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NZ-DPRK Society
The Society organises support for the NZ Friendship Farm –Haksan- outside Pyongyang and the NZ Friendship School in Pyongyang.
The Society’s aid activities are coordinated by Rev Stuart Vogel
Stuart is always happy to receive donations. Recent activities of the Society:

• Truck donated to NZ Friendship Farm
  An update from Peter Wilson
• Small Tractor for the New Zealand Friendship Farm
  
• Teaching, and learning, in Pyongyang
  Tim Kearns is a primary school teacher from Christchurch who recently spent three months teaching in Pyongyang. It was an interesting and worthwhile experience, as he recounts, with many surprises.

Other aid agencies

• Support page of World Food Programme
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• Addresses in NZ for donations

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• FAO/WFP crop and food security assessment mission to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
  In DPRK, including the estimates for the 2010 main season harvest and forecast for the 2011 early season crops, a total of 5.33 million tonnes of staple food production from the cooperative farms, individual plots on sloping land and household gardens for 2010/11 is expected. This is about 3 percent higher than in 2009/10. When paddy is converted to milled rice, the above total production comes to 4.48 million tonnes. A substantial increase in production was expected due to some improvements in the availability of fertilizer, pesticides, operational tractors, diesel and electricity. This expectation, however, was frustrated by some adverse weather events. The winter of 2009/10 was unusually severe and prolonged which resulted in a low survival rate of winter wheat and delays in planting of spring crops and transplanting of main season paddy. Also, unusually intense rainstorms hit most of the country in late August and early September, causing localised flooding, crop loss and structural damage to irrigation canals and dams. Despite the relatively good harvest, based on the Mission’s estimate of total utilization needs of 5.35 million tonnes of cereal equivalent (rice in milled terms), there is an import requirement of 867 000 tonnes for the 2010/11 marketing year (November/October). According to the Ministry of Agriculture, 325 000 tonnes of commercial imports are planned for the upcoming marketing year. This seems to be in line with the commercial imports during the previous year. Thus, the Mission estimates an uncovered food deficit of 542 000 tonnes for the 2010/11 marketing year. In 2009/10 a large number of low income non-farming households faced a significant food consumption gap as the cereals received from the public distribution system (PDS) provided only about half the daily caloric requirement on average. The deficit was unlikely to have been fully covered by other foods due to low purchasing power of these households. Despite the overall large deficit in the food supply, food supplementation for children and women plus the child survival programmes in place have contributed to reduced rates of malnutrion. Given that the overall food production situation in 2010/11 is not expected to improve significantly, the Mission recommends the provision of international food assistance to about 5 million most vulnerable people (including groups with special needs such as children, pregnant and lactating women and the elderly with no support and PDS dependent populations in high malnutrition and mountainous regions), amounting to 305 000 tonnes of cereals. The planned commercial imports and recommended food assistance do not fill the entire uncovered food deficit leaving a gap of 237 000 tonnes of cereals. The Mission highlights the importance of meeting this gap to ensure adequate food is available. Should the Government not have the capacity to meet the gap through additional imports, these efforts can be supported by the international agencies and bilateral donors. Furthermore, efforts should be made to provide soybeans and other pulses as part of the food assistance to increase the nutritive content of the diet. In order to improve food security in the short to medium term, the Mission also makes recommendations for national and international support for - (i) potato storage and grain drying facilities to reduce losses and improve food safety, (ii) improvement in production of protein rich commodities such as pulses and fish (from aquaculture), and (iii) general assistance to private household garden production. [Food] [Omission] [UNUS]
• U.N. Urges Food Aid for North Korea
  By MARK McDONALD and KEVIN DREW Published: November 17, 2010 SEOUL, South Korea — Despite a relatively good autumn harvest, North Korea remains in dire need of food aid, especially for its youngest children, pregnant women and the elderly, according to two United Nations agencies. In a new joint report, the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization said that North Korea, even after substantial imports, would have a shortfall in staple crops — mostly rice, grains and soybeans — of more than half a million tons. The 2010 harvest was 3 percent higher than last year’s, the agencies said, despite an unusually harsh winter and alternating drought and flood conditions over the summer. But even in the best of years, North Korea is unable to feed itself. Government food distribution provides only half the necessary daily calories, the report said. People are thus left to fend for themselves with small hillside plots and kitchen gardens, and by buying food or bartering for it on the black market. Officials have estimated that the food aid program for North Korea is underfinanced by 80 percent and that nearly half the country’s children are malnourished. “I saw a lot of children already losing the battle against malnutrition,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program, after a visit to North Korea this month. “Their bodies and minds are stunted, and so we really feel the need there.”
• UN predicts NKorea's food shortage will continue
  The Associated Press Tuesday, November 16, 2010; 10:02 PM SEOUL, South Korea -- The United Nations says that a majority of North Korea's 24 million people will likely be without enough food next year unless there is outside help. The Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program said in a joint statement Tuesday that the North's food production this year showed only a marginal improvement over last year. The statement says the country's expected food supply shortage for the next year will be 867,000 tons. That's similar to previous years. But it says the North only plans to buy 325,000 tons of food for the period. The U.N. says North Koreans' expected cereal rations will be much below their needs. The U.N. agencies recently visited North Korea to look at the food situation.
• Medicines unavailable/in short supply in DPRK due to sanctions/financial constraints
  List provided by Kim Man Yu hospital in Pyongyang, 10 November 2010 [Sanctions]
• UN: Less rain, aid to hurt North Koreans
  By ANITA SNOW The Associated Press Friday, October 29, 2010; 5:52 PM UNITED NATIONS -- A predicted rainfall shortage in some parts of North Korea, combined with reduced food aid this year, will have an "alarming" effect on the nutrition of the nation's young children and pregnant and lactating women, the U.N. Secretary-General warned Friday. Ban Ki-moon told U.N. member nations in a report on North Korea's human rights situation that rainfall in some areas of the country is expected to be 18 percent lower this year than in 2009, despite torrential downpours and flooding that hit the country's west on Aug. 20. [Spin] [Ban Ki-moon] [Victim]

• My Bumpy Road to Pyongyang
  By Erich Weingartner When I was summoned to the office of my new boss, the other staff looked at me as though I was about to enter a lion’s den. I paused at the door, took a deep breath, and entered. I wanted to make a good impression in my first meeting with the UN World Food Programme (WFP) DPRK Country Director. She was reading a file on her desk when I came in. Not certain if she had noticed me, I knocked on the open door. “Close the door and sit down!” she snapped, without looking up.
• N.Korea Demands Massive Aid in Return for Family Reunions
  North Korea has asked South Korea for 500,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of fertilizer during Red Cross talks about the reunions of families separated by the Korean War. The talks in Kaesong on Tuesday and Wednesday have already seen a North Korean call for the resumption of lucrative package tours to the Mt. Kumgang resort before reunions take place. But the South Korean said the two issues have nothing to do with one another. [Overtures] [Aid weapon]
• Rice Aid Heads to N.Korea
  South Korea is sending humanitarian aid in the form of rice to flood-stricken North Korea on Monday. A ship carrying 5,000 tons of rice leaves South Korea's Gunsan port on Monday afternoon for China's Dandong Port before being carried to the North Korean city of Shinuiju by truck. It is part of a series of humanitarian assistance shipments by South Korean aid groups to the impoverished state. Seoul's stance on aid to North Korea remains that overall inter-Korean relations must first be considered before large-scale food and fertilizer aid is resumed. However the South Korean government has been allowing smaller-scale shipments including rice and other necessities by aid groups. {Aid weapon] [Rice surplus]
• Food shortage in NK reaches 1.5 million tons
  By Kim Se-jeong North Korea is in need of about 1.5 million tons of food this year to feed its 24 million people, U.N. organizations said.
• N.Korea on UN List of Countries in 'Protracted Food Crisis'
  Twenty two countries including North Korea suffer from "protracted food crisis" leaving some 166 million people in chronic starvation, according to a report released Wednesday by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Food Programme. "This unacceptably high degree of hunger results from many factors, including armed conflict and natural disasters, often in combination with weak governance or public administration, scarce resources, unsustainable livelihoods systems and breakdown of local institutions," the report said. "Faced with so many obstacles, it is little wonder that protracted crises can become a self-perpetuating vicious cycle." Chronic starvation and malnutrition are considered to occur when people are unable to consume an average of at least 1,800 calories per day. The report said, "While humanitarian emergencies clearly require rapid assessments of needs, protracted crises require analysis that is both broader and deeper," as well as long-term solutions, including efforts to make such countries more self-sufficient in food supply. The other 21 countries on the list are Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Iraq, Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Uganda and Zimbabwe. [Inversion] [Spin] [Incompetence] [Decline] [Sanctions] [Agency]

• 5,000 Tons of Rice to Be Shipped to N.Korea by Late Oct.
  A ship carrying 5,000 tons of rice the South Korean Red Cross is sending to help North Korean flood victims will leave Gunsan Port on Oct. 25, a Unification Ministry official said Sunday
• S.Korea, U.S. Kick Off Joint Military Drills
  South Korea and the U.S. begin joint naval exercises on Monday. The five-day drills are aimed at sending a strong message of deterrence to North Korea for its torpedo attack on the South Korean Naval corvette Cheonan in March. The exercises had originally been scheduled to take place earlier this month but were rescheduled due to Typhoon Malou. [Joint US military] [Buildup]
• N.Korean Military 'Sitting on 1 Million Tons of Rice'
  Despite a dire food shortage and devastating recent floods, the North Korean military reportedly is keeping more than 1 million tons of rice in storage. In a party caucus at the National Assembly on Thursday, Grand National Party floor leader Kim Moo-sung said calls for humanitarian food aid for the North are "inappropriate" at a time when the North "has as much as 1 million tons of rice in storage in preparation for war. We have to take this into consideration." The figure apparently comes from a report by the National Intelligence Service for the ruling-party leadership. South Korea worries about a rice surplus when it stores only about 1.49 million tons this year. If it is true that the North is really holding back 1 million tons of rice for the military, it could have a profound effect on the ongoing debate over whether to increase aid for the North. [Spin] [Double standards]
• Flood Aid Delivered to N.Korea
  The first round of emergency aid for the victims of recent flooding in North Korea was delivered on Thursday morning. Gyeonggi Province and various non-governmental groups transported 530 tons of flour through the Dorasan immigration office at around 10 a.m. Various groups have expressed their intent to provide aid to the North after the South Korean Red Cross announced it would send rice and cement to help the communist country recover from the floods.
• N.Korea 'Must Apologize Over Cheonan If Aid Is to Resume'
  The future of inter-Korean relations depends on whether North Korea apologizes for sinking the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan, the presidential secretary for national strategy Kim Tae-hyo said Wednesday. He was speaking in a defense seminar held at the War Memorial of Korea on Wednesday. The seminar was held under the co-sponsorship of the Korea Defense and Security Forum, the National Assembly Northeast Asia Peace and Security Forum, and the Ilmin International Relations Institute at Korea University. Kim insisted the government's "firm principle" to subject North Korea to sanctions announced on May 24 "remains in place." "If inter-Korean economic cooperation is to be possible, the North needs to admit its responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan and take responsible action," he said. "An apology for the sinking is a precondition to substantial humanitarian aid to the North." He added the resumption of the six-party nuclear talks is also dependent on how determined and sincere the North is in resolving the issues. [Cheonan] [Aid weapon] [Six Party Talks]
• $10M in rice, ramen being sent to Sinuiju
  September 14, 2010 South Korea will send $10 million worth of humanitarian aid to North Korea, including 5,000 tons of rice, 10,000 tons of cement and three million cups of instant noodles. “The aid will be sent to Sinuiju,” said Yoo Chong-ha, president of the South Korean Red Cross, yesterday, referring to the city devastated by torrential rains and heavy flooding in recent months. The rice will be sent in five-kilogram (11-pound) packages for widespread distribution. The Red Cross calculates there are roughly 80,000 to 90,000 Sinuiju residents in need of help and the aid could provide them with provisions for at least three months.
• Seoul Mulls Ways to Ensure Aid Reaches Needy N.Koreans
  The government is considering sending rice flour and noodles to North Korea as aid for flood victims in a bid to prevent it from being diverted to the military, an official said Monday. The plans are being studied after the North asked for rice, cement and heavy equipment for flood relief operations. "Rice can be stored for a long time and is easy to divert to the military," the official said. "But rice flour or noodles are harder to store for longer and are more likely to be given to the victims instead of being transported to military warehouses." The government offered the North 10,000 tons of corn following the reunion of separated families on the occasion of Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving last year reportedly because this was less likely to be used for military rations. North Korean defectors say they were rarely given any rice supplied by the South, while rice bags with the lettering of the South Korean Red Cross stamped on were seen in military facilities close to the heavily armed border. During the famine in the late 1990s, the North received corn flour aid from the U.S which the authorities then distributed through ration stations, a defector recalls. But processing over 100,000 tons of rice into flour and other products may not be realistic as it would cost a lot of time and money, a Unification Ministry official said. [Diversion] [Aid weapon] [Media]
• S.KOREA FARMERS DEMAND RICE SHIPMENT TO N.KOREA
  Agence France-Presse (Seoul, 2010/09/10) reported that thousands of ROK farmers rallied Friday, demanding the government stop a fall in rice prices by shipping surplus stocks in state silos to the DPRK. The farmers urged President Lee Myung-Bak to resume an annual shipment of 400,000 tonnes of rice to the DPRK, which suffers severe food shortages. The shipment was suspended in 2008 as relations soured. "Resuming rice aid to North Korea is a short cut to stabilising rice prices and also improving inter-Korean ties," league spokesman Kang Suk-Chan told AFP.
• Lee administration considers N.Korea’s aid request
  Observers say N.Korea may be exploring S.Korea’s overall position on sending aid By Son Won-je, Staff Writer North Korea made an official request to South Korea through the Red Cross for rice, heavy equipment and cement as aid to recover from recent floods. The South Korean government is strongly considering the request. [Aid weapon] [SK NK policy]
• N.Korea Asks for Rice, Cement, Heavy Equipment
  North Korea wants rice and materials to repair flood damage such as cement and heavy equipment from South Korea, it was said in a message Saturday. The Unification Ministry on Tuesday said the message came from the North Korean Red Cross and was sent to its South Korean counterpart after the South offered some W10 billion in flood relief (US$1=W1,179).
  But Seoul is less keen to provide rice and building materials since such aid has been put on hold as part of sanctions after the North sank the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan since the North has a history of diverting such aid to the military [Aid weapon] [Diversion] [Media]
• Aid to N.Korea Could Be a Way Out of Deadlock
  North Korea in a message to the South Korean Red Cross on Saturday asked for rice as well as cement, vehicles and heavy construction equipment for flood relief operations. The request follows offers by the South Korean Red Cross on Aug. 26 and 31 to send W10 billion (US$1=W1,179) worth of emergency food supplies, basic necessities and medicine. North Korea on Tuesday also released seven South Korean fishermen who were captured on Aug. 8.
• DPRK Affected by Typhoon
  Pyongyang, September 2 (KCNA) -- Many areas of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have been struck by torrential rains and windstorms in consequence of Typhoon No. 7 moving towards the East Korean Bay from the northeastern sea of the Philippines.
• U.S. Offers Flood Aid to N.Korea
  The United States is offering $750,000 in emergency aid to North Korea to help aid recovery from devastating floods. The U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Human Rights, Robert King, told VOA Wednesday that the money will be given to three U.S. non-governmental organizations -- Samaritan's Purse, Global Resource Services, and Mercy Corps [NGO] [Aid weapon]
• Red Cross in DPR Korea
  In the DPRK, IFRC support to DPRK Red Cross Society focuses on:
  For more information, please contact: Finn-Jarle Rode Head of IFRC office in DPR of Korea Ryonhwa-1 dong, Central District Pyongyang, DPR of Korea Tel: +850 2 381 4350 Email: finnjarle.rode@ifrc.org
• IFRC in DPRK
  International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies webpage on DPRK
• IFRC on DPRK Floods
  27 August 2010 The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) is a source of un-earmarked money created by the Federation in 1985 to ensure that immediate financial support is available for Red Cross and Red Crescent emergency response. The DREF is a vital part of the International Federation’s disaster response system and increases the ability of National Societies to respond to disasters. CHF 378,714 (USD 368,750 or EUR 290,129) has been allocated from the IFRC’s Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Red Cross Society in delivering immediate assistance to some 16,000 beneficiaries. Unearmarked funds to repay DREF are encouraged.
• Red Cross mobilizes amid severe flooding
  1 September 2010 Francis Markus, IFRC, Beijing It’s normally a busy city on the border between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and China, but over the last few days, the town of Sinuiju has been transformed into an expanse of muddy water, with more than 23,000 people forced to evacuate their homes. Local people say it’s the worst flooding the area has experienced for 15 years. Schools and other public buildings have been packed, not just with residents of the city and surrounding districts but also with the inhabitants of several offshore islands who have been evacuated to the relative safety of these temporary resettlement camps.

