it can without having to rely on external aid." Although over 1 million people died of starvation between 1995 and 1998, the regime did not open up the emergency food and rice storage caves of the military. But times have changed, as recent unrest over the currency reform showed. "No North Korean would just sit and starve to death like in the 1990s," one defector said.
According to a source, North Korea distributed some of the rice earmarked for military when the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations in the South were generous with aid, and even then it stored newly arrived rice from South Korea and sold the old rice in the market. The reason why South Korea this year tried to replace rice aid with corn was that corn is more perishable and is therefore less likely to be appropriated by the military.
The regime distributed 5 kg of rice, 2-3 kg of meat, and 1 liter of cooking oil in celebration of the birthday of nation founder Kim Il-sung on April 15. An inside source said North Koreans "are keeping up their morale."
P!
Well, people can’t work on grass alone...
Maybe we should send them some..........
Sound like the US in about 2 years....
Grilled North Korean: the other white meat
....dumb Commies...escape to S.Korea where capitalism delivers plenty of food.
Considering that 1000 Won would be just a little over $7.50 In US dollars I’m not surprised that folks are getting testy in N Korea.
Uh Oh.
The stories today from the North make me uneasy
I remember the media were all over this at the time, going on and on about how this was a savage indictment of Communism.
sarcasm
Yeah - I see a definite tie between the food distribution, attack on the ship, and taking of SK property. I think NK is looking for a fight in order to try to distract their people and grab some quick resources. It may be the only way to avoid an outright overthrow.
They weren’t able to make the currency changes take effect the way they wanted to in order to extend things out further, so now they are coming to a brick wall.
Korea is coming to a head.
China might make a grab for Taiwan but mnore likely the Spratley’s. They might shoot off some missiles at Japan and US bases as part of that.
The Arabs could take that opportunity too. Russia could attack Ukraine or Georgia.
Be interesting if North Korea falls like what happened in Romania back in 1989 with the Nicolea C. regime.
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