Posted on 03/29/2008 10:02:40 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Report: US in talks with UN food agency to give NKorea rice aid
AP - Friday, March 28
SEOUL, South Korea - The United States is in talks with the U.N. food agency about providing North Korea with 500,000 tons of rice aid, news reports quoted South Korea's foreign minister as saying while visiting Washington.
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The proposal is being held up, however, by the North's refusal to grant appropriate monitoring aimed at ensuring that the rice would not be diverted for other purposes, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said without elaborating.
"It's difficult to understand that an agreement cannot be reached because of the issue of a handful of monitoring personnel," Yonhap news agency and news cable channel YTN quoted him as telling South Korean reporters.
Yu said a World Food Program official would travel soon to the North to discuss the issue.
The U.N. food agency has warned the North could face the worst food shortage in years due mainly to severe floods last August that destroyed more than 11 percent of the country's crops. The North has relied on outside assistance to feed its 23 million population since the mid-1990s after natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its economy.
Yu was quoted as saying Washington "once" offered to provide 500,000 tons of rice to North Korea _ an apparent reference to the "significant food aid package" offer made after last year's flooding.
The U.S. "is now in talks with WFP" about it, he said during a visit to Washington ahead of President Lee Myung-bak's trip there next month, holding talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday. His office could not immediately confirm his rice aid remarks.
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Chia Head will insist on taking grains with no strings attached and would not return any favor. He will stiff Bush and wait it out until new administration is sworn in coming January.
In the mean time, Chia Head will replenish military grain stock. In recent days, the stock is said to be running really low.
Ping!
Let’m eat cake!— Yellow cake.
L
how come our axis of evil cannot even afford to feed itself?
Hmmm. Does anyone mind that it's also threatening to attack South Korea because it didn't like what some South Korean military official said, and that it's launching missiles in the general area? Or is that just Norks being Norks?
I agree with this policy. Send them Rice. Condi Rice.
When are the "talks" with the US taxpayer on whether they want to continue propping up a communist regime that routinely threatens their country.
The United States is in talks with the U.N. food agency about providing North Korean troops with 500,000 tons of rice aid
There, fixed................
Why help them when they are threatening to cut all ties to South Korea for daring to say that a nuclear strike is grounds for retaliation?
I don’t want the people of North Korea to starve, but clearly humanitarian aid isn’t helping them pr they wouldn’t still be starving and desperately trying to escape to China.
Bump.
We are sending Condi to NK?
So who is leading this stupid move, Bush or Rice?
Either way it is very stupid.
N.Korea has played our last three presidents like a drum. Getting aid in food, energy and propaganda. They promise to quit the nuke business but still export technology to places like Syria. Then refuse to follow through with quitting nukes but still we send them aid?
Let their buddies the Chi-coms aid their sorry butts.
Beyond stupid. The rice will go to loyalists in Pyongyang and to the NK Army.
“The U.N. food agency has warned the North could face the worst food shortage in years due mainly to severe floods last August that destroyed more than 11 percent of the country’s crops. The North has relied on outside assistance to feed its 23 million population since the mid-1990s after natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its economy.”
So one of the plants died?
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