• UN WFP FEEDING FEWER N. KOREAN CHILDREN AS DONATION SHRINKS: DIRECTOR
  Yonhap (Sam Kim, Seoul, 2010/08/26) reported that the World Food Program is struggling to keep its project of feeding malnourished children in the DPRK from shrinking, its director for the communist state said in an interview on Thursday. Torben Due, who represents the WFP office in Pyongyang, said his organization set out to raise US$500 million two years ago to provide basic nutrition for DPRK children. In reality, what the WFP ended up with was $100 million. "We had to reduce (our program) because we could see we would not get the money. We had to design a program small and realistic in terms of what we would be able to do," he said.
• N.Korea faces rising food shortage, sources say
  Observers say low crop yields, market restrictions and suspended aid have contributed to the shortage
  » In this photo released by U.N. World Food Programme on July 30, 2008, malnourished children are seen at an orphanage in Chongjin City, North Hamgyong Province, North Korea June 20, 2008.(AP Photo) By Son Won-je It has come to light that North Korea is experiencing a considerable drop in its yield of summer grains like potatoes, wheat, and barley due to unseasonably low temperatures this past spring. Observers are predicting that the country’s food shortage will worsen as the summer crop yield falls on the heels of last year’s drop in food production. A source connected to North Korean affairs said Thursday that a drop in the country’s summer crop yields was forecasted in the wake of low temperatures of some 9.3 degrees below average in April. “The North Korean food shortage is expected to become more severe as this combines with measures taken by the South Korean government following the Cheonan’s sinking, including the cessation of trade with and aid to North Korea,” the source said. The source also said that North Korea was making efforts to resolve the problem itself by encouraging yields through national agriculture competitions, commencing operation of the Namhung Youth Chemical Complex fertilizer factory, and running provincial food processing plants. Those efforts, however, showed “limitations in their results.” [Sanctions] [Spin]
• N.Korean Regime Passes Buck in Flood Relief
  The North Korean regime is trying to pass the brunt of helping victims of the latest flood in the Sinuiju region to ordinary people, Radio Free North Korea reported on Tuesday. It quoted a source in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province as saying the North Korean Workers Party has instructed party members nationwide to take the lead in efforts to bring emergency relief to flood victims. "Party committees in workplaces convened emergency meetings on Monday morning to relay the party's instructions urging members to send food, clothes or kitchen utensils to people in flood-hit regions," a North Korean source said. [Media]
• S.Korea Should Help N.Korean Flood Victims
  Ahn Sang-soo, the chairman of the ruling Grand National Party, met with senior government officials on Sunday and urged the resumption of food aid to North Korea after devastating floods there. When word spread that the head of the GNP made those comments, the Democratic Party, Democratic Labor Party and even the traditionally conservative Liberty Forward Party lined up to offer their support. But the Unification Ministry said Monday there are "currently no plans" to send rice aid. Cheong Wa Dae also said it is not looking into the matter at present.
• China to Send Aid for N.Korean Flood Victims
  The Chinese government has offered emergency aid to North Koreans hit by recent flooding, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday. Shinuiju, a border city with China in North Pyongan Province, and surrounding farms were inundated by heavy rains over the last weekend. The agency did not elaborate the scale of the aid. KCNA added that Chinese President Hu Jintao expressed sympathy for the victims of the flooding in a message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. The U.S. government-sponsored broadcaster Radio Free Asia said Wednesday that North Korea requested emergency aid from the UN to cope with the flooding.
• N.Korea requests emergency aid from UN
  The S.Korean government has recently faced increasing bipartisan calls for resuming rice aid
  By Lee Je-hoon, Staff writer The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that North Korea officially requested emergency aid from the United Nations on Tuesday. North Korea has been suffering from serious flood damage due to the overflowing of the Amnok River, and the inundation of Sinuiju. The U.S. government announced that it is prepared to help if it receives a request from North Korea. In addition, Citizens’ Campaign for Sending Unification Rice to Realize Peace on the Korean Peninsula, a group including farmer groups and the five opposition parties, urged the government on Wednesday to immediately resume rice aid to North Korea.
• Chinese Govt Decides to Provide Relief Materials to DPRK
  Pyongyang, August 25 (KCNA) -- The Chinese government decided to provide emergency relief materials to the DPRK in connection with the fact that some areas of the DPRK including Sinuiju, North Phyongan Province, were hit by flood recently. This measure will encourage the Korean people in their efforts to recover from the flood damage as early as possible and more energetically step up the building of a thriving nation.
• Rice donations to North discussed
  August 24, 2010 The harvest begins at farmer Ju In-gap’s rice paddies in Jeonyang village of Gangseo District, Busan, yesterday. [NEWSIS] South Korea's government and ruling party are discussing resuming food aid to North Korea - which was halted due to deteriorating inter-Korean relations - to improve relations with Pyongyang and control a rising rice surplus (sic) , lawmakers said yesterday
• Flood Damage Confirmed Serious
  Pyongyang, August 5 (KCNA) -- It has been ascertained that torrential rains in July did a great deal of damage to people's living, railway transport, agriculture and other economic sectors in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. According to information available in a relevant organ, some 5,560 dwelling houses and more than 350 public buildings and production-related facilities were destroyed or inundated and some 14,850 hectares of farmland submerged, buried or washed away in the country.
• Research Institute For North Korean Society .
  What Does Good Friends USA Do?
  Please become a good friend of the Good Friends Good Friends- An International NGO for Peace, Human Rights and Refugees Good Friends provides relief works for international refugees to become all lives’ friends, peace movement to fundamentally resolve disputes and conflicts that human beings face, and human rights movement to protect human rights. Good Friends has been providing information on food shortages in North Korea, raising funds for humanitarian assistance, dispatching activists to national border areas between China and DPRK and having them investigate local situations, and publishing reports on food shortages in North Korea. Currently, Good Friends is making efforts to improve humanitarian and human rights situation of North Korean people and to inform this situation to the international community by: 1) Collecting information on food shortages, public health conditions, education, the basic necessities situations and inform humanitarian organizations so that they can support North Korean people effectively. 2) Reporting the current human rights situation in North Korea where rights duly protected by law are being violated; assessing incidents of human rights violations in the process of arrest, punishment, and imprisonment and informing international communities; and requesting that the North Korean Government act to improve human rights. 3) Investigating the current situations of North Korean refugees in China, and providing protections and aid for them and their children in particular. For these purposes, Good Friends USA publishes the weekly newsletter North Korea Today to inform the international public. [NGO]
• North Korea Urgently Needs Food and Medicine, Rights Group Says
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: July 15, 2010 SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean doctors perform operations without anesthesia in clinics where hypodermic needles are not sterilized and sheets are not washed, the human rights group Amnesty International said in a report released on Thursday. [Sanctions] [Disinformation] [Victim] [NGO]
• The crumbling state of health care in North Korea
  In the early 1990s, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) faced a famine that killed up to one million people in a population that at the time hovered around 22 million (the current population stands at 23.9 million).2 Food shortages and a more general economic crisis have persisted to this day. The government has resolutely maintained that it is committed to, and capable of, providing for the basic needs of its people and satisfying their right to food and a proper standard of health. The testimonies presented in this report suggest otherwise. [Sanctions] [Victim] [Media] [NGO]
• North Korea's desperate measures
  By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON - Behind brave blasts of bombast and bluster, North Korea has one urgent reason for wanting to renew six-party talks on its nuclear program and separate meetings with an American general at the truce village of Panmunjom. The overwhelming problem for the North is the nation is now on the verge of its worst famine since the mid-1990s when approximately two million people are believed to have died of starvation and disease. "Food shortages and a more general economic crisis have persisted to this day," according to a report released this week by Amnesty International. The North's "delayed and inadequate response to the food crisis has significantly affected people's health". [Media] [Sanctions]
• Critique of AI Report: The Crumbling State of Health Care in North Korea
  by Marilyn Weingartner, retired Public Health Nurse, 4 August 2010:
  At the end of April, World Health Organization Director General Dr. Margaret Chan visited Pyongyang and came back with a report that seemed to praise the DPRK for its universal health care system. (Read: Press briefing at WHO headquarters, Geneva) Her report has been widely criticized for painting too pretty a picture of realities on the ground in North Korea. Indeed, she should have been more careful about commenting on the size and weight of people she observed on the street in Pyongyang. Surely the lack of obesity Dr. Chan observed cannot be attributed only to the fact that North Koreans do a lot of walking!
  Initially, I was pleased that the urgent issue of health care has been getting the attention it deserves and needs. But as I read the AI report, I couldn’t help getting angry, not at the DPRK regime, but at the writers of the AI report, who in my estimation have missed a golden opportunity to do something positive for the people of North Korea. As a health care worker who lived and worked in the health sector in the DPRK from 1997 to 1999, I have seen the best and the worst imaginable. I can relate to the conditions described in the AI report, because much of what is written there I have experienced with my own eyes. But what is the purpose of this report? How does this report differ from the one Amnesty has already issued in 2004? Why now?
  The report reminds us that most potential donors withhold aid because it “would not reach those in greatest need.” Yet there is no mention of the sanctions in place—some of them since the Korean War—that directly impact the provision of assistance even if access problems were completely resolved. One of these is a ban on “dual-use” exports (i.e., civilian goods that could be adapted to military purposes), which directly affects medical equipment. The Amnesty report blames Pyongyang for a shortage of syringes at hospitals. In the 1990s Iraq suffered from a similar shortage because of concerns that they might contribute to Iraq’s WMD programs. Supplies of syringes were held up for half a year because of fears they might be used in creating anthrax spores. Tens of thousands of Iraqi children died as a result. Why does Amnesty not draw attention to this devious political tactic as a human rights issue? References to the DPRK’s “economic problems” over-simplify the effects of international sanctions and isolationist policies on the capacity of the country to re-build and restore the elements needed for a functioning health care system. I use the word “restore” because, as Dr. Chan tried to clarify (unfortunately rather awkwardly), the elements are there. Clinics, for example, are present down to the smallest “ri” (county). But the clinics are bare, cold, and the staff are out in the fields trying to make ends meet and to feed their families. When the AI report exhorts the DPRK that “Functioning public health and health-care facilities, goods and services, as well as programmes, have to be available in sufficient quantity within the State party” the report shows the kind of disrespect that has turned well-meaning North Korean health care workers against some of the NGOs that previously worked in the DPRK. One experienced MD of my acquaintance stopped going to workshops because he was personally offended by a young foreign NGO worker who tried to lecture him about how to run the pharmacy at his hospital.
  Will the Amnesty report lead Canada to establish exchange programmes for health care workers, so that they can visit our facilities, so they can upgrade their knowledge base, or even just to learn English? Or will the report simply confirm to the Canadian Government that limiting resources and access to the DPRK is a reasonable policy? During the Nutritional Survey of 1998 the driver of my team emphasized to me that if there were 1 bean and 5 Koreans, that bean would be divided among them. Today, unfortunately, the old song about “nothing from nothing is nothing” is as true as ever. [Sanctions] [Media] [Disinformation] [NGO]
• The real story on North Korea and its healthcare
  July 21, 2010 By Stephen Gowans
  The United States has announced that it is adding a new tranche to the Himalaya of sanctions it has built up since 1950 against North Korea, sanctions I outlined in my last article Amnesty International botches blame for North Korea’s crumbling healthcare. Calling the new sanctions “measures” – perhaps to escape the disfavor the word has fallen into after sanctions wiped out the lives of half of million Iraqi children in the 1990s — US secretary of state Hillary Clinton purred reassuringly that the new “measures are not directed at the people of North Korea.” [1] She didn’t predict, however, whether they would add to the misery the previous umpteenth round of sanctions has already visited upon the lives of North Koreans, even if she says they aren’t directed at them, but we can be pretty sure they will. [Sanctions] [Disinformation] [Inversion] [Victim]
• Amnesty International botches blame for North Korea’s crumbling healthcare
  July 20, 2010 “Economic sanctions are, at their core, a war against public health.” –The New England Journal of Medicine [1]
  By Stephen Gowans Amnesty International has released a report condemning the North Korean government for failing to meet “its obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to health of its citizens”, citing “significant deprivation in (North Koreans’) enjoyment of the right to adequate care, in large part due to failed or counterproductive government policies.” The report documents rundown healthcare facilities which “operate with frequent power cuts and no heat” and medical personnel who “often do not receive salaries, and many hospitals (that) function without medicines and essentials.” Horrific stories are recounted of major operations carried out without anaesthesia. Blame for this is attributed solely to the North Korean government. [2] While unstated, the implication is that DPR Korea is a failed state, whose immediate demise can only be fervently wished for (or worked toward.)
  Both Amnesty and Demick operate within the framework of Western propaganda. As the North Korea specialist Tim Beal points out, Western propaganda invokes economic mismanagement as the explanation for North Korea’s collapsing economy, despite an obvious alternative explanation: sanctions. “The results — those malnourished babies,” Beal wrote prophetically three years ago, “can be blamed on the Koreans, which in turn is produced as evidence that the sanctions are desirable and necessary.” [8] [Sanctions] [Disinformation] [Inversion] [Victim]
• Aid agencies row over North Korea health care system
  16 July 2010 North Korea has faced food shortages for years The World Health Organization (WHO) says a report on North Korea's health system by Amnesty International is unscientific and outdated. Rights watchdog Amnesty said North Korea was failing to meet its people's most basic healthcare needs. Amnesty's report is based on interviews with 40 North Korean defectors and foreign health care workers. In April, the WHO's director visited North Korea and said its health system was the envy of the developing world. [Sanctions] [Disinformation] [Victim] [Media]

• Humanitarian group calls for defusing of tension
  2010-06-22 17:23 A global humanitarian group Tuesday called for a defusing of mounting peninsular tension to continue providing humanitarian aid to North Koreans. This is because such aid will eventually reach out to people in the region to bring about change in the regime, according to Lesley-Anne Knight, secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis. Lesley-Anne Knight “In our experience, humanitarian aid dampens tension because we are working at the grass roots level, and change comes from the bottom up,” Knight said in a press conference in Seoul. She noted how hardliners may believe all types of aid should be halted to punish the North, but stressed that such moves would cause only further conflict. “The issue is why it doesn’t work to punish a regime by withholding humanitarian aid,” the secretary-general said. She added that because of the rising tension, the group faces increasing difficulty in persuading its funders to give more to North Korea. [Aid weapon] [Buildup]
• South Korean Christians warn of famine in North, urge lifting of blockade
  South Korea froze economic relations and maritime communications with its northern neighbor, further crippling the North's economy 04:43 21/06/2010© REUTERS/ Jacky ChenRelated News Soviet interests drew China into Korean War Medvedev urges thorough investigation of South Korea corvette sinking Moscow, Seoul urge diplomatic solution to Korea issue North Korea threatens military retaliation over possible UN censure Explosion to ignite Korea-Russia blame game Russia ready for unbiased discussions on Korean ship sinking Representatives of South Korean Christian churches and communities issued a joint address to the government to lift its blockade of the North, citing the possibility of another devastating famine in the isolated Communist state. South Korea recently froze economic relations and maritime communications with its northern neighbor, further crippling the North's economy, which is already damaged by UN sanctions intended to force it to quit its nuclear program. The request says that "food aid programs to help the population amid food shortage should be developed," Radio Vatican said on Sunday. "The aid would contribute to reconciliation between the two states," the Organization said. According to the Vatican-led Agenzia Fides, the Catholic Church in Korea fears "a humanitarian crisis like the one which struck North Korea in the 1990s." A murderous famine gripped North Korea in mid 90s after unprecedented floods. The official death toll released by the North Korean Food Damage Rehabilitation Committee in 1999 stands at 220,000, while various sources, estimate that from two to three million people died between 1995 and 1998. Fides cites a statement, signed by 527 members of religious communities united in the Forum Religious Solidarity for Reconciliation and Peace of Korea, as saying that the committee denounces "the alarming situation of poverty and dramatic shortage of food affecting millions of North Korean brothers and sisters." Tensions between the two Koreas grew after South Korea's 1,200-ton Cheonan corvette sunk near the disputed Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea on March 26, with the loss of 46 lives. An international investigation concluded that North Korea fired a torpedo at the vessel from a submarine, although Pyongyang has denied the allegations. Pyongyang claims the incident was "orchestrated" by the United States in order to "hype the threat from North Korea" ahead of "Congress midterm elections slated for the coming November." [Sanctions] [Cheonan] [Religion]
• Religious leaders unite to plead for aid for North
  Say need for humanitarian help is urgent as nation risks a new famine June 18, 2010 South Korean civic activists pour rice into a box bearing a picture of the Korean Peninsula during a press conference in Seoul yesterday. [NEWSIS] Leading figures from the nation’s five major religions are urging the government to resume the humanitarian aid to North Korea that was suspended when tensions rose after the Cheonan tragedy. Calling themselves the Gathering of Faith Praying for National Reconciliation and Peace, the religious leaders held a press conference in Seoul yesterday to warn that without outside help, the reclusive communist nation could face a food crisis as severe as the 1990s famine. Some reports have estimated that several million people died in that disaster. “The biggest victims of the military confrontation between South and North Korea are our North Korean brethren, who have been forced to the edge of starving to death,” the group’s representatives said in a joint statement [Sanctions] [Religion]
• UNICEF to Spend $130 Mil. on Aid in N.Korea
  The United Nations Children's Fund has announced plans to spend close to US$130 million to support children and pregnant and nursing mothers in North Korea from 2011 to 2015. According to Yonhap News, UNICEF has submitted a proposal to its board of directors outlining plans to provide some $128 million worth of humanitarian assistance to North Korean mothers and children. Some 66 percent is expected to be spent on improving health and nutrition, while the rest will be used to finance medication for malaria and tuberculosis as well as lowering the mortality rate of newborns and mothers.

• Malaria health concerns rise due to decision to suspend projects in N.Korea
  KSM says canceling its malaria prevention project could increase rate of infections along the DMZ and north Gyeonggi Province The Korean Sharing Movement (KSM), a private group engaged in North Korean aid efforts, announced Wednesday that a joint North Korea-South Korea malaria prevention effort it had been carrying out in North Korea in conjunction with Gyeonggi Province was effectively suspended due to a special request by the government in the wake of the Cheonan sinking. As a result, observers have voiced concerns about potential infections this summer among soldiers stationed near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) on the North Korean border and northern Gyeonggi residents in Paju and Yeoncheon as malaria mosquitoes make their way south. [SK NK policy] [Joint Korea]
• UN to send review mission to North Korea
  (AFP) – 1 day ago GENEVA — The United Nations will send a team to North Korea in May to assess how aid funds have been used in the country, a spokeswoman from the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs told AFP Tuesday. "A working level UN mission will go to DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) in late May to review the implementation of central emergency response fund (CERF) funded projects there," Elisabeth Byrs said, in response to queries from AFP. "The mission will comprise four UN staff from OCHA and from the CERF secretariat," she said, confirming Japanese media reports. The team would meet heads of UN agencies on site, in order to "better understand how funds provided by CERF are used," said Byrs. The spokeswoman did not know if the team would also meet North Korean authorities. The UN has allocated eight million dollars in 2010 in emergency relief funds for North Korea, which has suffered more than two decades of natural disasters (sic).
• Hepatitis vaccine delivery to N.Korea cancelled by Lee administration
  The administration’s move to block humanitarian aid to N.Korea has also extended to private companies, private groups and international organizations. The delivery to North Korea of hepatitis vaccine to inoculate one million North Korean children and teenagers was abruptly canceled on May 14, when the Unification Ministry sent an official dispatch to government offices and ministries ordering the immediate halt of all North Korean projects funding from the government budget. The Unification Ministry was also confirmed to have notified private groups that it could not approve delivery of humanitarian aid items such as flour and bread that the groups were planning to send to North Korea. [Aid weapon] [SK NK policy] [Lee Myung-bak]
• Sowing Rice Seeds in Cold-Beds Finished  
    Pyongyang, May 11 (KCNA) -- Sowing rice seeds in cold-beds was finished on all farms across the country. Cities and counties in South Hwanghae Province proved successful in seed treatment, sprouting and laying out rice-seedling beds, etc. They wound up sowing seeds in areas under plan as of May 7. Anju City, Sukchon County, Taedong County and other cities and counties in South Phyongan Province made good arrangements for growing healthy rice seedlings for transplantation. The sowing of rice seeds in cold-beds was also rounded off on farms in North Phyongan Province. Cities and counties in North Hwanghae Province including Sariwon City, Hwangju County and Koksan County and farms in the east coastal areas and the northern areas including Kangwon Province and North and South Hamgyong Provinces also finished sowing rice seeds in the right time.
• UNICEF's deputy chief says N. Korean children seriously malnourished
  By Kim Boram SEOUL, May 12 (Yonhap) -- One out three North Korean children is suffering from malnutrition, but a U.N. agency's efforts to help them is hampered by the country's reclusive nature, the agency's deputy chief said. "It is serious, in terms of nutrition. Every third child in North Korea is stunted due to bad nutrition," said Hilde Johnson, deputy executive director of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), in an interview Tuesday with Yonhap News Agency. UNICEF has a number of programs operating in North Korea similar to those for developing countries, she said. "We run programs to help children survive, which is linked to immunization of children and vaccination. We also provide nutrition support to prevent malnutrition of children," she said. But UNICEF is restricted in alleviating what she called the "very serious" condition resulting from a decades-long food shortage. "We also try to advocate rights of children, which is not always that easy" in North Korea, Johnson said. The deputy chief was visiting Seoul for the first time [Agency] [UNUS]
• Telemedicine Service Realized
  Pyongyang, November 17 (KCNA) -- A telemedicine service has been realized between Pyongyang and provinces in the DPRK. Recently the Ministry of Public Health and Kim Man Yu Hospital have solved the technological problems arising in introducing the telemedicine service. It thus makes it possible to exchange examination result and image data by functional diagnosis equipment between Pyongyang and provincial people's hospitals and to accurately diagnose and treat patients in local hospitals without sending them to central hospitals. And local medical workers can receive a telemedicine education from professors, doctors and competent medical workers of central hospitals without leaving working site. Now the telemedicine service system is on a normal operation.
• Why North Korea Could Feed Itself
  By Randall Ireson
  Inspecting a vetch cover crop in rice paddy. In the early 1990s, agricultural production in North Korea began a precipitous decline that ultimately resulted in a famine from which perhaps 5 percent of the population died. Since the worst years of 1996 and 1997, food production has recovered somewhat, and international aid has helped avert the worst consequences. Yet farm production in the DPRK still remains far below its potential, despite substantial and continuing efforts by farmers, the government, and international aid organizations. This need not continue. With the right combination of technical and institutional changes, the North could end the continuing food shortages and still maintain a self-reliant economy. Government and farmers are beginning to address many of the technical problems, but institutional factors impede the ability of farms and the will of farmers to invest in the production process. If these factors can be resolved, the farm sector could become dynamic and productive. [Agriculture] [Development strategy] [Agency]
• North Korea has plenty of doctors: WHO
  By Jonathan Lynn Reuters Friday, April 30, 2010; 2:52 PM GENEVA (Reuters) - North Korea's health system would be the envy of many developing countries because of the abundance of medical staff that it has available, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, speaking a day after returning from a 2-1/2 day visit to the reclusive country, said malnutrition was a problem in North Korea but she had not seen any obvious signs of it in the capital Pyongyang. North Korea -- which does not allow its citizens to leave the country -- has no shortage of doctors and nurses, in contrast to other developing countries where skilled healthcare workers often emigrate, she said. This allows North Korea to provide comprehensive healthcare, with one "household doctor" looking after every 130 families, said the head of the United Nations health agency, praising North Korea's immunization coverage and mother and child care. "They have something which most other developing countries would envy," Chan told a news conference, noting that her visit was a rare sign of the communist state's willingness to cooperate with outside agencies. Chan's comments marked a significant change from the assessment of her predecessor, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who said in 2001 that North Korea's health system was near collapse. [Sanctions] [Medical] [Media]
• Dr. MARGARET CHAN, W.H.O. DIRECTOR-GENERAL: VISIT TO D.P.R. KOREA:
  FULL-TEXT & AUDIO BRIEFING (MaximsNewsNetwork)
  UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / 01 May 2010 - Geneva - Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, held a press briefing at WHO headquarters this week to discuss the details of her visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea; the following is the Full-Text of her remarks about the DRP Korea's public health achievements including immunization coverage, effective implementation of maternal, newborn and child health interventions, excellent DOTS coverage for tuberculosis and successfully reducing the malaria cases. Listen to the Director-General's press conference [mp3, 15Mb] and follow the full-text of the press briefing: [Medical] [Opening] [ICT]

