[TigerLikesRooster]

N. Korea no longer want foreigners to roam around inside the country and watch over food distribution, I suspect.

In recent months, N. Korean regime is showing a sign of hunkering down. They are starting to shut down outside contacts. It usually happens when they hit a brick wall.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

North Korea says it does not need food aid

They must have cornered the market on Soylent Green!

[blackdog]

Culling the herd I suppose. The important people don't starve. When the population has a negative output per person, it's only common sense to reduce the population. If you don't, starvation and disease is the result.

Of course increased output per person thru a stronger economy is the real humanitarian answer, but at present, that fix isn't in the NK toolbox.

Let them lunch on Long Dong Missiles.

[philman_36]

Pyongyang's message was conveyed by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Friday, with no explanation as to why it no longer needs the U.N. aid.
As if the UN didn't know! Can't they read?!
Japan to give North Korea first food aid in four years
The first Japanese food aid to North Korea in nearly four years is set to be delivered to the impoverished Stalinist state later this year after Tokyo gave its green light to the plan on Thursday.
The 125,000 tons of food is to be delivered through the World Food Program while seven million dollars' worth of medical supplies will be handled by the UN Children's Fund UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Japan plans to give NKorea 45 million dollars of food, medical aid: reports
Japan is planning to give North Korea five billion yen (45 million dollars) worth of food and medical aid by the end of the year as part of a promise made in May, reports said Tuesday.
Snip...The government is to contribute about seven million dollars by way of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) this month for medicine, as well as tools and machines for surgery, Kyodo and NHK said.

...I suspect.
No need for speculation.

[ApplegateRanch]

Let me guess: They're stepping up their chemical weapons 'testing' program?

[OahuBreeze]

Good comment above on the Japanese-pledged donations -- this will allow the Norks to brush off all allusions to their failed socialist system --i.e. they can come to the table presenting themselves as serious negotiators vice mendicant renegade blackmailing terrorists.

This is also one item off the list NK has to extort off the US, and one less bone the US can throw at the Norks.

Oh well: as irritating at the Norks are, the clock is ticking.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping

[Steel Wolf]

I question the timing of this.

Also, the rational. There doesn't seem to be any reason to do this, other than to seal up North Korea even tighter. The torniquet already seems pretty tight to me, so clamping down harder must mean that something is afoot.

[nuconvert]

"no longer want foreigners to roam around inside the country and watch over food distribution, I suspect."

I think you're right.

That or he's run out of warehouses to store any more.

[Grzegorz 246]

NK doesn't need food aid ? Sure.

Maybe they started eating each other ?

[hinckley buzzard]

Let them eat yellowcake.

[Happygal]

Methinks the bleeding hearts in the UN will be looking to the United States to throw some weight in here.

The US is a compassionate nation, and I have every trust that President Bush will care more for the starving Koreans than their own leader does.

[InvisibleChurch]

i guess they wouldn't need the food if everyone has died