• How to Stop Kim Jong-il from Starving His People to Death?
  Microsoft founder Bill Gates expressed opposition to helping North Korea from the new G20 Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, to which his foundation is a major donor, saying Thursday he is unsure if the North is capable of coming up with a trustworthy farm development program and adequately manage an outside aid fund. [Agency] [Inversion] [Media] [Aid weapon]
• Welthungerhilfe in North Korea: From distributing food to supporting rural development and water supply
  Welthungerhilfe has been working in North Korea since 1997, shortly after the country had been hit by severe rainfall and flooding. In the first years, Welthungerhilfe distributed mainly emergency items: food, coal, and children's clothes. But soon it became clear that more was needed. herefore, at the end of the 1990s we started with agricultural projects in South Hwanghae and North Pyong'an Provinces to show people how to produce food themselves (sic) [Context] [Arrogance]
• General information about Welthungerhilfe in North Korea
  
• Behind The Bamboo Curtain: Five Years In North Korea
  Most visitors and journalists can only scratch the surface of what life is like in North Korea. Karin Janz, country director (North Korea) for the German NGO Welthungerhilfe, will share what she has gleaned from five years of work in the secretive country, where she interacted with local families and visited their homes.
  Welthungerhilfe is the largest of six European NGOs based in North Korea. Welthungerhilfe helps people to help themselves through its support of maize seed processing, provision of clean drinking water and implementation of sustainable agro-forestry systems. The NGO has helped plant more than 100,000 fruit trees in North Korea, diversifying the diet of many people. It has also sent hundreds of North Koreans for training in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, China and New Zealand. DATE: April 20, 2010 ABOUT THE SPAEKER: From 2005 to 2010, Dr Karin Janz was country director in North Korea for the German NGO Welthungerhilfe, overseeing a team of 10 international staff members and 35 Korean specialists and translators in its Pyongyang office. Dr Janz was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1959. She studied land management and agriculture. In 1985, she spent several months in a village on Hebei’s border, where she transplanted rice, fed chicken and ducks and discussed ecological farming with farmers. From 1990 to 1995, she worked for the German Technical Cooperation GTZ to improve farmers’ living conditions in Hebei. From 1995 to 2000, she again spent months in rural China to research her PhD on traditional knowledge of farming, while advising on rural projects all over China and Asia. For another five years, she was project manager on an afforestation project in Shanxi Province. After 25 interesting years in East Asia, she is now on her way home to Germany.
• Fuller Center housing project in DPRK
  After discussions began in 2007 regarding a partnership between North Korea (DPRK) and The Fuller Center, innovative plans took shape to not only construct energy-efficient homes, but to build peace between two nations historically separated. The project was born from several years of conversations between Don Mosley, founder of Jubilee Partners, longtime friend and associate of Millard Fuller, and former member of the Habitat for Humanity International Board, and Dr. Han Park, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for the Study of Global Issues (GLOBIS) and respected intermediary between DPRK and the United States.

• U.S. could resume food aid to North
  March 25, 2010 WASHINGTON - The United States would consider resuming food aid to North Korea if Pyongyang moves to lift a year-old refusal of humanitarian assistance, the State Department said Tuesday. “There are profound needs for the North Korean population, and to the extent that North Korea wants to accept aid from the international community, including the United States, we will be willing to consider that,” department spokesman Philip Crowley said at a daily briefing. In June 2008, Washington agreed to send 500,000 tons of food aid to North Korea, including 400,000 tons through the UN’s World Food Program and the remainder through other nongovernmental agencies. In March last year, however, the hermit nation began refusing U.S. food aid, without offering a reason. [Aid weapon]
• Nepalese doc is God of Sight to poor  
  By MARGIE MASON The Associated Press Sunday, March 21, 2010; 12:01 AM HETAUDA, Nepal -- Dhanuk and more than 500 others - most of whom have never seen a doctor before - have traveled for days by bicycle, motorbike, bus and even on their relatives' backs to reach Dr. Sanduk Ruit's mobile eye camp. Each hopes for the miracle promised in radio ads by the Nepalese master surgeon: He is able to poke, slice and pull the grape-like jelly masses out of an eye, then refill it with a tiny artificial lens, in about five minutes. Free of charge.  It's an assembly-line approach to curing blindness that's possible thanks to a simple surgical technique Ruit pioneered, allowing cataracts to be removed safely without stitches through two small incisions. Once condemned by the international medical community as unthinkable and reckless, this mass surgery 'in the bush' started spreading from Nepal to poor countries worldwide nearly two decades ago. Thousands of doctors - from North Korea to Nicaragua to Nigeria - have since been trained to train others, with the hope of slowly lessening the leading cause of blindness that affects 18 million people worldwide. And later this year, U.S. military surgeons will train under Ruit for the first time.  
• N. Korea's food imports from China more than triple in January: expert
  SEOUL, March 12 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's food imports from China more than tripled in January from a year earlier, an indication the impoverished nation is bracing for serious food shortages, an agricultural expert said Friday. North Korea brought in 13,834 tons of grain from the neighboring ally in January, a 3.6-fold increase from 3,869 tons in January last year, said Kwon Tae-jin, a senior researcher on the North's agricultural sector at the South's Korea Rural Economic Institute in a posting on his blog.
  North Korea has relied on foreign handouts to feed its 24 million population after natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its economy. [Inversion] [Victim]
• UN expert: NKorean farm controls causing hunger
  By ELIANE ENGELER The Associated Press Monday, March 15, 2010; 10:55 PM GENEVA -- North Korea should let farms produce freely and allow food to be sold in local markets because the communist government cannot provide enough food for its people, a U.N. human rights investigator urged Monday. Vitit Muntarbhorn said North Korea's regime stopped small-scale farming and closed local markets last year as part of a long-term clampdown on the agricultural sector. Thieving from the military is also hurting the income of farmers and contributing to hunger, he said. [Manipulation] [Inversion] [UNUS]
• Health project helps North-South Korean ties: WHO
  Stephanie Nebehay Thu Mar 4, 2010 11:02am EST GENEVA (Reuters) - North Korea has reduced deaths from surgery and among women in childbirth under a program funded by South Korea that is building trust across the divided peninsula, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. Rates of deadly diarrheal disease in children have fallen dramatically under the project, which has provided training to 6,000 North Korean doctors, the United Nations agency said. The program, begun in late 2006, has benefited 7 million people in the destitute North, whose wobbly economy has been hit by U.N. sanctions imposed after its nuclear test last year. "It is a very cost-effective means to reduce mortality," Dr. Eric Laroche, WHO assistant director-general for health action in crises, told a news briefing. "I've spent 30 years in the field and you don't always get such a high rate of return on investment," the French aid veteran said after a four-day trip to the reclusive country. Seoul has donated about $30 million so far and allocated a further $13 million for this year, Laroche said. Four provincial hospitals -- two pediatric and two maternity -- have been renovated and supplied with medicines and laboratory equipment, a WHO statement said. Hospitals in 80 of the 220 counties and rural clinics have also been upgraded. "Reductions have been extremely dramatic, with the number of deaths during operations falling by 73.4 percent in two years," Laroche said, citing evaluations by the University of Melbourne.
• Tuberculosis: North Korea Develops TB Laboratory With Help From American Doctors
  By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Published: March 1, 2010 With help from scientists from Stanford University’s medical school, North Korea has developed its first laboratory capable of detecting drug-resistant tuberculosis, scientists involved in the project said last week. Tuberculosis surged in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea during the famines of the 1990s. (Starvation suppresses the immune system, allowing latent infections to grow.) But the country cannot tell which cases are susceptible to which antibiotics, meaning more dangerous strains could push out strains that are easier to kill, as has happened in Russia and Peru. The project began after John W. Lewis, an expert on Chinese politics at Stanford participating in informal diplomatic talks over North Korea’s nuclear threat, realized how serious a TB problem the country had. In 2008, doctors from North Korea’s health ministry visited experts in the San Francisco Bay area. Last month, a Stanford team began installing the new diagnostics lab at a hospital in the capital, Pyongyang.

• N.Korea Took 300,000 Tons of Food Aid Last Year
  North Korea is believed to have been given 300,000 tons of food either on credit or as aid last year, mostly from China, the Unification Ministry told the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee on Tuesday. That is enough to feed the entire population of North Korea for a month. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Monday said North Korea faces a shortage of 1.25 million tons of food, but that did not take into account the amount provided by China and other countries. Unification Ministry Hyun In-taek said, "North Korea has been suffering from problems in food supply and distribution since its currency reform and has been taking measures to deal with the situation."
• 1/3 of N. Koreans need food aid: U.N.
  A top-level United Nations official stressed the need for more food aid to North Korea while the South Korean government remains reluctant to step forward unless there is progress in the North's denuclearization or a settlement of the abductee issue. [Aid weapon] [Sanctions]
• Kim Jong-il Plays Up Food Shortage in N.Korea
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has renewed a lament about the backward country's failure to live up to his father's hopes in overcoming chronic food shortages in an apparent bid to extract aid amid international sanctions. The official Rodong Shinmun newspaper on Monday said Kim expressed "compassion" for the reliance of his people on broken rice, a cheaper, inferior product, in their staple diet. "What I should do now is feed the world's greatest people with rice and let them eat their fill of bread and noodles. Let us all honor the oath we made before the leader [Kim Il-sung] and help our people feed themselves without having to know broken rice." The newspaper on Jan. 9 quoted Kim as recalling nation founder Kim Il-sung's promise of rice and meat soup for all, but adding, "We have not yet fulfilled his wishes." Prof. Kim Yong-hyun of Dongguk University said, "The North is playing up its economic difficulties in an effort to wheedle aid out of the international community including South Korea." [Spin] [Bizarre]
• Seoul May Resume Fertilizer Aid to N.Korea
  The government is ready to provide North Korea with fertilizer even before an inter-Korean summit is held. "Food aid is difficult because there is a high chance it will be diverted to the military, but fertilizer isn't much of a problem," a security official said Monday. The South offered 10,000 tons of corn to the North in October "because corn is less likely to be diverted to the military than rice," a Cheong Wa Dae official said. Pyongyang accepted the offer only recently because Seoul notified it that other aid including fertilizer would be not be given unless it accepted the corn, according to a North Korea source. [Aid weapon]

• Food Aid to N.Korea Cleared for Shipment
  The government completed the necessary administrative work Tuesday for the shipment of 10,000 tons of corn to North Korea, the Unification Ministry said Wednesday. The government plans to purchase Chinese corn with some W4 billion (US$1=W1,138) out of the inter-Korean development fund. The delivery is expected to take about a month. Seoul offered the corn aid in October last year, and Pyongyang accepted last Friday.
• North’s threat won’t stop aid
  South’s forces not put on alert January 18, 2010 Despite North Korea’s threat of an attack on the South on Friday, Seoul said it will take a wait-and-see attitude until it verifies the North’s intentions, and proceed with planned food aid. North Korea showed no special signs of military action against the South as of yesterday. [Media] [Inversion] [Takeover] [Aid weapon]
• The Reverend Thomas Dwight Linton dies
  December 4, 1927 - January 11, 2010The CFK family grieves the loss of board member Thomas Dwight Linton, “Uncle Dwight”, who went to be with the Lord following a traffic accident on January 11, 2010. Dr. Linton was born in Korea to missionary parents, and he returned there in 1953 with his wife, Marjorie, to serve as Christian missionaries for the next 25 years. He was involved in rural evangelism work, and also served as President of Honam Theological Seminary from 1973-1978. Following his return from Korea, he served the Mission to North America of the Presbyterian Church in America. In 1992, while in retirement, he traveled with the Reverend Billy Graham and his team to North Korea where he interpreted for him as they met the late North Korean President Kim Il Sung and spoke in churches and at Kim Il Sung University. The work of Christian Friends of Korea grew in part out of the relationships established during that visit, and in subsequent visits Dwight and others made in the intervening years. Dwight has served as a CFK board member since 1998.
• Kim Jong-il Admits Failure to Feed People
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has admitted he failed to accomplish his late father Kim Il-sung's promise to feed the people with "rice and meat soup," the official Rodong Shinmun daily reported Saturday. Since 1946, Kim Il-sung talked about "rice and meat soup" every year, but 60 years later the North is still dependent on international food aid. The daily quoted Kim as making the remarks during an "arduous march despite a snowstorm" last year, apparently one of his so-called on-the-spot guidance tours. "Now, our country has become a powerful nation in political, ideological and military terms, but we feel many things are still wanting in people's lives." [Agency] [Media] [Sanctions]
• Kim Jong-il Determined to Feed His People
  North Korea's paramount leader Kim Jong-il is reportedly determined to realize his father's will, which he has so far failed to achieve: feeding the people. "I am resolute in my determination to enhance people's living standards in the shortest possible time so that they don't have to envy the life of people in other countries," he said, according to a North Korea's official Web site, Uriminjokkiri. Kim's father, Kim Il-sung, was a famous guerilla fighter against the Japanese colonial occupiers and founded the nation. [Agency]

• Seoul to Increase Humanitarian Aid to N.Korea
  The South Korean government plans to increase humanitarian aid to impoverished North Korea via international bodies and non-governmental organizations. Seoul's Unification Ministry announced that it will send some US$13 million to the World Health Organization and nearly $4 million to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to support malnourished children and improve public health care facilities in the North. The ministry also added that more than $5 million will be used to fund local civic organizations so that they can provide aid to infants and pregnant women. Observers say the move is aimed at improving stalled inter-Korean ties next year.[Aid weapon]
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• Confusion Over Food Aid to N.Korea
  There has been no response from North Korea to South Korea's offer of 10,000 tons of corn nine days since it was made, but the Unification Ministry said it is "taking the necessary steps" to send the aid. A South Korean committee that oversees cooperative projects with the North is to meet later this week to approve W4 billion (US$1=W1,182) to be withdrawn from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund to make the corn delivery possible. Seoul plans to buy the corn from China.

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• Seoul's Aid Offer One-10th of NK Request
  South Korea's offer of 10,000 tons of corn in food aid to North Korea is just one-tenth what the communist state asked for, a report said Thursday. Seoul also demanded that its aid be sent to a specific famine-hit area, Dong-A Ilbo newspaper quoted an unidentified government official as saying. Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung denied the report, saying neither side mentioned specific amounts of food when they held working-level talks on October 16. The talks were held to discuss holding more reunions for separated families, but ended without agreement following the North's aid request. The Seoul official told Dong-A: "The North was very perplexed by the South's offer to ship 10,000 tons of corn in response to the North's request for 100,000 tons of rice in aid at the working-level talks. "The North may have had its pride hurt, but it cannot but accept the South's offer due to its worsening food shortages." [Aid weapon]
• South Korea offers North Korea corn aid
  If North Korea accepts 10,000 tons of corn aid, the South Korean government is expected to initiate Red Cross working-level talks to discuss regularization of family reunions On Monday, the South Korean government proposed to send 10,000 tons of corn aid to North Korea through the South Korean Red Cross. The Red Cross will formally be distributing the aid, but because the cost will be supported by the Unification Ministry’s fund for inter-Korean cooperation, the aid essentially comes from the South Korean government. South Korean government officials believe it is likely that North Korea will accept the proposal.
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• South Korea shifts course on aid to North Korea
  By Jon Herskovitz and Christine Kim Reuters Monday, October 26, 2009; 1:20 AM SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea will make a small grant of humanitarian aid to North Korea, ending its suspension of handouts after a series of conciliatory gestures from its destitute rival, an official said on Monday. [Overtures]
• Granting N. Korea’s request for humanitarian assistance
  North Korea officially requested humanitarian assistance from South Korea during working-level Red Cross talks that took place Saturday. This is the first time since the launch of the Lee Myung-bak administration that North Korea has officially made this type of request. The request came following South Korea’s request for additional family reunions, and analysts are saying the two countries’ requests appear to be virtually connected. The room for negotiation and options that determine possible advance and retreat in inter-Korean relations have now become clearer. [Aid weapon]
• South Korea relegates North Korea’s request for aid to Red Cross meetings
  Analysts say Lee administration should hold high-level summit talks with North Korea and change its policy approach Though an atmosphere for dialogue between North Korean and South Korean authorities has been developing over the course of a series of recent working-level discussions, a qualitative advancement in inter-Korean relations still appears a long way off. Observers say the most important question is whether it will be possible to move past working-level discussions focusing on individual issues and towards high-level talks to discuss overall improvements in inter-Korean relations. [Aid weapon]
• No massive rice aid to the North
  Pyongyang had asked for a ‘goodwill gesture’ in return for holding reunions October 19, 2009 South Korea will not provide massive rice aid to North Korea in exchange for staging reunions for separated families, a high-ranking government official in Seoul said yesterday. The official, requesting anonymity, told reporters that the South would only supply a small amount of corn or other crops if the North wanted to receive government-level aid from Seoul. [Aid weapon]
• S.Korea Mulls Aid to N.Korea via NGOs
  South Korea is reportedly planning to provide North Korea with some US$1 million worth of aid through non-governmental organizations. According to government sources, the South Korean administration will make an official decision regarding the aid by the end of this week. The sources emphasized that aid delivered through the inter-Korean cooperation fund should be viewed separately from direct humanitarian assistance that Pyongyang requested during inter-Korean Red Cross talks last week. [Aid weapon]
• North Korea expecting smaller grain harvests due to increasing temperatures
  Posted Date : 2009-10-19 (NK Brief No. 09-10-19-2) As concerns over lean harvests and food shortages grow, North Koreans are growing more worried as rumors over worsening conditions next year make their way through North Korean communities. Temperatures in North Korea dropped sharply in July, leading to freezing that impacted the agricultural sector. From September 8-12, the temperature dropped so drastically that areas of North Korea frosted over. Mid-September temperatures then suddenly rose to levels well above average, leading fruits and vegetables to sprout new flowers.
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• South spends to solve North environmental issue
  October 17, 2009 South Korea’s Ministry of Environment last month provided 961 million won ($830,300) to help an international body resolve environmental problems in North Korea, the JoongAng Ilbo has learned. According to the ministry, the payment was made to the United Nations Environment Program, which helps countries deal with environmental issues and set up environment-friendly policies. The ministry also shelled out 2 billion won to the UNEP in November 2007.
  Kwak noted that the North Korean aid supplied by the Red Cross plunged from 200 billion won ($172.8 million) in 2006 to 1.8 billion won last year. The steep decline reflects deteriorating inter-Korean relations in recent years, especially under the Lee Myung-bak administration [SK NK policy] [Aid weapon] [Environment]
• Humanitarian appeal from Koryo Tours
  Clients often ask how they can make a donation to benefit people in DPRK and we are pleased to announce our association with a western charity who work with two North Korean social organisations, one in the education sector and one serving people with disabilities, both areas that would benefit greatly from financial and material assistance. We have selected two projects that we feel are both worthwhile and achievable and intend to raise the funds for total completion of these projects by the end of this year 2009.
  The projects will be facilitated by Koryo Tours with the assistance of Maranatha Trust, an Australian entity with foreign representatives in DPRK, in coordination with two local organisations. The local organisations have a solid track record and are well known to international donors.
• Seoul to Resume Food Aid to N.Korea
  The government has decided to resume food aid to North Korea, which was stopped in summer 2007, and is considering when to start and how much to give.
• U.S. Evangelist Arrives in N.Korea to Deliver Aid
  The son of the famous American evangelist Billy Graham arrived in Pyongyang Tuesday, the first visit by a U.S. aid agency official in months. Franklin Graham was greeted by Ri Gun, the director-general of U.S. affairs at the North Korean Foreign Ministry.
• Franklin Graham Here
  Pyongyang, October 13 (KCNA) -- Reverend Franklin Graham of the United States who is president of Samaritan's Purse, a non-governmental organization, and his party arrived here by his plane on Tuesday. At the airport he said that he came to the DPRK to play the role of a bridge for better relations between the United States and the DPRK.
• The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2009
  FAO report
• Foreign Assistance to North Korea
  Mark E. Manyin Specialist in Asian Affairs Mary Beth Nikitin Analyst in Nonproliferation September 9, 2009 Since 1995, the United States has provided North Korea with over $1.2 billion in assistance, about 60% of which has paid for food aid and about 40% for energy assistance. As of early September 2009, the United States is not providing any aid to North Korea, except for a small medical assistance program. The Obama Administration has said that it would be willing to provide large-scale aid if North Korea takes steps to irreversibly dismantle its nuclear program. [Aid weapon]
• SKorea, Japan say no aid until NKorea disarms
  Impoverished North Korea should be given no aid unless it abandons the pursuit of nuclear weapons, the leaders of South Korea and Japan said Friday, forging a united stance before traveling to China for talks on how to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table. By KWANG-TAE KIM Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea — Impoverished North Korea should be given no aid unless it abandons the pursuit of nuclear weapons, the leaders of South Korea and Japan said Friday, forging a united stance before traveling to China for talks on how to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table. The flurry of diplomacy comes days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that his country is ready to rejoin the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, depending on progress in its negotiations with the U.S. North Korea is pushing to send its deputy nuclear envoy Ri Gun to the United States later this month for a private security forum, a South Korean diplomat said. He asked not to be identified because the forum's organizers have not announced the details of the session. The planned trip raises speculation that Ri could meet with U.S. officials to lay the groundwork for possible direct talks with Washington. The U.S. has said that a one-on-one meeting should be part of the broader negotiations that also involve South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. Despite the North's willingness to talk, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama firmly agreed that no aid should be offered to Pyongyang unless the communist regime takes concrete steps to dismantle its nuclear program. [Aid weapon]
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• 14 Lawmakers Call for Use of Rice Surplus as NK Aid
  By Kang Hyun-kyung Staff Reporter A group of 14 opposition lawmakers urged the government Wednesday to resume sending rice aid to North Korea to help stabilize prices here. They asked the government to use part of a rice production surplus as aid for North Korean residents fighting famine, and to lessen farmers' worries about falling prices.

• Food Donated by Vietnamese Government
  Pyongyang, September 28 (KCNA) -- The rice donated by the government of Vietnam to the DPRK arrived at Nampho Port on Monday. The Vietnamese government has so far donated food to the DPRK several times in connection with the natural calamities that hit it.
• Gov't Rules Out Prompt Food, Fertilizer Aid for N.Korea
  The government is not considering substantial food or fertilizer aid to North Korea at the moment, Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Park Sun-kyoo said Monday, ruling out an immediate reward to the North for resuming inter-Korean family reunions. Park was responding to a remark by National Intelligence Service chief Won Sei-hoon in the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee, who said he would "consider humanitarian measures equivalent" to the family reunions. The North over the weekend broadly hinted it expects the South to resume food and fertilizer aid as a "goodwill" gesture. [Aid weapon]
• Director Won says NIS is considering allowing aid collected by civil society for N. Korea
  The NIS gives a positive sign for the resumption of humanitarian aid corresponding with North Korea's efforts to coordinate family reunions, but the Cheong Wa Dae denies it » Family members who participated in the Chuseok reunion event coordinated by South Korea and North Korea in Mt. Kumkang shed their tears over having to depart, Sept. 27. Won Sei-hoon, the director of the National Intelligence Service, said on Monday, “The government is going to consider a step to correspond with North Korea’s humanitarian step of cooperating on the reunion of dispersed family members.”
• N.Korea in Veiled Appeal for Resumption of Aid
  North Korea wants a "goodwill" response from South Korea now that reunions of separated families are resuming, it said Saturday. Yoo Chong-ha, the president of the South Korean Red Cross, on Sunday quoted his North Korean counterpart Jang Jae-on as saying, "The North has extended a special goodwill gesture in resuming family reunions. How about the South doing the same in return?" The two Red Cross chiefs met at the Mt. Kumgang resort, where the first round of reunions was held over the weekend. Jang was apparently in a roundabout way asking for rice and fertilizer aid, suspended since the Lee Myung-bak administration's inauguration, since the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations had tacitly given such aid as a kind of payment for the family reunions. [Overtures]
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• North Korea Today – Special Issue
  
• N. Korean corn crop to fall by 40 percent: agronomist
  SEOUL, Sept. 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's corn yield this year is expected to fall by 40 percent due to a fertilizer shortage and bad weather, the head of a Seoul-based aid group said Tuesday after a survey in the North. The North's corn crop for this year is estimated to be less than 1.5 million tons, considerably down from the 2.5 million to 3 million tons it usually garners, said Kim Soon-kwon, a leading corn biologist and head of the International Corn Foundation. The forecast yield portends a severe food shortage in the country where corn is believed to make up 40 percent of the total food supply. "Of all the corn harvests I've seen while visiting North Korea over the past 12 years, this year's crop was the worst," Kim said over the telephone from China where he was staying after last week's trip to the North. [Sanctions]
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• Ministry disapproves rice aid to North Korea
  Humanitarian aid remain on standby as civic organizations are asked to resubmit proposals to South Korea’s unification ministry for sending rice aid The South Korean government fails to grant approval to civic organizations requesting to send rice aid to North Korea. The government stated reservations that have made it impossible to approve requests by the peasant sector of the Southern Committee for the Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration to send rice aid. A unification ministry official said that it informed the organization of its decision on Sept. 8. [Aid weapon] {S NK policy]
• One third of NKorean women, children malnourished: WFP
  (AFP) – 1 day ago SEOUL — A third of North Korea women and young children are malnourished and the country will run short of almost 1.8 million tonnes of food this year, according to a UN relief agency report seen Monday. According to the latest UN assessment, the country will need close to this amount from imports or assistance "even to meet the most basic food needs of the 24 million North Korean population," the World Food Programme (WFP) office in the country said. [Sanctions] [Media]
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• Heavy Rains Hit North Korea
  Torrential rain battered North Korea's capital and other regions over the weekend amid concerns that flooding may aggravate the country's food shortages, AFP reported, quoting state media.
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• No Food for N.Korea without Monitoring, Says U.S.
  The U.S. will not resume food aid to North Korea unless there is a guarantee that the food will be distributed properly among North Koreans who need it. U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters Wednesday, "We currently have no plans to provide additional food to North Korea. Any additional food aid would have to have assurances that it would be appropriately used." "We remain very concerned about the well-being of the North Korean people, but we are very concerned because we need to have adequate program management in place, monitoring and access provisions, and we don't have that right now," he added. Kelly said North Korea rejected U.S. food aid in March, expressing regret that Pyongyang threw out all NGO food monitors by the end of March. Meanwhile, the World Food Programme said there has been no single donation for the food aid program for the North since its nuclear test in May, and the program has been downsized to one-third of the original plan. [Aid weapon] [Diversion]

• S. Korean NGOs say aid for N. Korea is going to waste in Incheon harbour
  S. Korean Humanitarian aid workers urge the government to shift its N. Korea policy and to lift travel and aid ban » Chung Jung-sup, the president of the Korea NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea (KNCCK), second from the left, stands with other representatives of KNCCK during a press conference at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, June 25. “Some 180 million Won’s worth of goods ready to send to Pyongyang, Kaesong and the Hoeryong district, including seedling maintenance facilities, manufacturing equipment, and apple orchard props, have been tied up in Incheon harbor since April. With the installation of props for the 10,000 or so apple trees we planted in April and irrigation materials growing delayed, we worry the apple trees may die.” (Green One Korea)
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• UNICEF aid flowing steady in N. Korea: Pyongyang chief
  SEOUL, June 3 (Yonhap) -- The U.N. children's agency said Wednesday its humanitarian aid operations in North Korea remain steady amid diplomatic tensions, and that Pyongyang will soon sign an agreement to allow a nationwide nutritional survey. "The situation with regard to access and monitoring is the same as it has been in the past," Gopalan Balagopal, UNICEF representative in Pyongyang, said in an email interview.

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• S. Korean humanitarian aid groups restricted from traveling to North Korea
  Citing concerns of safety, S. Korean civilians remain restricted to visiting N. Korea‘s Kaesong and Mt. Kumgangsan areas “Kaesong area: 415. Mt. Kumgangsan area: 45. Other areas: 0.” This is how many South Koreans reside in North Korea as of Monday, as tabulated by the Ministry of Unification. This means that excluding personnel maintaining facilities in the Kaesong (Gaeseong) Industrial Complex and Mt. Kumgangsan Tourism Zone areas, South Koreans are not able to visit North Korea.
• Humanitarian aid to N.K. falters amid restrictions
  Seoul appears to be lost between its official stance of supporting nongovernmental groups' humanitarian aid in North Korea and plans to pressure the North.
  Kang said that the government was trying to regulate humanitarian assistance to use it as leverage on the North's political stance, something that had never happened for the past 10 years. [Aid weapon]

• Our heart's concern North Korea, April 2009
  Communication with our North Korean partners is generally difficult; however, there are encouraging signs every so often - even from that extremely isolated country. As a result, this issue of Our Heart's Concern shares stories of various initiatives, which have borne fruit. Our partners in Pyongyang have become so convinced of the value of our wind energy project that they have begun offering their own training courses through the Alternative Energy Center (AEC). And that's not all: in addition to an educational trip to Germany, Holland and Switzerland for four North Koreans, Stefan Burckhardt is also scheduled to visit North Korea again the next days. We are very pleased and still feel certain that this type of sustainable development aid work has produced the increasing trust between Agape and the North Korean officials. We are hopeful that working in this way will lead to long-term cooperation opening doors so that we can reach many hearts.
  Our goal is to provide sustainable help that empowers local citizens and shows the citizens of North Korea God's love. There are still ways to reach the people of North Korea - and we have not lost our hope of finding new, effective ways of doing so! One way we have already found is the wind energy project. The Alstom Corporate Foundation Prize will cover the costs of training local people - but we still need finances to cover the construction of the windmills as well as our continued work on the project. For example, a 2kW windmill costs us CHF 7,500.00. We thank you for your faithful financial support, which makes it possible for rural citizens in North Korea to have access to electricity and an improved quality of life. We greatly appreciate your partnership and your support, which helps us reach out to people in North Korea.
  Editor: Agape international, "North Korea" Hüeblistrasse 34, CH - 8165 Oberweningen, Switzerland Tel: +41 (0)44 / 857 13 26, Fax +41 (0)44 / 857 13 11 E-Mail: northkorea@agape.ch , Web: www.agape.ch/northkorea For your donation: Bank name: Zuercher Kantonalbank Bank place: CH-8010 Zurich SWIFT-Code Bank (BIC): ZKBKCHZZ80A IBAN: CH56 0070 0110 0010 2246 8 Currency: Swiss Francs CHF Account holder: Campus fuer Christus Address: Josefstrasse 206, CH-8005 Zurich, Switzerland Reference: North Korea (2000/3/821002)
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• DPRK orders food shortage countermeasures
  Posted Date : 2009-04-16 (NK Breif No. 09-4-16-1) Following the recent launch of a rocket, Pyongyang rejected a letter signed by the UN Security Council president condemning North Korea, and amid announcements that it would restart it nuclear programs, the regime, anticipating that already weak relations with the international community will not be resolved quickly, ordered each province to plan policies regarding food supplies for June and July. The North Korean Ministry of Agriculture suggested there may be a shortage of food supplies, and has sent word to each regional farming community accounting committee, calling on them to establish countermeasures. In the order handed down to each unit, North Korean authorities stressed the planting of potatoes, barley, and other foodstuffs to provide sustenance until the start of the fall harvest. Ultimately, authorities appear to have chosen not to accept food assistance from the United States or South Korea, but as of yet, there have been no large disturbances amongst the people, and food prices in markets have shown no signification change.
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• DPRK preparing for spring fertilizer shortages
  Posted Date : 2009-03-17 (NK Brief No. 09-3-17-1) North Korea, facing chronic food deficiencies, is again looking at fertilizer shortages as the spring farming season approaches. North Korean authorities and farmers are particularly troubled by the fact that, just as last year, the likelihood of receiving chemical fertilizer aid from the South is practically non-existent. A February 26th (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) article titled “Korea’s Effort to Overcome the Food Problem” reported strenuous efforts were underway to “independently” overcome the lack fertilizer in order to ease food shortages throughout the nation. According to the KCNA, “While giving on-the-spot guidance at the Heungnam Fertilizer Complex, Comrade Kim Jong Il explained that in order to ease the food problems, much fertilizer needs to be sent to farming villages.” In addition, it was explained that organic fertilizer production needs to be stepped up in order to compensate for the lack of chemical fertilizer.
• U.S. Keeping Tabs on 90,000 N.Koreans
  The United States has secured private data of about 90,000 North Koreans through food aid agencies and has used them in the process of monitoring distribution of food aid, it emerged Tuesday. There is speculation that this is a reason North Korea has refused U.S. food aid recently. A South Korean government official said, "North Korea responded sensitively to the activities by American food distribution monitors who can speak Korean. We understand that they have an unimaginable amount of data of North Koreans." In addition to monitoring the distribution of the food aid, American officials reportedly tried to find out whether those who had returned after fleeing the North in the early 2000s were still alive and whether there were any changes in the North Korean family structure. When it accepted 500,000 tons of food aid from the U.S. last May, North Korea agreed to allow Korean-speaking Americans to monitor distribution. But it disagreed with the U.S. over their number. Former vice unification minister Kim Suk-woo said, "It seems North Korea has decided that American supervision of food distribution was doing more harm than good to the regime." South Korea has been rather lax in comparison. A Unification Ministry official, who has been to the North as a monitor, said, "All we did was watch North Koreans get abut 20 kg of rice and ask them how many people there were in their family. But we've monitored distribution of less than 0.1 percent of our rice aid." [Espionage] [Aid weapon] [Diversion]
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• U.S. Says N.Korea Rejects Further Food Aid
  A WFP photo shows North Korean children eating donated food at a nursery in North Hamgyong province, North Korea (2008 file photo). In the latest of a series of moves toward apparent self-isolation, North Korea has informed the United States that it no longer wants American food assistance. U.S. officials are expressing disappointment over the move because of continuing food shortages in that country. Despite the lack of diplomatic relations with the communist state, the United States has been the largest single donor of food aid to North Korea since the country's famine in the mid-1990s. The aid program was severed in 2005, but it resumed again by mutual agreement last year amid United Nations forecasts of increased hunger in North Korea. At a news briefing, State Department Acting Spokesman Robert Wood said North Korea informed the United States of its latest decision in a terse statement through diplomatic channels within the past few days. [Manipulation]
• US, aid groups say NKorea rejected food aid
  By FOSTER KLUG The Associated Press Wednesday, March 18, 2009; 12:36 AM WASHINGTON -- North Korea has rejected American food shipments and asked aid groups to leave the country by the end of the month, the United States and a leading aid agency said Tuesday, another sign of mounting tension as Pyongyang plans a rocket launch that Washington sees as cover for a long-range missile test. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the North gave no reason for refusing to accept U.S. food aid. North Korea faces chronic food shortages and has relied on outside aid to help feed its 23 million people since famine reportedly killed as many as 2 million in the 1990s, a result of natural disasters and mismanagement. The five aid groups working in the North to distribute U.S. food were asked to leave by the end of March, said Joy Portella, spokeswoman for the international aid agency Mercy Corps. Their distribution program had been scheduled to run until June.
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• N. Korea officials visiting Portland
  Food aid - The high-level delegation will discuss programs with Mercy Corps Tuesday, March 03, 2009 RICHARD READ The Oregonian Staff A high-level North Korean humanitarian delegation is visiting Mercy Corps in Portland this week during a period of increased tension between the communist state and neighboring South Korea. Four North Korean officials are making a rare 10-day visit to the United States, the first such trip since President Barack Obama took office. The delegation arrived here Thursday to visit Mercy Corps and other organizations that are delivering food to North Korea, where hunger has been widespread. A spokeswoman for Mercy Corps, which will host a lunch for the delegation today, declined to provide specifics of the visit, saying it was intended to be low-key and private with no media coverage. "The purpose is to discuss the status and progress of . . . aid programs" conducted by humanitarian organizations, said Joy Portella, Mercy Corps communications director.
  Mercy Corps leads a group of five aid agencies delivering 100,000 metric tons of food to North Korea, part of a 500,000-ton allotment promised by Washington. The North Korean delegation in the United States is visiting the headquarters of Mercy Corps and the consortium's other four organizations -- World Vision, Samaritan's Purse, Global Resource Services and Christian Friends of Korea. Radio Free Asia reports that the delegation members, led by Cho Il, come from a committee established in 2006 to boost exchanges with the United States. The Korea America Private Exchange Society has often served as a channel for dialog between the two governments.
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• DPRK's Efforts to Solve Food Problem
  Pyongyang, February 26 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il said that in order to solve the food problem, the main in clothing, food and housing, it is imperative to send a large quantity of fertilizer to the countryside while giving on-the-spot guidance to the Hungnam Fertilizer Complex some time ago. This news is arousing forcefully the Korean people to increase grain production, upholding the tasks put forth in the joint New Year editorial from the beginning of the year. The state is strengthening material, technical and labor support to the countryside to solve the shortage of food on its own at any cost this year. The Ministry of Agriculture made and sent to the co-op farms throughout the country various kinds of multi-media which show the superiority of the advanced farming technique and farming method and the ways for their application. The work for securing high-yielding seeds which need a less amount of fertilizer and high-yielding varieties suitable to relevant areas is being pushed ahead vigorously. Much effort is also being directed to turning out large quantities of organic fertilizer by combining agricultural production with stock-breeding in accordance with the world trend in the sector of the rural economy. Farms are producing hukbosan fertilizer with peat and humus soil and other materials, biological activated manure and organic composite fertilizer to carpet them on paddy and dry fields. The Korean People's Army and institutions, enterprises, dongs and neighborhood units across the country are carrying a great deal of minor farm implements and manure to the countryside busy with farming preparation for the year.

• N.Korea's Food Supply Woefully Short of Demand
  North Korea's food supply will fall 1.17 million tons short of its 5.48-million-ton demand this year, the Unification Ministry said in a report submitted to the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee. In December last year, the World Food Programme estimated that the North's food shortage would reach 836,000 tons this year. "The trade volume between the North and China amounted to US$2.78 billion last year, up 41.2 percent from a year earlier," added the ministry. Meanwhile, last year's inter-Korean trade reached $1.82 billion, up only 1.2 percent from 2007. [NK China relations]
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• Australia grants $3.75m aid to N Korea
  January 13, 2009 Australia has granted $3.75 million in humanitarian aid to North Korea. Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said the funds comprised $2 million for the World Food Program for emergency food for North Korea, $1 million for Unicef for emergency water and water sanitation supplies and $750,000 for the Red Cross. "Of course, at this time of year in the northern hemisphere food shortages in North Korea are particularly acute," Mr Smith told reporters on Tuesday. "It is another example of Australia wanting to be a good international citizen, making humanitarian assistance available to North Korea."
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• Assistance to North Korea
  By the Congressional Research Service January 22nd, 2009 Mark E. Manyin, Specialist in Asian Affairs at the Congressional Research Service, and Mary Beth Nikitin, Analyst in Nonproliferation at the Congressional Research Service, describe US assistance to North Korea including energy, food, and other forms of aid. This report looks at the changes in the amount of this aid as well as the issues for the US congress on the provision of this assistance. [US Aid
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• North Korea is expecting 3-ton potato harvest
  December 22, 2008 North Korea is expected to harvest as much as 3 million tons of potatoes next year, a Pyongyang official told Yonhap News Agency yesterday, a significant increase for the nation that suffers from chronic food shortages. The increase was made possible in large part by support and assistance provided by South Korea, visiting South Korean scholars and agricultural officials noted. Seoul and Pyongyang have held annual symposiums on agricultural science since 2000, through which South Korean scientists and officials provide agricultural technology and expertise, with a focus on potato farming, they said. “The potato is fast becoming an alternative staple food amid a worldwide food crisis,” said Lee Yong-beom, a professor from the University of Seoul. “If North Korea is able to produce and distribute seed potatoes and learn to effectively control harmful insects, it should be able to produce between 3.3 million and 4.25 million tons of potatoes annually,” Lee added. A North Korean official attending the inter-Korean symposium said his country’s potato harvest was expected to increase from 2 million tons last year to 3 million tons in 2009. South Korean participants, however, noted the North still remains far from meeting its overall food needs.
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• U.S. Halts Food Aid to N.Korea
  Some 400,000 tons of food aid the U.S. government had promised North Korea through the UN World Food Programme this year have been on hold since August because it is impossible to monitor where the food goes, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. [Aid weapon] [Diversion]
• Dispute Stalls U.S. Food Aid To N. Korea
  A Third of Population Needs Help, U.N. Says By Blaine Harden and Glenn Kessler Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, December 9, 2008; Page A08 TOKYO, Dec. 8 -- A much-heralded U.S. program to restart food aid to North Korea has run into difficulty as Washington and Pyongyang haggle over the terms of access, according to U.S. and overseas officials. The previously undisclosed problems come amid estimates of growing hunger in the isolated communist country. A report released Monday by the U.N. World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization said that despite a better-than-usual harvest, more than a third of North Korea's population will need food aid in the coming year. The agencies' estimate of the number of hungry has jumped from 6.2 million to 8.7 million. U.S. officials noted that food aid delivered via nongovernmental organizations continues but acknowledged that the main effort -- through the World Food Program -- has stalled. They said they are trying to resolve the problems, which concern disputes over the number of U.S. personnel in Pyongyang and Korean-speaking U.N. employees around the country. [Aid weapon]
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• Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, North Korea to sign loan agreement
  Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) - 16/11/2008 (MENAFN - Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development KFAED stated here on Sunday that it will sign a loan agreement with North Korea in a few days which is valued at KD 6.200 million (USD 21.7 million) to help in financing a sanitation system project. In a statement to the media, KFAED added the suggested project contributes in improving the environment and public health by raising the performance of city sewage systems. With this second loan, KFAED financing to North Korea is to come to KD 12.4 million (USD 43.4 million), going into development projects in water and sanitation sectors. This is in addition to technical assistance of KD 153.5 thousand (USD 537,000).

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• DPRK 2004 Nutrition Assessment Report of Survey Results
  Prepared by Central Bureau of Statistics Institute of Child Nutrition Democratic People’s Republic of Korea February 2005
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• Famine in North Korea Redux?
  Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland
  Abstract In the 1990s, 600,000 to 1 million North Koreans, or about 3 to 5 percent of the precrisis population, perished in one of the worst famines of the 20th century.North Korea is once again poised on the brink of famine. Although the renewed provision of aid is likely to avert a disaster on the scale of the 1990s, hunger-related deaths are already occurring and a dynamic has been set in motion that will carry the crisis into 2009. North Korea is a complex humanitarian emergency characterized by highly imperfect information. This paper triangulates quantity and price evidence with direct observation to assess food insecurity in North Korea and its causes. We critique the widely cited UN figures and present original data on grain quantities and prices. These data demonstrate that for the first time since the 1990s famine, the aggregate grain balance has gone into deficit. Prices have also risen steeply. The reemergence of pathologies from the famine era is documented through direct observation. Although exogenous shocks have played a role, foreign and domestic policy choices have been key. [Famine] [Inversion]
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• North Korea Faces Worst Food Crisis in Decade
  By NEIL MACFARQUHAR Published: October 23, 2008 UNITED NATIONS — North Korea is facing its worst food crisis in a decade, with a large shortfall expected this year, according to a new report released by the United Nations on Thursday. At the same time, the number of children suffering from diarrhea has increased sharply.
  Millions of people in the country are facing "severe deprivations" not seen since the mid-1990s, the report said, with the shortfall of food expected to reach more than one and a half million tons this year.
• UN warns of millions could starve in North Korea
  By KWANG-TAE KIM The Associated Press Thursday, October 23, 2008; 1:03 AM SEOUL, South Korea -- The U.N. food agency has warned that millions of North Koreans could face starvation, but a South Korean official said Thursday that Seoul has not decided whether to respond to a request for food aid to the communist country. Around 2.7 million people on North Korea's west coast will run out of food in October, the World Food Program said in a report released on Tuesday. North Korea has relied on aid to help feed its 23 million people since natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its centrally controlled economy in the mid-1990s. Famine is believed to have killed 2 million people. [Media] [Victim] [Context]
• South Korea: There's no North Korea food crisis
  By KWANG-TAE KIM The Associated Press Friday, October 24, 2008; 1:31 AM SEOUL, South Korea -- A South Korean official has disputed the U.N.'s assessment that millions of North Koreans are at risk of food shortages, saying Friday that the impoverished communist country does not appear to face a "serious" food emergency. Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said that North Korea's harvest this year is not bad, citing South Korean civic officials who recently visited the country.
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• N. Korea’s food shortage deteriorating into ‘humanitarian emergency’: WFP official
  80% of the urban population getting food support from acquaintances, hunting-gathering has increased to 70%
  The food situation in North Korea has gone from the “chronic food shortage” stage, past the stage of “severe food and livelihood crisis,” and is deteriorating into a “humanitarian emergency,” said Jean-Pierre de Margerie, director of the World Food Program’s Pyongyang office.
• Seoul Likely to Give N. Korea 3,000 Tons of Steel Products
  By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter South Korea will likely send 3,000 tons of steel products to North Korea late this month as the communist state pledged to resume work to disable its nuclear programs, the Yonhap news agency said Monday, quoting multiple unnamed sources.
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• Latest US Food Aid to Arrive in NK in November
  The latest food aid from the United States to North Korea _ 25,000 tons of corn and other grains _ is scheduled to arrive in the communist state next month, a U.S. radio station reported Friday. The Mary-Ann Hudson, a U.S. cargo vessel which will carry 20,000 tons of corn and 5,000 tons of beans, will depart from a port in Virginia next Thursday and arrive at North Korea's western port of Nampo, Radio Free Asia reported, citing an unnamed source close to the matter, according to Yonhap News.
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• North Korea wants big harvest amid food shortage
  The Associated Press Monday, September 15, 2008; 2:24 AM SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea urged its people Monday to make all-out efforts to reap a big harvest this autumn, saying it wants to resolve the country's chronic food shortage on its own. The North has resorted to outside handouts to help feed its 23 million people since its centrally controlled economy collapsed in the mid-1990s due to natural disasters and mismanagement. The country's food shortage has worsened this year following devastating floods in 2007. [Media] [Victim]
• Seoul to Give Food Aid to North Despite Nuke Setback
  The government on Thursday said it would give food aid to North Korea regardless of the Stalinist country’s claim to be reassembling nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. Asked during a daily briefing if a decision will be made on food aid regardless of the developments, Unification Ministry Spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said, "We'll deliver humanitarian aid" regardless. [Aid weapon]

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• N. Korean Food Crisis Spurs U.N. to Act
  World Body Aims to Feed Millions, Says Hunger Is Worst There in a Decade
  By Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, July 31, 2008; Page A14 BEIJING, July 30 -- With shriveled harvests and a cutback in imports, North Korea has slipped back into a serious food shortage that is causing millions of people to go hungry, the United Nations announced Wednesday. The main U.N. aid agency in North Korea, the World Food Program, has decided to resume emergency operations there in the next two weeks to help feed more than 5 million people over the next 15 months at a cost of $500 million, according to Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the agency's country director in the North's capital, Pyongyang.
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• NZ emergency aid to DPR Korea welcomed
  Statement by NZ-DPRK Society chairman Don Borrie
• New Zealand to provide more food aid for DPRK
  21:28, July 29, 2008 New Zealand said Tuesday it will contribute an additional 500,000 NZ dollars (370,000 U.S. dollars) toward United Nations efforts to address food shortages in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement "North Korea (DPRK) is facing the most severe food shortages since the famine years of the 1990s. There are fears that large numbers of families are being pushed further into hunger and famine and it is important New Zealand does what it can to assist." "The contribution announced today is a practical way New Zealand can ensure that the most vulnerable people in the global community have access to food," said Peters. This contribution followed the 500,000 NZ dollars New Zealand provided via the International Federation of the Red Cross immediately following last year's floods.
• More food aid for North Korea
  Winston Peters
  29 July, 2008
  New Zealand will contribute an additional $500,000 towards United Nations efforts to address food shortages in North Korea, Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced today.
  “North Korea is facing the most severe food shortages since the famine years of the 1990s. There are fears that large numbers of families are being pushed further into hunger and famine and it is important New Zealand does what it can to assist," said Mr Peters.
  “Food prices have tripled in the past year due to the destruction of a significant proportion of the country’s crops in the August 2007 floods and high global food prices.
  “The World Food Programme is the only major international agency addressing the consequences of the food shortage in North Korea. They are a trusted partner for New Zealand’s aid efforts and will help to ensure our assistance gets to those who need it most.
  “The contribution announced today is a practical way New Zealand can ensure that the most vulnerable people in the global community have access to food,” said Mr Peters.
  This contribution follows the $500,000 New Zealand provided via the International Federation of the Red Cross immediately following last year's floods.
• Worst N. Korean Food Crisis Since ’90s
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: July 30, 2008 Filed at 1:58 a.m. ET BEIJING (AP) -- Flooding and poor harvests have caused North Korea's worst food crisis since the late 1990s and have put millions at risk, the United Nations' food agency said Wednesday. The food shortage threatens widespread malnutrition, the World Food Program said. ''Millions of vulnerable North Koreans are at risk of slipping toward precarious hunger levels,'' Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the WFP's country director for North Korea, told a news conference. The WFP had been given permission to launch a new operation to target those most vulnerable in eight of the country's 10 provinces, or 6.4 million people, up from a current 1.2 million.
• PM Clark on aid to DPRK
  Prime Minister Helen Clark replies to Rev Don Borrie
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• Appeal to PM for emergency aid
  NZ-DPRK Society Chairman Rev Don Borrie writes to Prime Minister Helen Clark
  Dear Ms. Clark,
  On behalf of our Society , and our partners in the DPRK, I draw your attention to the famine that is developing in North Korea.
  We ask that the New Zealand Government make a generous and significant Emergency Grant for famine relief. ..//..
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  Seven Additional Drug Enforcement Security Agents Dispatched to Hamheung Seven additional National Security Agents for drug enforcement have been dispatched to Hamheung, South Hamgyong Province, which is known for the hub of drug manufacturing and trafficking. The authorities have maintained strict enforcement policies for several years, as they believe anti-socialist ideas are widely spread and many types of crime, including the manufacturing of ‘Ice’ (amphetamine) are rampant in Hamheung city. [Drugs]
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• Russia Offers Food to DPRK
  Pyongyang, July 9 (KCNA) -- The train carrying the food provided by the Russian Federation to the DPRK through WFP arrived at Sinuiju on July 7. The food offered to the DPRK by the Russian Federation this time is a token of the friendly relations between the peoples of the two countries and an encouragement to the Korean people.
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• North Korea to Widen Access for Aid Workers; U.S. Ship Arrives
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: July 1, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea — A United States freighter began unloading tons of American wheat in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on Monday, as the government agreed to give international aid workers unprecedented access to its isolated, hunger-stricken territory, the United Nations World Food Program said. The shipment is the first installment of 500,000 tons in promised American aid to be distributed by the World Food Program and American groups like Mercy Corps. The aid, and the North Korean agreement to invite 50 more food program experts and a consortium of American relief agencies, followed recent progress in efforts to end the North’s nuclear weapons program.
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• S. Korea to provide unconditional aid to N. Korea
  Change in gov’t position follows first shipment of food from U.S.
  In a reversal, the government has announced that it will provide 50,000 tons of corn to North Korea. Though the South had previously insisted that aid to the North had to be accompanied by a round of inter-Korean talks, it has changed its position and is currently waiting for a reply from the North. During a briefing on June 30, the Ministry of Unification’s spokesperson, Kim Ho-nyon, said, “Even if the South and the North don’t meet, we can provide corn, if the North informs us of the details of how the food will be received in writing or by fax. We will be waiting for a positive response from the North.” [US dominance]
• First U.S. Food Consignment Reaches N.Korea
  The U.S. has started shipments of food to North Korea in the wake of North Korea's nuclear declaration and the blasting of the cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor. A U.S. ship docked in the North Korean port of Nampo carrying 38,000 tons of food, the first shipment of 500,000 tons of food aid promised by Washington, CNN reported Sunday. In memorandums of understanding on food aid with the U.S. and the World Food Programme, North Korea agreed to allow random checks to determine whether the intended recipients are actually getting the food, and to increase the number of foreign personnel working to provide food aid from 10 to 60. [Aid weapon]
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• Price of DPRK rice drops
  Posted Date : 2008-06-26 (NK Brief No. 08-6-26-1) One kilogram of rice in North Korea, the price of which shot up to as much as 4,500 DPRK won last month, has reportedly fallen in price this month by up to 2000 won. According to a North Korean source, on June 10, one kilogram of rice was selling for between 2,500 – 2,700 across the country, quoting prices from cities such as Horyong and Chongjin (North Hamgyong Province), Wonsan (Kangwon Province), Sinuiju (North Pyongan Province), Kangye (Changang Province), Kangso (South Pyongan Province), and Haeju (South Hwangae Province). The source explained, “as soon as rice prices skyrocketed, smuggling in the border region picked up and permission to export 100,000 tons [of grain] came from the Chinese government, and as this occurred, the import food eased a little.” The source also said that spreading news of food aid from the United States was also an important factor in the falling grain prices. However, the source stressed, “While the price is falling, food prices are still more than three times what they were last year, so citizens with no money have a hard time feeding themselves…in agricultural regions with no money, famine is spreading regardless of falling grain prices.”
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• N.K. renovating schools with foreign donations
  SEOUL, Jun 23, 2008 (Asia Pulse Data Source via COMTEX) -- North Korea, which is marking the 60th anniversary of its foundation this year, has stepped up efforts to improve educational facilities across the country with help from foreign countries and overseas Koreans, a pro-Pyongyang Korean-language daily in Japan said Monday. Schools severely damaged by last year's flooding were being rebuilt and old university buildings renovated under a program being pushed by a civilian North Korean fund established to support the country's education sector, the Choson Sinbo said. The program is being actively supported by Australian, Swiss, Vietnamese and Finish charitable funds as well as Korean residents in Canada, said the daily of Chongryon, or the pro-Pyongyang Association of Korean Residents in Japan. [Aid] [Education]
• Mother Earth's Triple Whammy. North Korea as a Global Crisis Canary
  John Feffer
  Gas prices are above $4 a gallon; global food prices surged 39% last year; and an environmental disaster looms as carbon emissions continue to spiral upward. The global economy appears on the verge of a TKO, a triple whammy from energy, agriculture, and climate-change trends. Right now you may be grumbling about the extra bucks you're shelling out at the pump and the grocery store; but, unless policymakers begin to address all three of these trends as one major crisis, it could get a whole lot worse.
  Just ask the North Koreans.
  In the 1990s, North Korea was the world's canary. The famine that killed as much as 10% of the North Korean population in those years was, it turns out, a harbinger of the crisis that now grips the globe -- though few saw it that way at the time.
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• International Food Aid for NK Alerts Seoul
  By Na Jeong-ju Staff Reporter The stalled six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program are showing signs of making progress with the communist regime taking steps to declare its nuclear technologies under an aid-for-disarmament deal. Last week, Japan said it will remove some of its sanctions against the North on condition that it opens an investigation into abductions of Japanese citizens, a long-running diplomatic dispute between the two sides. South Korea, the United States, China and Russia also agreed to speed up their delivery of energy aid, a promise that may encourage North Korea to come clean on its atomic developments. The latest achievements raise the prospects for a fresh round of the six-party negotiations, say officials involved in the talks. The question is: Is it also a good sign for the resumption of the stalled inter-Korean talks?  
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• Kim Jong Il Inspects Foodstuff Factory of KPA Unit
  Pyongyang, June 12 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il inspected a foodstuff factory of KPA Unit 534. He went round the monument to the on-the-spot instructions given by President Kim Il Sung and the room devoted to the history of the factory, conducted by its leading officials. He highly praised the party members and other working people of the factory for their achievements in the past, saying that they have devoted themselves to producing foodstuff for the army, bearing deep in mind the on-the-spot instructions given by the President, and thus greatly contributed to increasing the defence capability. [Military economy]
• China's No. 2 to discuss food aid with N.K. officials
  SHENYANG, June 12 (Yonhap) - Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping will discuss his government's plan to provide food aid to North Korea when he visits the famine-stricken country next week, diplomatic sources here said Thursday. Xi, who concurrently serves as a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, is scheduled to make a three-day trip to the North starting next Tuesday
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• North Korea: The Emergence of Pre-famine Conditions
  by Stephan Haggard, University of California, San Diego and Marcus Noland, Peterson Institute and Erik Weeks, Peterson Institute Op-ed published in VoxEU.org June 7, 2008 North Korea is once again facing a humanitarian emergency. The current crisis is unlikely to reach the magnitude of the famine of the 1990s, when between 600,000 and 1 million people, or roughly 3 to 5 percent of the precrisis population, died.1 During that earlier episode, the North Korean government dithered for years until a full-blown famine was under way before appealing for aid, but this time the global community is more aware of North Korea's vulnerability. The North Korean economy, even in its degraded state, is simply better able to respond than it was then, and one would hope that the leadership in Pyongyang is more sensitive to the plight of its citizenry as well. Yet hunger-related deaths are virtually inevitable if not already occurring (as suggested by unconfirmed reports leaking out through a variety of channels), and a dynamic is being set in motion that will carry the emergency into 2009. The mercerization that the North Korean economy has experienced over the last fifteen years is the product of a largely unintended process borne out of state failure [Victim]
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• China softens food export ban to help alleviate N.K. food shortage: aid group
  By Shim Sun-ah SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- China has recently increased its yearly quota for grain exports to North Korea to 150,000 tons to help ease the food shortage in the North aggravated by severe flooding last year, an aid group here said Monday. The increase was made at Pyongyang's strong request, the Buddhist relief group Good Friends said in its newsletter. China has restricted food exports due to rising domestic demand and soaring global grain prices since the start of this year. It initially allowed only 50,000 tons of corn to be exported to North Korea, rejecting the famine-stricken country's request to export 150,000 tons this year. "The Chinese government has recently decided to permit an additional 100,000 tons of grain exports after Pyongyang strongly requested it again," the newsletter said without mentioning the source of the information. [China-NK relations]
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• All People Give Helping Hand to Countryside
  Pyongyang, June 6 (KCNA) -- All people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea are all out in support of the countryside which is busy with rice transplantation. Ministries, national institutions, organs and enterprises in Pyongyang and local areas are preferentially sending the necessary farming and other materials to the countryside while giving manpower assistance to the farmers. The electric power, machine-building and chemical industries and other related sectors are producing and supplying the necessary electric power, oil, accessories of farm machines and others to the rural economy sector in time according to the farming processes. Public health sector has organized and dispatched treatment teams to the spot to look after the health of farmers and helpers, and housewives in residential quarters are also seen on surrounding farms. All the propaganda and agitation forces including art troupes in the capital and local areas and itinerant art propaganda troupes of industrial establishments and working people's organizations are mobilized to forcefully conduct agitation for increased production in fields. Under the sincere assistance of the whole nation, the cooperative farms across the country are striving hard to wind up the rice transplantation in the most right time. They are introducing advanced methods of nursing rice seedlings and cultivating paddy rice to cope with the unfavorable weather conditions and raising to the maximum the utilization rate of all farm machines such as rice transplanters and tractors. As of the end of May, rice-transplanting has already been completed on many farms including the Mangyongdae Farm in Mangyongdae District, the Chongsan Cooperative Farm in Kangso County, the Wonhwa Cooperative Farm in Phyongwon County and the Migok Cooperative Farm in Sariwon City.
• North Korea Denies Alleged Starvation Deaths: Report
  NORTH KOREA NEWSLETTER NO. 6 (June 5, 2008) SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea admitted that the country is experiencing a dire shortfall in its food supply, but denied claims by aid groups that massive deaths from starvation have begun in the country, a pro-Pyongyang daily in Japan said on May 30. "It's true that our food situation is difficult," said Choson Sinbo, the newspaper of Chongryon, the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, quoting an unnamed official of the North's agricultural ministry. The official, however, "strongly denied" allegations that North Koreans are dying of starvation, said the newspaper, which usually represents Pyongyang's position.
• Lack of Fertilizer Is Most Urgent Problem for N.K. Farmers: Report
  SEOUL (Yonhap) -- A lack of fertilizer is the most urgent problem for farmers in North Korea, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper said on June 3, amid indications that the North's chronic food crisis could extend into next year. Choson Sinbo, organ of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, quoted a manager of a farm in a suburb of Pyongyang as saying that the production of fertilizer is currently a matter of great urgency, adding the central command economy did not provide enough fertilizer this year.
• Food shortage in N. Korea reaching crisis level
  N. Koreans could begin starving in August without food imports or int’l assistance A large number of North Koreans may begin starving to death beginning in August if the government does not dramatically increase its imports of food or find assistance from the international community.   At a seminar on the food situation in North Korea organized by the Korea Rural Economic Institute on June 5, Gwon Tae-jin, a senior researcher with the institute, predicted that the North is likely to be facing a serious food crisis beginning in mid-August and continuing through the fall harvest season. The crisis is expected to worsen throughout the year.
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• Seoul Urges N.Korea to Accept Corn Shipment
  South Korea proposed a meeting with North Korea about sending 50,000 tons of corn to the impoverished nation, but the North has yet to respond, Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong told reporters Wednesday. "We hope North Korea will respond to the offer positively as soon as possible," Kim said. "The government may consider sending aid through the UN World Food Program if the North continues to keep silent on the offer." If the North accepts the offer, the corn will be the first food aid from South Korea since the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak administration started a new ice age in relations.
• Religious and civic leaders call for aid to N. Korea
  S. Korean gov’t aid is the only way to keep regular N. Koreans alive, leaders say » 20 religious leaders gathered at the Korea Press Foundation on June 2 to call on the South Korean government to provide 200,000 tons of food to North Korea, even in the absence of a formal request, saying that the lives of regular North Koreans depend on South Korean aid donations. A wide range of religious and social movement leaders have issued a formal appeal on the Seoul government to "give urgent aid to North Korea in the form of 200,000 tons of food, even if there is no formal request from authorities in Pyongyang."
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• time for helping N. Korea about food shortage
  [Editorial] The World Food Program (WFP) has asked Seoul to participate in the giving of food aid to North Korea. The WFP is a United Nations agency that focuses on food in the developing world and urgent food aid, and it operates an office in Pyongyang. North Korea asked it for urgent aid two weeks ago.
• WFP Asks Seoul for Food for N.Korea
  The UN World Food Program is asking Seoul to send food aid to North Korea. North Korea asked the WFP for food aid in mid-May, and the WFP sent a letter to South Korea last Monday, the Ministry of Unification said on Sunday. The WFP did not specify the amount of food it wants South Korea to provide, the ministry said. The government will consider whether to give food aid to the North after taking into consideration the concrete food condition of North Korea, which will be disclosed based on the WFP's analysis, and public opinion on the issue.
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• N. Korea accuses S. Korea to link some conditions to humanitarian aid
  S. Korea’s “pragmatism” will result in nothing but bedeviling inter-Korean relations, N.Korea said » Following the withdrawal of government officials on March 27, employees of companies doing business in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex return to the South after passing through the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Office. With Lee set to mark his first 100 days in office on June 3, North Korea strongly accused South Korean President Lee Myung-bak of applying “pragmatism” in inter-Korean relations. An editorial writer’s article on May 30 in the North’s official newspaper Rodong Sinmun said, “The pragmatism will result in nothing but bedeviling inter-Korean relations and shame and ill-fated consequences to people.” [Aid weapon]

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• N.K. stops drills, sends troops to help farms: source
  SEOUL, May 28 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's 1.1-million strong military has apparently halted its regular military exercises while its troops help farmers raise crops, a source here said Wednesday. The North's armed services usually hold large-scale inspections and scattered exercises around this time of year ahead of a massive regular summer exercise beginning in August, the source said. However, they appear to have abandoned their primary role for now to help raise crops, according to the source, who asked not to be identified. "We are seeing massive support for farming by North Korean troops stationed throughout the country," he said, noting the scale of the military support also appeared to have significantly increased from previous years. The North's military is often said to render assistance during the farming season, but rarely so frequently that it has to give up its regular exercises [Role NK military]
• Humanitarian aid is not a weapon
  Sin Yeong-jeon, Professor, College of Medicine, Hanyang University [Column] It was not long ago when the whole country as shocked at news about a horrific crime against young children. However, violence has taken the delicate lives of more than just those two girls, Hye-jin and Ye-seul. This very moment there are hundreds of thousands of children not so far away who are dying slowly as they try to subsist on bean leftovers and even by eating dirt.   Groups devoted to helping regular North Koreans are bringing news of the food shortage there now that the peninsula is in the farming calendar’s "spring shortage." Food prices are skyrocketing, and since April there are said to be cases of death by starvation in major cities like Pyongyang, Hamgung and Chongjin. If there are deaths in South Hwanghae Province, a rice farming region, then it would appear the suffering is more severe in other places. [Aid weapon]
• N.K. needs 200,000 tons of food aid to prevent mass starvation: aid group
  By Shim Sun-ah SEOUL, May 26 (Yonhap) -- Mass starvation is likely in North Korea within two months, an aid group here said Monday, asking South Korea to send at least 200,000 tons of food in emergency aid to help the communist state avert a spreading food crisis. The 200,000 tons are the bare minimum with which the people can subsist before the first shipment of U.S. food aid arrives in the impoverished country, said Good Friends, a Seoul-based Buddhist group working to help North Koreans. North Korea faces a shortage of 600,000 tons in June and July, it added. The United States decided this month to provide 500,000 tons of food aid over the coming year, with the conservative South Korean government hesitating to send free aid to its famine-stricken neighbor. [Aid weapon] [US dominance]
• Seoul to Give N.Korea W8.9 Bil. in Construction Materials
  Seoul will send 1,000 tons of copper to North Korea as matching concessions for Pyongyang's nuclear declaration and disablement. The Unification Ministry says the construction materials are worth W8.9 billion (US$1=W1,049) and will be sent to the North over six days starting Thursday. This third batch of South Korean aid falls in line with a six-way nuclear deal under which all parties but Japan agreed to provide North Korea with 450,000 tons of heavy fuel oil and 500,000 tons of construction materials if Pyongyang completes Phase Two of denuclearization.
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• South Korea says massive famine unlikely in North
  The Associated Press Fri, May 23, 2008 (4:22 a.m.) North Korea's food shortages are unlikely to lead to a massive famine like the one that killed up to 2 million people in the 1990s, a South Korean intelligence agency official said Friday. The National Intelligence Service has told Parliament that the North faces a shortfall of about 1.2 million tons of food this year but international aid, including 500,000 tons of food promised by the United States, is expected to address some of the shortage, the official said.
• Asia's Other Crisis
  by Stephan Haggard, University of California, San Diego and Marcus Noland, Peterson Institute Op-ed in Newsweek May 17, 2008 A devastating disaster hits a longstanding Asian dictatorship. The crisis is compounded by failed economic policies and conflicts with neighbors. The world stands ready to help, but the regime dithers and aid goes undelivered. Even information on the catastrophe is scarce thanks to a media blackout, government propaganda, and denial. This story applies, of course, to Burma. But North Korea is also headed toward widespread food shortages and famine. Hunger-related deaths are nearly inevitable, on a scale that could rival Burma's
• Famine in North Korea? The evidence
  To avoid imminent food crisis, Pyongyang urged to be more receptive to international aid [Victim]
• Malnutrition in eastern Indonesia 'higher than in Africa': aid group
  JAKARTA (AFP) — Climate change has helped push malnutrition in the Indonesian half-island of West Timor to levels "higher than in Africa," aid group Church World Service said Friday. A survey of 4,800 households by the group found 61.1 percent of children under five in the region were stunted due to chronic malnutrition, while 13.1 percent of children were acutely malnourished. "The prevalence of stunting and underweight children in West Timor is higher than in Africa," Julia Suryantan, the lead author of the report, told AFP. [media] [Double standards]
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• Seoul May Send Unsolicited Food Aid to N.Korea
  The government could send food aid to North Korea even if the North does not explicitly ask for it, it said after a policy coordination meeting of the Unification Ministry with the Grand National Party at the National Assembly on Monday. The suggestion came from the GNP.  
• S. Korea shifts its position on aid to N. Korea
  Gov’t willing to provide aid without N. Korean request if food shortage is serious » Donghae Port, Gangwon Province, in an archival photo from 1995. The graphic shows current figures for the amount of food needed in North Korea (6.5 million tons), the average amount of food produced (4.5 million tons) and the estimated amount of food produced (3 million-4.1 million tons).   With the announcement of U.S. food aid to North Korea, the South Korean government has relaxed its stance on providing aid to the North. At a press conference on May 19, Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hwan remarked, "If the food shortage proves to be very serious or a huge disaster occurs in the North, the South could offer food assistance." The government has been in a quandary since the United States announced that it would provide food aid to the North. The South has provided approximately 500,000 tons of food to the North in the form of a loan, but this year, it said that it will send food only if the North asks for it. [US dominance]
• Pyongyang Reacts Promptly to U.S. Food Aid Offer
  North Korea on Saturday said through its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), "The food aid of the U.S. government will help settle the food shortage in (North Korea) to a certain extent and contribute to promoting the understanding and confidence between the peoples of the two countries." This announcement came 12 hours after the U.S. offer of 500,000 tons of food aid to the Stalinist country. On Sunday, North Korea also reported on the U.S. offer of food aid through North Korea's state-run Korean Central Broadcasting Station, a broadcaster designed for domestic audience, and Radio Pyongyang, a broadcaster designed for overseas audience. Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University, said, "Such an announcement by North Korean authorities is aimed at achieving multi-purposes, including preventing North Korean residents, who are suffering from food shortage, from growing restless by giving them 'hope' that food will be delivered soon, and letting them know about progress in the improvement of the Pyongyang-Washington ties."
• U.S. to Offer Food to DPRK
  Pyongyang, May 17 (KCNA) -- As already reported, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States of America discussed the food aid issue at negotiations held in Pyongyang on May 6 and 7 to cope with the worldwide food crisis. Accordingly, the U.S. government officially announced its decision to offer 500,000 tons of food to the DPRK on May 16. 100,000 tons are to be offered through NGOs in the U.S. and the remaining 400,000 tons through the WFP. Experts of the parties concerned will soon meet in Pyongyang to ensure the delivery of the first shipment of food before late June. The DPRK is ready to provide all technical conditions necessary for the food delivery. The food aid of the U.S. government will help settle the food shortage in the DPRK to a certain extent and contribute to promoting the understanding and confidence between the peoples of the two countries.
• North Korea welcomes US food aid offer
  The Associated Press Saturday, May 17, 2008; 3:53 AM SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea welcomed on Saturday a U.S. offer of food aid, saying the assistance would help alleviate shortages and improve relations between the two countries. The U.S. State Department said Friday it would provide 500,000 tons of food to North Korea. The decision came amid progress in their nuclear negotiations, although Washington said the assistance was not related to that issue. "The food aid of the U.S. government will help settle the food shortage in (North Korea) to a certain extent and contribute to promoting the understanding and confidence between the peoples of the two countries," the country's official Korean Central News Agency said.
• U.S. to Send N. Korea 500,000 Tons of Food Aid
  State Department Denies Revival of Program Is Tied to Progress in Nuclear Talks
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, May 17, 2008; Page A14 The Bush administration said yesterday it will restart food aid to North Korea and provide it with more than 500,000 tons of food -- the largest one-year amount since 1999. U.S. officials said aid will begin to flow for the first time since 2005 because they reached a breakthrough with Pyongyang on oversight of how the food would be distributed, including random inspections and allowing Korean-speaking aid workers into the country. [Diversion] [Aid weapon]
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• US to announce N Korea food aid package
  By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Published: May 16 2008 04:17 | Last updated: May 16 2008 04:17 The Bush administration on Friday is expected to announce an agreement to resume providing food aid to North Korea, according to US officials. President George W. Bush approved the plan after Pyongyang agreed to a monitoring system that would ensure ordinary North Koreans receive the aid. The US intends to provide 500,000 tonnes of aid over a one-year period starting in June. Washington will channel 400,000 tonnes through the United Nation’s World Food Programme, and another 100,000 tonnes through US non-governmental organisations, including MercyCorps, both of which have worked in North Korea.
• S. Korea between a rock and a hard place on food aid to N. Korea
  Gov’t position on providing food only after N. Korean request damaging its standing in inter-Korean relations » Bags of rice are loaded onto a ship for delivery to North Korea at Masan Port, South Gyeongsang Province, on August 18, 2005. As then, North Korea is currently facing another severe food crisis. The South Korean government is in a quandary on how to provide food aid to North Korea, in another setback for Seoul because its government-level relations with Pyongyang have been strained since the inauguration of the South’s conservative President Lee Myung-bak.   Seoul’s dilemma comes amidst an increase in efforts by the international community to help North Korea, which the United Nations says is facing a severe food crisis. With rapid progress on the issue of the North’s nuclear declaration via the six-party talks aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambition, the United States also said it would send 500,000 tons of food to Pyongyang. However, the South Korean government has continued to reiterate that it will provide food aid to the North, "only if North Korea requests it."
• North Korea must be helped, cry lawmakers
  Government pressed to end ¡®only if they ask for it¡¯ policy May 16, 2008 The South Korean government is in a quandary over sending food aid to North Korea. Legislators are increasingly urging Seoul to offer humanitarian support to the impoverished North despite the government¡¯s stance that it will not offer such aid unless Pyongyang asks for it. Ruling and opposing party lawmakers have raised their voices in unison, saying the South must provide aid to a country that is possibly facing its worst famine in a decade
• North Korea Today – 125 flash
  North Korea Today News Flash is only issued when there are sudden incidents or urgent matters that need to be delivered. Full story of the edition will be released as scheduled.
• Food aid to North moves on fast track
  Made possible by nuclear talks May 15, 2008 Sung Kim, director of the U.S. State Department¡¯s Office of Korean Affairs, shows reporters documents he brought back from North Korea as he discusses the latest developments in the six-party talks, Tuesday. [AP] United States officials yesterday said envoys who visited North Korea earlier this month had ¡°a very good conversation¡± and that Washington will soon announce plans to ship rice to the communist state. The move comes after Pyongyang handed the U.S. 18,822 pages of records concerning its nuclear program. The American envoy described the records as a ¡°complete set,¡± and ¡°an important first step¡± towards verifying the extent of the North¡¯s nuclear efforts. With momentum of Pyongyang¡¯s denuclearization growing by the day, top diplomats from Washington, Seoul and Tokyo are also expected to meet in Washington next week to coordinate the next round of six-party talks aimed at dismantling the North¡¯s nuclear facilities. ¡°The team that went to North Korea had some good conversations about how we might go about improving the monitoring of food distribution,¡± Sean McCormack, spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said yesterday.
• Seoul Willing to Resume Food Aid to N.Korea
  Sacks of rice destined for North Korea are loaded onto a ship at Masan Port, South Gyeongsang Province in August last year. The government is reportedly willing to resume food aid to North Korea despite a chill in relations, albeit through a third party such as an international organization after persistent criticism that direct aid does not reach those who need it most. A government official on Monday said the administration will decide whether to resume food aid to North Korea after consulting with the U.S. "We are deliberating over sending food aid to the North through the World Food Programme or the U.S.," he said. [Aid weapon] [US dominance] [Diversion]
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• South will help North end food crisis if it's asked
  There are growing signs of a thaw in chilly relations with Pyongyang May 12, 2008 Seoul is discussing with Washington and international organizations ways to ease North Korea¡¯s food shortage, according to Yu Myung-hwan, minister of South Korea¡¯s foreign affairs and trade. Yu, who also heads the presidential foreign security policy coordination council that replaced the National Security Council of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, said the current Lee Myung-bak administration seeks ¡°an active dialogue and cooperation with Pyongyang¡± just as did its liberal predecessor. ¡°We¡¯ve learned from satellite images that North Korea had a crop shortage of at least one million to 1.4 million tons,¡± explained Yu in an exclusive interview with the JoongAng Ilbo. ¡°So we are having talks with many international organizations including the United States on ways to facilitate humanitarian aid.¡±
• Inside North Korea: Trouble Ahead?
  - Report on the food crisis and the social situation in North Korea
  By Good Friends Presenter Venerable Pomnyun Sunim
  1. Food Crisis Since 2006 2. North Korea Food Price Trend 3. Food Situation Articles Compilation From the North Korea Today 4. Chronology of Intensifying Control Since 2007
• DPRK-U.S. Negotiations on Food Aid Held
  Pyongyang, May 8 (KCNA) -- The U.S. food aid delegation visited the DPRK from May 5 to 8. During its visit, negotiations on humanitarian food aid were held between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States of America. They had in-depth and good negotiations.
• Dying of Starvation: Hunger in North Korea
  Research Institute for North Korean Society Introduction North Korea has been having chronic difficulties feeding its population on an almost annual basis. The reasons are manifold and well known. They include low temperature, very irregular precipitation, too little arable land, deforestation that makes floods even worse, droughts that can’t be fought properly by irrigation systems because of a lack of electricity, an industry that fails to produce enough fertilizer, and an inefficient agricultural economy that suffers from the limitations of a socialist system. North Korea’s comparative advantage clearly is not in staple food production. Imports, however, would need financing by a functioning export industry which does not exist in North Korea as a result of socialist inefficiency, high military spending and international isolation. In this environment survival has hinged on unilateral transfers from the outside, but these rarely come without strings attached. The leadership in Pyongyang has been quite successful in playing its major neighbors and adversaries against each other and using the nuclear issue as a means to hold international attention span so as to assure external aid. As reports like the one below indicate, it has apparently not been sufficiently successful in staving off famine. [Victim]
• U.S. officials in Pyongyang to discuss humanitarian aid
  S. Korea still insists on receiving a formal request from the North before it will contemplate assistance » North Korean children jump rope in Pyongyang on January 1. The World Food Program has warned that North Korea will suffer a severe food shortage this year if foreign food aid cannot be found.   A group of U.S. government officials are in North Korea to discuss providing food aid to the North, while the South Korean government has maintained its stance of only resuming humanitarian aid to North Korea if the North asks for assistance.   Kurtis Cooper, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, was reported to have said that about five U.S. officials will stay in Pyongyang for an unspecified amount of time. While there, they will try to come to agreement with North Korea on how to guarantee that American food aid can be delivered to North Koreans who really need it. Cooper told the Associated Press that the United States has continued to discuss the issue with North Korea, but that no conclusive agreement had yet been reached.
• U.S. plans hefty aid for Pyongyang
  May 07, 2008 Zoo workers at Children¡¯s Grand Park in Seoul decontaminate bird cages yesterday to prevent the spread of avian flu, which may have broken out in a nearby aviary in the Gwangjin District Office. By Kim Sang-seon As Washington is reportedly preparing to send 500,000 tons of rice to Pyongyang, South Korea will continue close consultations with the United States, Korea¡¯s Foreign Ministry said yesterday, The ministry confirmed that a team of U.S. government officials is visiting North Korea to discuss the food aid, amid growing worries that the impoverished nation is slipping back to where it was in the 1990s when as many as 2 million people starved. ¡°North Korea is known to be suffering because of a poor harvest following last year¡¯s floods and recent hikes in grain prices,¡± Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said at a press briefing. The aid comes at a sensitive time. The United States has said that there have recently been major advances in talks with North Korea on dismantling the North¡¯s nuclear program. Aggravating the North Korean food situation is a slowdown of aid from two of North Korea¡¯s key donors — China and South Korea.
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• North Korea on the Precipice of Famine
  Stephan Haggard, University of California, San Diego Marcus Noland, Peterson Institute for International Economics Erik Weeks, Peterson Institute for International Economics May 2008
  North Korea is once again headed toward widespread food shortages, hunger, and famine. As of this writing, the prospect of hunger-related deaths occurring in the next several months is approaching certainty. This expectation is based on four pieces of evidence, which we outline in this brief: • Food balances are as precarious as at any time since the great famine. • Access to aid or commercial imports is limited by diplomatic tensions and the world food crisis. • Domestic food prices show the kind of extreme price inflation that is typical of pre-famine or famine settings. •
• How to Feed North Korea
  Monday, May 5, 2008; Page A16 South Korea's criticism of North Korea's human rights record need not prevent its providing food and fertilizer to hungry people in the North ["S. Korean Principles vs. Hunger in North," news story, April 30]. Hunger should know no politics, as President Ronald Reagan declared to justify food aid to Ethiopians starving under a brutal communist regime in the 1980s. Since Kim Jong Il, out of anger or pride, will not request the aid, South Korea should donate it to the World Food Program for distribution up north. The agency has a long track record of delivering food in North Korea and of monitoring, albeit imperfectly, where it goes. If concerns persist about diversion to the communist elite and military, South Korea should donate protein biscuits, barley and millet, as recommended by Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, which will be more likely to reach the poor than will rice, which the elite and the army prefer. And it should direct its aid to areas where there is known hunger, such as the northeast. South Korea need sacrifice neither humanitarian nor human rights principles in dealing with North Korea. ROBERTA COHEN   Washington The writer is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the board of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.
• DPRK seeks solutions for sharp drop in food shortages
  Posted Date : 2008-04-28 (NK Brief No. 08-4-28-1) Recently, the North Korean press has been repeatedly reporting on the fall in grain production around the world and the rising international grain prices, displaying concern as all efforts are being put forth to resolve the ‘food issue’. (North) Korean Central Television broadcast on the 20th, “Internationally, food prices have risen steeply, raising a great amount of concern,” and, quoting results of an international survey announced on the 10th, “Globally, the price of foodstuffs has risen an average of 48 percent from the end of 2006 until now.” Previously, on the 18th, the broadcasting station introduced the fact that the food situation was worsening, quoting an announcement from the UN Food and Agriculture Association (FAO) when reporting that “last year, grain stocks amounted to 2100 tons less than the previous year, the smallest reserves in 25 years.”
• DPRK eyes potatoes as answer to food shortages
  Posted Date : 2008-04-30 (NK Brief No. 08-4-30-1) The North Korean ‘Labor Newspaper’ has introduced potato production as the answer eyed by international organizations and individual countries to what it describes as the worsening worldwide food crisis caused by skyrocketing grain prices. The paper, a publication of the Workers’ Party, ran an article on April 20 titled, “Rising Interest Regarding Potato Production,” in which it described the situation caused by worldwide food prices that have been rising quickly since January. The article reported that in the case of “most countries”, 25-40 percent export taxes were being levied on flour, corn, rice, beans, and other important grains in order to build up domestic grain reserves. The article went on, “In order to break free from the worsening food situation, international institutions and a variety of countries around the world” are looking for solutions, and among these, potatoes are receiving much attention. The paper also pointed out that the United Nations labeled this year ‘International Potato Year’.
• North Korea Heading Towards Famine: Report
  Published: April 30, 2008 Filed at 12:44 a.m. ET SEOUL (Reuters) - Soaring global food prices and reluctant donors are pushing North Korea back towards famine, which could see the secretive government turn even more repressive to keep control, a paper released on Wednesday said. "The country is in its most precarious situation since the end of the famine a decade ago," said the paper from the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics. Stephan Haggard, who wrote the paper with Marcus Noland, said the sharp increase in world prices for commodities had sent ripples through the communist state's economy [Sanctions]
• North Korea Today – 122: famine
  
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• Don't hesitate on food aide to North Korea
  [Editorial] North Korea appears to be facing a serious food shortage. The U.N. World Food Program, which has staff stationed in Pyongyang, said that the North is facing the threat of a major famine on the scale of a similar one in the mid-1990s. Crop yields have decreased by one quarter compared with previous years due to floods that swept the nation last summer and the fact that international grain prices have skyrocketed have left the North even more vulnerable. According to WFP data, grain prices at the market have risen as much as 186 percent in recent weeks, hitting a global high. Moreover, South Korea, Japan and the United States are using food as leverage for negotiations with the reclusive nation. It is not difficult to see that the North is facing its worst situation to date. [Aid weapon]
• International year of the potato
  Asia and Oceania includes the world's potato giant, China, which accounts for more than 20 percent of both the global potato-growing area and the world potato harvest. Several other Asian countries - Bangladesh, India, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Japan and Turkey - also figure in the world's top 20 potato producing countries. Some of the world's best yields are recorded in New Zealand - on average, around 42 tonnes per hectare.
  Democratic People's Republic of Korea Production, 2007 Harvested area 190 000 ha Quantity 1 900 000 t Yield 10 t/ha Consumption, 2005 Population 22 488 000 Food consumption 1 410 000 t Consumption/capita 59.49 kg Source: FAOSTAT The potato was introduced to the Korean peninsula - probably from China - during the early 1800s. It became a staple crop during the Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945, replacing rice exported to Japan, and saved many farm families from starvation during the Second World War. The potato remains an essential food security crop in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In 2007, it produced an estimated 1.9 million tonnes, placing the country among Asia's top 10 producers. The area under potato has grown from 36 000 ha to almost 200 000 ha since 1960, while potato output has increased fourfold over the past decade. Farmers' average yields, however, have barely improved over 1960 levels, mainly owing to shortages of agricultural inputs and the lack of virus-free seed potato. To boost production, the government is promoting a "potato farming revolution" - innovations include a low-input potato-rice cropping system that produces, in a relatively short growing season, 11 tonnes of potatoes and rice.
• FAO: Crop Prospects and Food Situation, April 2008
  In the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the 2007 cereal harvest is officially estimated at some 3 million tonnes (rice in milled terms), some 1 million tonnes lower than the record of the previous year and 750 000 tonnes below the five-year average. With this low 2007 production, the cereal deficit for the 2007/08 marketing year (November/October) is estimated at 1.66 million tonnes (see Box) Severe food shortages in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea In addition to long-standing economic constraints, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was severely affected by floods in 2007 and continues to suffer from serious food shortages. Based on the most recent Government estimates, total cereal production in 2007 is about 3 million tonnes (milled base, or 3.6 million tonnes unmilled), a significant reduction from the 4 million tonnes of the previous year and the five-year average of 3.7 million tonnes. The major cereal losses were in maize, 33 percent down from the previous year, and in rice 25 percent down from the previous year. Potato production was estimated to have increased by 80 000 tonnes (in cereal equivalent), or 17 percent from the previous year. Soybean output also reportedly increased.
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• N.K. discusses food shortage in Cabinet meeting
  North Korea has recently convened a Cabinet meeting to discuss food shortages, China's Xinhua News Agency said Sunday, as international concerns grow over the North's economic woes. The North's Cabinet recently held an enlarged session and decided to address the chronic shortages of food and consumer goods, the news agency said, citing a recent edition of the cabinet daily Minju Joson. "The meeting also decided to focus national efforts on developing such major industries as electricity, coal mining, metal and transportation this year," Xinhua said.
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• Famine Looms in North Korea
  S. Korean workers from Korea Red Cross carry aid supply kits for N. Koreans at the branch of Red Cross in Seoul (File) The United Nations World Food Program warns North Korea is facing a potential humanitarian food crisis. This follows last year's devastating floods, which resulted in a critically low harvest. The WFP says quick action is needed to avert looming food shortages in a country where millions of people already live on the verge of starvation. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.
• Many may perish in a looming famine in North Korea.
  Dong Yong-sueng (Samsung Economic Research Institute) It is reported that 1 kilogram of rice is currently traded at 1,700 North Korean Won in NK marketplaces. It is too steep an increase in price considering 1 kg of rice was about 1,000 NK Won even around the same time last year even when food prices in NK had soared dramatically as food aid from South Korea was delayed due to factors such as NK nuclear issue. This is because there is a large shortage of food supply in the market. Last year, provisions for the army were reportedly distributed to some regions in an attempt to stabilize the rice price, but this year, there appears to be no such movement. This is probably because of a shortage of food reserve in NK, but, at the same time, it could also be due to the possibility of NK being unable to release reserve food due to uncertainties of North-South relations and NK nuclear issue
• N.K. asks China for massive rice aid: report
  North Korea recently asked China to provide massive rice aid for its hungry people amid a flare-up in tensions with South Korea, a news report said Friday.     Pyongyang has also decided not to request rice and fertilizer aid from South Korea until Seoul moves to improve ties, the report by the vernacular daily Hankyoreh said.   It cited a diplomatic source who is well informed about North Korea-China relations and an unnamed South Korean official who recently returned from a trip to Pyongyang.   Seoul's Foreign Ministry said it did not hear of such a request.
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• Seeking resolution, U.S. offers rice to N. Korea
  Distribution methods to be monitored to ensure transparency » Food donated by the World Food Program helps to feed these North Korean children, who are having a meal in a kindergarten near Mount Myohang. The photo was taken in 2006. The United States has proposed giving 500,000 tons of rice to North Korea and is working on ways to guarantee transparency in the distribution of the rice, it has been confirmed.   The news is particularly notable because it comes at a time when the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue are all but stalled over Pyongyang’s declaration of its nuclear programs [Aid weapon] [Agreement070213] [HEU]
• N.K. short of 1.66 mln tons of grain this year: report
  SEOUL, March 26 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has produced 3 million tons of grain last year, which means the impoverished country will be short of about 2 million tons by this year's fall harvest season, a recent U.N. report said. "North Korea's grain production for last year was far below the 4 million tons of crop produced in 2006 and the average 3.7 million tons for the past five years," the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a recent report covered by Radio Free Asia Wednesday.
• North Korea Today – 116 supplement
  
• North Korea Today – 116
  
• S. Korea will continue humanitarian aid to N. Korea
  Aid will be offered regardless of progress in nuclear issue
  » PYONGYANG - North Korean farmers plant corn near the North Korean city of Pyongyang on March 11. North Koreans have experienced severe shortages of food and fertilizer since mid 1990s. The administration of former President Roh Moo-hyun provided several hundred thousands tons of food and fertilizer annually as a loan under the 'sunshine policy' initiated by former President Kim Dae-jung. Photo courtesy of the Korean Central News Agency/Yonhap. President Lee Myung-bak, speaking at a press conference on March 22, said that he would continue to offer humanitarian aid to North Korea, separate from the nuclear issue. The president also touched on the idea of having an inter-Korean team participate in the Beijing Olympics and commented on the new administration’s economic policies. [Aid weapon]
  
• U.S. official visits S. Korea to discuss N.K. food shortage
  A U.S. State Department official visited South Korea to assess North Korea's food situation amid reports of a worsening food shortage in the communist state, a government source here said Thursday. Mark Phelan, an analyst in food security at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, spent two days in Seoul from Monday for talks with related Unification Ministry officials and aid activists, the source said. [Aid weapon]
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• Photos of N.Korea Diverting Rice Aid to Army Revealed
  The South Korean military captured North Korean authorities in flagrante delicto diverting rice intended for humanitarian purposes to the military, taking pictures near the Demilitarized Zone between 2006 and 2007 with a high-performance camera while monitoring the movements of the North Korean military.     In one photo (left), North Korean soldiers load rice sacks with a clear Red Cross mark onto a truck. Rice provided by South Korea as humanitarian aid bear a Red Cross mark, unlike rice provided in the form of loans. In another photo (right) the Red Cross-marked sacks are moved to guard posts. The photos were reported to the Unification Ministry and Cheong Wa Dae under the previous government, and to President Lee Myung-bak's transition team last month. Since 2003, the South Korean military has caught North Korea diverting more than 400 sacks of rice over 10 occasions to soldiers in frontline units. [Diversion] [Evidence] [Disinformation]
• In N. Korea, food shortages growing more severe
  Drought and high corn and soybean prices overseas bring many to verge of starvation
  The food shortage in North Korea is reportedly growing more severe due to a triple blow from a recent spate of dry weather, a regular season of spring food shortages and higher prices of crops overseas.     In a recent newsletter, the Good Friends, a South Korean aid group, said that only those people in North Korea with relatively good living conditions have managed to live on daily meals, while poorer people have been on the verge of starvation in advance of spring, typically a season in which food shortages are at their most severe. [Victim]
• Giving Until It Hurts
  For a decade, Stephen Linton has been battling an epidemic of tuberculosis -- and the world's most obstinate bureaucracy -- in North Korea, a country few foreigners are allowed to even see
  By Stephen Glain Sunday, March 9, 2008; Page W16 STEPHEN LINTON IS BEING HUSTLED THROUGH THE DARKENING CORRIDORS of Hadan Tuberculosis Hospital in western North Korea. It took him three hours to get here from Pyongyang, the capital, which is linked tenuously to Hadan by 50 miles of deeply rutted and washed-out roads. A diminutive man with a craggy face and patrician silhouette, Linton has just finished unloading a cache of medical supplies, and now the hospital director, who wears a white lab coat and a head covering that could double for a baker's hat, wants him to observe a surgery. But they'll have to hurry: It's already late in the November day and, in a country where electricity is tightly rationed, a surgery's outcome can hinge on how much sunlight is pouring through operating room windows. [Media] [Victim]
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• India Donates Food to DPRK
  Pyongyang, February 5 (KCNA) -- The Indian government donated food to the DPRK. Present at the presentation ceremony held at Nampho Port on Tuesday were officials concerned and Indian Ambassador to the DPRK Zile Singh.
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• UN Renews Calls for Aid to N.Korea
  By Yoon Won-sup Staff Reporter A U.N. human rights envoy said Thursday that South Korea needs to provide humanitarian aid to North Korea without conditions based on effective monitoring of its use. Vitit Muntarbhorn, the special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea of the United Nations, said in a press conference in Seoul that it is a general principle to give emergency aid without reciprocity. His remarks came in response to Seoul's move to link humanitarian aid to Pyongyang with progress in other issues such as South Koreans kidnapped by the North. President-elect Lee Myung-bak has pledged to bring reciprocity to inter-Korean relations. Muntarbhorn said that he got impression that various aspects of human rights will emerge as important issues for the incoming government. [Aid weapon]
• Famine and the Market: North Korea Meets Keynes
  Anna Fifield and Ruediger Frank
  We present two articles on the market response to North Korean famine.

• North Korea Today – 99
  
• Christian group may give aid to North
  November 23, 2007 The Anglican Domain, one of the world’s largest Christian groups, will discuss providing regular aid to poverty-stricken North Korea when it holds its major conference next year, a South Korean priest said yesterday. Members of the Anglican Domain, which was founded in 1534 in England, visited North Korea earlier this month to deliver medical supplies and farm equipment. They held a peace rally at the Kumgang Mountain resort, said Kim Hyun-ho of the Anglican Church of Korea.
• North Korea Today – 98
  
• U.S. pledges US$4 million to provide electricity for N. Korean medical facilities
    The United States has pledged US$4 million to help provide electricity for North Korean hospitals, a U.S. government broadcaster said Tuesday.   Citing an unidentified North Korea source in Washington, the Voice of America said the U.S. State Department will provide the aid through four global aid agencies -- EugeneBell Foundation, Mercy Corps, Samaritan's Purse and Global Resource Action Center for Environment.
• North Korea Today – 97
  

 
• N. Korea may face famine acute as mid-1990s next year, S. Korean researcher warns
  North Korea is expected to suffer from an acute food shortage next year and could face widespread famine as severe as that it suffered in the mid-1990s in the wake of devastating floods this year, a South Korean state-run research institute warned Thursday. The floods are likely to cut North Korea's autumn agricultural output by as much as 500,000 tons, nearly a tenth of the country's "minimum demand" for grains, said Kwon Tae-jin, a senior researcher at the Korea Rural Economic Institute. Overall food shortages in North Korea, which is still recovering from the famine in the mid-1990s, are believed to reach about 1.4 million tons, compared with the country's grain consumption of 5.2 million tons, the researcher said.
• Update on North Korea Flood Situation and Urgent Appeal from CFK:
  A report and an appeal from the American NGO Christian Friends of Korea
  October 10, 2007
  A CFK team returned last night from a visit to North Korea. The purpose of the visit was to confirm the arrival of an air shipment of emergency medicines, sent in partnership with Medical Teams International in response to the recent flood disaster, and valued at over $1,000,000USD. We were able to confirm delivery of the entire shipment, visiting multiple warehouse and hospital facilities involved in the distribution process. Despite our short time in country, we traveled outside of Pyongyang and heard reports from local officials regarding the extent of the flood damage in the local areas. Some places were completely cut off due to high waters for 2 weeks or more, and damage was very severe in many communities.
• U.S. Considering Massive Food Aid to N.Korea
    . After agreeing to the supply of heavy fuel oil to North Korea, the U.S. is also considering giving it large-scale food aid, chief presidential secretary for national security Baek Jong-chun said Monday. In a meeting with media editors, Baek said, "The U.S. is considering giving a considerable amount of food aid (to the North) purely from a humanitarian viewpoint. I understand that there will be a bilateral meeting to discuss this matter." [Aid weapon]
• North Korea Today – 87
  

• NK Expresses Gratitude to Seoul Over Flood Aid
  North Korea expressed gratitude to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun for sending a letter of condolences over recent floods that reportedly ruined 10 percent of the communist country's cropland, a South Korean official said Saturday. Citing massive rain-caused floods in late August thatreportedly left more than 600 people killed or missing, North Korea had postponed until early October a scheduled inter-Korean summit of leaders in its capital in late August.
• DPRK Hit by Wipha-accompanied Downpour
  Pyongyang, September 21 (KCNA) -- The downpour brought by the typhoon Wipha traveling from Shandong Peninsula of China to the north of the West Sea of Korea fell in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for consecutive days from September 18. In particular, the amount of rainfalls in some areas in the western coast reaches nearly 50 percent of that in the period from August 7 to 14.
• Education of N. Korean children affected by flooding
  Students must travel long distances, attend schools without roofs: UNICEF
    Floods in August destroyed hundreds of schools across North Korea and about 35,000 students are without classrooms, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. In an e-mail interview with Voice of America on September 14, UNICEF's office in Pyongyang said 316 buildings in 261 schools were fully or partly destroyed. In addition, 81 school buildings in Gangwon and South Pyeongan provinces were fully destroyed by the devastating floods, according to the report
• S. Korea sends emergency aid to N. Korea
    South Korea Monday sent the first batch of its emergency aid to North Korea to help the communist country cope with the damage from flash floods, officials said. "We sent 30 5-ton trucks to North Korea via the overland route in the morning. Later in the day, an additional 30 trucks of aid will be delivered," said an official at the Unification Ministry. By the end of this month, other aid such as materials and equipment will be delivered, while cement will be sent by the end of next month, the official said.
• UN: North Korea Needs Immediate Food Aid
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: September 7, 2007 Filed at 1:20 p.m. ET BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Thousands of people in North Korea require immediate and continued humanitarian food aid after devastating floods last month, the U.N. World Food Program said Friday. The agency said villagers and farmers ''suffered extensive losses of food stocks, livestock, and private kitchen gardens'' -- all critical for winter. The heaviest downpours in 40 years and subsequent floods swept across North Korea last month, leaving at least 600 people dead or missing and about 100,000 people homeless, North Korea has said.
• N Korea flood damage understated
  By Anna Fifield in Seoul Published: September 6 2007 10:57 | Last updated: September 6 2007 10:57 The floods that struck North Korea last month have had a much more devastating effect than Pyongyang's state media have reported, with livestock deaths and a disrupted ration system adding to widespread food shortages, according to the United Nations' World Food Programme. North Korea has a history of exaggerating damage from natural disasters in order to win more aid from the outside world - which many analysts suspect is then diverted to the military - but this does not appear to be the case this time. [Media]
• North Korea receives Russia’s humanitarian cargo
  05.09.2007, 17.15 PYONGYANG, September 5 (Itar-Tass) - Two planes of the Russian Emergencies Ministry have delivered a 53.5-tonne cargo to residents of flood-stricken regions of North Korea. The humanitarian consignment includes 20 multi-seat tents, 25 tonnes of rice, 10 tonnes of sugar, over 6 tonnes of meat preserves, 5 tonnes of milk preserves and 3 tonnes of baby food, an Emergencies Ministry official, who accompanied the cargo, told Itar-Tass on Wednesday. The total cargo is estimated at 4.2 million roubles. The Russian authorities allocated another 15,500 euros for ground servicing of Il-76 planes that landed in Pyongyang earlier in the day. According to the North Korean state planning committee, the humanitarian consignment will be delivered to a central storehouse to distribute goods to the affected regions.
• Vietnam to give flood-hit North Korea $50,000 aid
  Vietnam will provide US$50,000 in emergency aid to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) which was hit by devastating floods last month. At least 600 people were reported dead or missing after the floods and 1 million others were affected, with thousands injured and many more left homeless. The country also suffered severe damage to its infrastructure after landslides and rain left hundreds of kilometers of roads and railways inundated.
• Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Emergency Aid to DPRK
  Pyongyang, September 5 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK gave the following answer to a question put by KCNA Wednesday as regards the emergency aid given by the international community to the DPRK struck hard by flood: In August unusual torrential rain hit almost all parts of the DPRK, causing huge human and material losses. Hundreds of people were reported dead or missing and more than 241,000 houses were destroyed, bringing the number of flood sufferers to at least 963,000.
  This time the DPRK received medicines and other emergency aid materials given by international organizations including the UN and many countries including China, the U.S., the EU, Russia, Australia and Egypt with sincerity. The DPRK feels thankful for this aid. It will help the DPRK recover from the flood damage and bring the living of the inhabitants in the afflicted areas to normal.  
• DPRK FM Sends Message to EC Commissioner for External Relations
  Pyongyang, September 5 (KCNA) -- Pak Ui Chun, foreign minister of the DPRK, sent a message to Benita Ferrero-Waldner, commissioner for the external relations of the European Commission. In the message Pak expressed thanks for the deep sympathy the commissioner extended as regards the flood damage in the DPRK and for the decision made by the EC to offer a humanitarian aid. Such sympathy and aid will promote mutual understanding and trust and encourage the Korean people in the endeavors to heal the aftermath of the natural disasters, the message said.
• World Vision responds to 'worst humanitarian crisis in a decade'
  by Katie Chalk
  World Vision staff in South Korea attended an afternoon ceremony at Inchon Harbor on 20 August to celebrate the shipment of 2,000 relief kits to assist flood survivors in North Korea. World Vision is the first international aid agency to send supplies to North Korea's families and children, currently affected by devastating flooding that is considered the country's "most serious humanitarian crisis in a decade."
• Gov't Orders More Flood Aid to N.Korea
  The government decided to use W49.3 billion from the inter-Korean Cooperation Fund to send supplies to North Korean flood victims at a meeting of the Inter-Korean Cooperation Support Committee (US$1=W939). Of that amount, W37.4 billion will be spent on purchasing equipment and construction materials, W10 billion on transportation and W20 billion on a U.N. program for North Korea. The government will send 100,000 tons of cement, 5,000 tons of iron bar,
• Aid Group in First Direct U.S.-N.Korea Flight in 50 Years
  A U.S. humanitarian organization has set a landmark by chartering a direct flight to airlift aid for North Korean flood victims. Samaritan's Purse president Franklin Graham said on the organization's homepage Sunday, "We've been told that this airlift is the first direct flight from the U.S. to North Korea since the Korean War." The aid organization sent goods to the North on a chartered Boeing 747, which took off in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday and landed in Pyongyang on Friday. Worth US$8 million, they include antibiotics, drugs and plastic housing materials.
• North Korea unusually open about flood damage, UN says
  By Mark Chisholm PYONGYANG, Sept 2 (Reuters) - North Korea has responded to outside help after devastating floods with unusual openness, a top U.N. official in the country said, but added providing assistance to the reclusive state was still a massive challenge. Jean-Pierre de Margerie said the floods, which left at least 600 dead, had also left hundreds of thousands homeless and destroyed farmland and infrastructure, a blow to a country that faces chronic food shortages. "The level of damage to infrastructure, to communications, to crops, to farmland and to households, is considerable," said de Margerie, who is the acting U.N. coordinator in North Korea as well as the World Food Programme's country representative. "The breakthrough that happened with the floods a few weeks ago is that the government has improved its level of cooperation by giving us unprecedented access to the field to conduct our assessments of the damage," he said.
• U.S. Offers Flood Aid to N.Korea
  The U.S. said Friday that it is prepared to talk with North Korea about aid for victims of the recent devastating floods. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in a statement, "As President (George W.) Bush has noted, the American people are compassionate and concerned about the people of North Korea. Therefore, the United States is prepared to engage with North Korean officials on arrangements for a significant food aid package, including appropriate monitoring procedures." [Spin]
• U.S. willing to discuss food aid to N.Korea
    The United States said Friday it is willing to talk with North Korea about resuming "significant" food aid to help relieve flood damage, a shift from a decision in 2005 to suspend the assistance due to lack of proper monitoring. [Aid weapon]
• U.S. medical aid arrives in North Korea
    North Korea's foreign minister Friday met with a U.S. delegation bringing emergency medical supplies to help North Korean victims of recent floods, the North's official news outlet said.
• Pak Ui Chun Meets U.S. Guests
  Pyongyang, August 31 (KCNA) -- DPRK Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun met and had a talk with U.S. guests on a visit to the DPRK at the Mansudae Assembly Hall Friday. They have brought with them emergency medical aid donated by the U.S. administration and civic organization "Samaritan's Purs" to help the DPRK recover from flood damage.
• Drive to Clear away Flood Damage Brisk in DPRK
  Pyongyang, August 30 (KCNA) -- Officials and working people in various parts of the country are now busy with the drive to clear away the flood damage. The Cabinet, commissions and ministries are taking concrete actions to preferentially supply cement and steel and other necessary materials to those units hit by flood on the basis of the specific information about the damage. A brisk drive is now under way in the flood-stricken areas under the concern of the whole state and society and with their positive support. Working people in Sinphyong, Koksan, Singye, Yonsan and Sohung counties of North Hwanghae Province which were hard hit by the flood are busy reconstructing the destroyed dwelling houses and public buildings, bringing the living of the inhabitants to normal and keeping the inundated farm land in good order.

• EU Earmarks Flood Aid for N.Korea
  The European Commission has allotted 2 million euros (W2.56 billion) for emergency relief for the estimated 500,000 North Korean victims of the recent massive floods. "The reports received from our field office in North Korea and from all our humanitarian partner organizations have confirmed the disastrous situation faced by hundreds of thousands of North Koreans," Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said on the commission's website.
• Tokyo considers aid for N Korea flood victims
  By David Pilling in Tokyo and Anna Fifield in Seoul Published: August 30 2007 03:00 | Last updated: August 30 2007 03:00 Japan is considering sending aid to North Korea following devastating floods this month, in a sign that the government of Shinzo Abe, prime minister, may be prepared to soften its stance towards Pyongyang.
• NZ aid for DPRK flood victims welcomed
  NZ-DPRK Society Media release 29 August 2007
  The NZ Government is to be congratulated for its decision to make through the Red Cross an emergency grant of $500,000 for victims of the recent devastating floods in North Korea.
  This grant together with $20,000 from Christian World Service and $5,000 from the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand Global Ministries Fund will be gratefully received by North Koreans who have lost relatives, lost homes, lost their summer harvest, lost transport infrastructure.
  We are reliably informed by the DPRK NZ Friendship Society that the 12 August floods destroyed 30,000 homes for over 63,000 families. Tens of thousands of hectares of farmland inundated, buried under silt or washed away. 800 public buildings were destroyed as were over 540 bridges, 70 sections of railroad, and 1,100 vehicles, pumps and electric motors.
  The NZ Friendship Haksan Farm had 100% of vegetable fields completely washed away and 150 hectares of rice planted fields buried in water.
  Our New Zealand grants will barely touch the surface of need but the Korean people will know that New Zealanders care.
  Don Borrie, Chairman
• Aid for flood recovery flowing into the North
  August 29, 2007 South Korea will contribute emergency aid to North Korea worth more than $1.4 million in response to a United Nations appeal to help the communist country recover from flood damage, officials said yesterday. "The UN set the amount of emergency aid needed for North Korea at $14 million, so the government decided to take up a little more than 10 percent," a South Korean official said, asking to remain anonymous. "The UN will soon announce exact figures."
• 'Human Rights Before Aid for North Korea'
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter A group of 20 conservative civic organizations Tuesday urged the government to actively address North Korean human rights issues as a main agenda item during the Oct. 2-4 inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang. [Aid weapon] [Manipulation]
• North Korea flooding is the worst in history
  Over 600 are dead or missing, 400,000 are homeless and 1 million tons of food will be lost
      New reports from North Korea show that the country has suffered the most serious flood disaster in its history. As of August 26, more than 600 people are either dead or missing and over 400,000 residents are homeless. Damage to farmland was also severe, causing a loss of approximately 1 million tons of this year's harvest.
• NZ flood aid for North Korea
  21 August 2007
  New Zealand is to give $500,000 to the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) to help people affected by serious flooding in North Korea, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said today.
  “Torrential rain and flooding has caused widespread devastation across North Korea, with Kangwon province the most seriously affected. Preliminary reports indicate hundreds of casualties and over 63,000 families left homeless," Mr Peters said.
  "When a disaster like this occurs, it’s important that New Zealand does what it can to assist.
  "Our funding, which will be provided through the government’s aid agency NZAID, will help the IFRC provide emergency food and shelter.
  “The IFRC is already active in North Korea, so it is well placed to carry out evacuation and relief activities, and to assist with the rebuilding of homes and livelihoods as soon as practicable," Mr Peters said.
• North postpones Arirang festival once again due to flooding
  August 28, 2007 Due to severe flooding in the country, North Korea has temporarily suspended Arirang, its regular series of mass games, the country’s state-run media reported yesterday. The Korea Central News Agency said the mass gymnastics and dance performances will be canceled for the time being because laborers around the nation are being mobilized for flood recovery projects. The report said the Arirang festival will resume after North Korea recovers, but did not give any specific date.
• Flood Toll in N.Korea at 454 Dead, 156 Missing
  Floods in North Korea have left at least 454 dead, 156 missing, and 4,351 injured, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Sunday. In a comprehensive compilation of reports on flood damage from North Korean authorities and international agencies, UNOCHA said torrential rains in early August affected more than 436,000 residents in six provinces and 92 counties in North Korea.
• Tremendous Flood Damage in DPRK
  Pyongyang, August 25 (KCNA) -- The continuous torrential rain that hit all parts of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from August 7 caused great manpower and material losses. �@Heavy rains registering more than 500-800 mm struck at least 150 cities and counties, claiming big casualties and losses in properties and doing serious damage to all the sectors of the national economy. �@According to the information available from the Central Statistics Bureau, torrential rain, strong wind and landslide left at least 600 people dead or missing and thousands of people wounded.
• Floods Leave 610 Dead or Missing in NK: UN
  At least 610 people were killed or missing in devastating floods that pounded North Korea earlier this month, twice the number previously announced by the communist country, a U.N. agency said Sunday. The report by the United Nations' humanitarian coordination office (OCHA) confirmed an announcement by North Korea a day earlier that at least 600 people were killed in the downpours, the worst in decades. The U.N. report, a compilation of figures from Nort Korea and international relief groups, said the rain-caused floods also left 4,351 people injured and 169,561 others homeless. According to the report, 40,463 houses were completely destroyed, 67,056 were partially damaged and 3,732 were submerged. The floods also destroyed 20 percent of rice paddies and 15 percent of corn paddies, which would cause 1 million tons in lost production. The North Korean government emphasized the need for international aid of medicine and health care, raising the possibility of the spread of infectious diseases, the report said. Citing figures from the Central Statistics Bureau, North Korea's state media said on Saturday that the floods caused huge damage to all sectors of its economy, leaving at least 600 people dead or missing, which is about the double of earlier figures.
• [Flood Special 2] North Korea Today – 86
  A Blow to Grain Production in the Fall
  13,884hectres of Land Washed Away in North Hwanghae province
  Flood Recovery Work Begins in Sineuiju
  Price of Rice in Hamheung Rises as High as 2,000won
  Rapid Increase in Acute Diarrhea Patients
  All Railroad Operations Suspended
  Except for Pyongyang - Sineuiju Route
  Entire Mountain Collapses in Gangwon Province
  Emergency Appeal for Feminine Hygiene Products
  Human Casualties Lower than Last Year
  North Hamgyung, Suffering Because of Famine Rather than Flood
  Officials in Hoeryung Rationed Maize and Potatoes
  Price of Rice Rises to 1,300won in Onsung
• [Flood Special] North Korea Today – 85
  Concentrated Rainfall Cuts-off Traffic and Communications
  Nation-wide Flood Affected, Except for Chungjin
  Orders for Emergency Flood Prevention Reiterated
  Drought and Lack of Drinking Water Causes Problems
  Extensive Damages in Pyongyang
  Words Spread that South Korean President to Make a Visit
  Selling their Apartment to Procure Food
  National Defense Committee Begins Inspections in Hoeryung
  Due to Rice Shortage, Corn and Potato Being Distributed in Hoeryung
  Still No August Food Distribution in Pyongyang
  Hoeryung, Price of Rice in Fluctuating Around 1,100 Won
  Lack of Firewood Adds More Pressure on the Food Situation
  Railroad Workers ‘Better-off’ than Others
• North Korea Today – 84
  Price of Rice Increases to 1,200won in Sineuiju
  Part of Yomju County has Eaten only Potatoes for One Month
  Must Keep Quiet about Deaths Caused by Starvation
  Officials Make Oaths Not to Produce Any Deaths from Starvation
  Sharp Escalation in Danger of Contagious Tuberculosis 
  Urgent Need for Large Amount of Antibiotics
  Doctors’ Days are Extremely Busy
  People Very Upset Over Market Crackdowns
  Starting August 1st, New Passes to Cross the Border Issued
• S. Korea to provide extra emergency aid to N. Korea
  South Korea decided Friday to provide 37.4 billion won (US$40 million) worth of cement and heavy equipment in extra aid to help North Korea recover from flood damage, Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said. "At a meeting of relevant ministers presided over by the prime minister, we decided to give cement, iron bars, trucks, fuel, road restoration equipment and pitch to North Korea at the earliest possible time," Lee said in a weekly press briefing. Lee said it will cost up to 10 billion won to arrange for the aid and the delivery will be made starting from mid-September. The aid will consist of 100,000 tons of cement, 5,000 tons of iron bars, 80 trucks, 500 tons of gasoline, 20 road restoration vehicles and 20,000 tons of pitch.
• Regarding the Flood Aid for the North
  At the contacts of the South-North liaison officers at Panmunjom, it is decided that the South deliver 7.1billion won worth of urgent relief supplies by land to Bongdong station, near Gaeseong from August 23 to 25. In addition, 21 private organizations notified the Ministry that they would give the North about 14.8billion won in total.
• N Korea lets in aid after flood disaster
  By Anna Fifield, Koreas Correspondent
  Published: August 23 2007 03:00 | Last updated: August 23 2007 03:00 Impoverished North Korea, the world's most secretive state, is being forced to open its doors to international aid following devastating floods that have killed hundreds of people and wiped out more than 10 per cent of crops. The heaviest rain in four decades has sparked a crisis that has significant political ramifications as it is forcing Kim Jong-il's regime to relax its usual restrictions on the movement of foreigners in the country. [media]
• U.N. relief agencies announce emergency aid to North Korea
    U.N. relief agencies announced Tuesday emergency aid to flood-ravaged North Korea and appealed to the international community for donations. The World Food Program (WFP) said the North Korean government accepted its earlier proposal and agreed to food distributions over a three-month period to 215,000 people across the country. The deliveries "will begin immediately," the agency said in a press release.
• Relief Activities of DPRK Red Cross Society
  Pyongyang, August 21 (KCNA) -- The DPRK Red Cross Society is intensifying relief activities to heal the flood damage and to stabilize the people's life in the flood-stricken areas. The society dispatched emergency relief groups to the affected areas. And it helps supplying emergency relief goods to the inhabitants on the spot in the areas in close contact with its provincial branches. The South Hamgyong Provincial Red Cross Branch has investigated in detail the losses in various places including Jongphyong, Kumya, Kowon counties hit hardest by the flood and taken necessary measures. It also called upon the Red Cross volunteers in the province to turn out in the emergency relief activities for the victims. Lots of residents and more than 2,300 volunteers in the province are taking part in the activities.
• Roh Sends Sympathy to Kim Jong-il Over Floods
  President Roh Moo-hyun has written to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to express sympathy to North Korean flood victims. In a letter Monday, Roh expressed hope that North Korea will soon restore damaged facilities and relieve the suffering of its people from devastating floods earlier this month. Roh promised to pitch in to help the North, and looked forward to frank talks for the peace and co-prosperity of the two Koreas in an October summit with Kim. The letter was delivered by a South Korean liaison officer to a North Korean liaison officer at the truce village of Panmunjeom on Monday afternoon, the first such delivery, Cheong Wa Dae said. In the past, secret envoys have delivered such letters.
• Unusual Weather Patterns Prompt Ideas on Climate Change
  Many people were caught in a sudden rain shower in Seoul's Jongno district around 10 a.m. Monday. At the same time there were also downpours of 0.5 to 4 mm in Seodaemun-gu, Dongdaemun-gu and Jungrang-gu. The Korea Meteorological Administration, however, hadn't forecast any rain for those areas that day. Korea has had six days of rain so far this month, an average of one every three days. The showers are so frequent that some people believe Korea's climate is becoming like that of subtropical regions of Southeast Asia.
• N. Korea faces food shortage of over 400,000 tons this year
  North Korea is likely to face a shortfall of more than 400,000 metric tons of food this year due to recent heavy floods in spite of massive outside aid, a U.S. government-funded radio station reported Tuesday. Citing experts on North Korea, Voice of America (VOA) reported that the communist country might run a deficit of 400,000 tons of food even even if it receives aid from South Korea and the international community. Devastating floods are believed to have destroyed a revised 14 percent of the North's farmland, South Korean officials said. [Media]
• Int'l Red Cross appeals for aid to North Korean flood victims
  The International Red Cross appealed Monday for US$5.5 million in aid to help victims of one of the heaviest floods in North Korea. The main objective is to provide basic emergency medicines in the two worst-affected provinces in the southern part of the country that suffered serious damage to the health infrastructure, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a statement posted on the web. At least 89,000 people are completely homeless from the floods, according to Jaap Timmer, the federation's chief representative in North Korea, "but with clinics and hospitals put out of action and drug supplies ruined, the number of people whose lives have been impacted is far wider, and they need the international community's help." "The situation is worsening as people are falling sick due to the poor hygiene conditions," Timmer said. "A lot of people with watery diarrhea are being treated daily, and it's because of the contaminated water they are using." More than 200 people are feared dead from the heaviest rains in 40 years than began earlier this month. The IFRC said up to 40 percent of health facilities and supplies have been destroyed. In a rare move, Pyongyang quickly disclosed the damages and sought international assistance. Australia on Sunday promised $2 million in emergency food aid to be distributed by the World Food Program.
• Severe flooding in DPRK – NGOs respond
  (US The National Committee on North Korea)
  With hundreds dead or missing after incessant rain and wide-spread flooding affecting over 10% of corn and rice crops destroyed, the following US NGOs are working with the DPRK to respond to the crisis. Short-term aid may include food, medicine, clothes, tools, water purification and temporary shelter; long-term needs will be evaluatated. Please see NGO websites for more information. This website will be updated regularly as NGO responses develop.
• S.Korea to Send Flood Aid to North via Land Route
  The South Korean government's emergency relief aid to North Korea will be delivered over land starting Thursday. Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung announced Sunday that Pyongyang following Seoul's aid proposal on Friday has agreed to accept the aid package via land routes, deemed the fastest delivery method. Two hundred trucks will deliver medicine, daily necessities and food worth W7.1 billion (US$1=W950) to the North's border city of Kaeseong after the South Korean National Assembly approves the plan. Minister Lee said the government is also reviewing ways to provide about US$3.2 million to a civilian aid group that plans to give $16 million worth of assistance to help the neighboring country recover from severe floods.
• North Korea makes all-out efforts to recover from floods
  North Korea is intensifying efforts to recover from recent flood damage, the North's state media reported Monday, as heavy rains have relented since last week. Devastating floods are believed to have destroyed 11 percent of the North's farmland, and the number of dead and missing is estimated to reach more than 300, with the homeless numbering about 300,000. An estimated 46,580 homes of 88,400 families were destroyed or damaged, according to the North's media. According to reports, North Korea is focusing on restoring production, power supply, communications and other facilities as well as roads, with its government and other national agencies engaged in rehabilitation work.  
• Seoul to ship emergency flood aid to N. Korea this week
  About 7.1 billion won (US$7.5 million) worth of emergency relief aid will be shipped across the heavily-fortified inter-Korean border to North Korea late this week to help the communist nation recover from recent flood damage, Seoul's point man on North Korea said Sunday. "We offered to swiftly send relief supplies via land routes considering the seriousness of the North's flood damage and its urgent need for outside help, and Pyongyang accepted our offer," Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung told reporters.
• Whole Country Is out to Rehabilitate Flood Damage
  Pyongyang, August 18 (KCNA) -- A campaign for healing the flood damage is being dynamically launched in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The Cabinet, ministries and national institutions set out on the rehabilitation work in provinces, cities and counties in a big way, paying primary attention to it. Ministries and national institutions including the State Planning Commission, Ministry of Construction and Building-materials Industry, Ministry of Metal Industry and Ministry of Light Industry preferentially supply cement, steel and other necessary materials to the work and push ahead with the work for stabilizing the living of the people in the flood-stricken areas at an early date. The Ministry of Food Procurement and Administration and the Ministry of Commerce provide food and essential foodstuffs to the people in the flood-hit areas ahead of others. Officials of the Ministry of Public Health, along with medical teams, have rushed to Munchon City and Yangdok, Koksan, Sinphyong, Chonnae counties and other areas, carrying a large quantity of medicines with them. The Ministry of Railways has concentrated efforts on rehabilitating the destroyed rail-roadbeds, railway bridges and communication facilities. The DPRK Red Cross Society handed over emergency relief goods including blankets, tents, kitchen utensils and water purifying pills to 16,000 families in the afflicted areas. More than 13,400 Red Cross volunteers have evacuated victims to safe places and are striving hard for the stabilization of their life.
• Pyongyangites Are All out to Heal Flood-Damage
  Pyongyang, August 19 (KCNA) -- The Pyongyang citizens have turned out to heal the flood damage. �@The City People's Committee is directing primary attention to rehabilitating the destroyed dwelling houses and stabilizing the people's living in the afflicted areas. �@Great efforts are being made to restore the flood-stricken major objects such as facilities of production, power supply and communications and roads to the original state  
• North Korea Today
  83rd edition
  Good Friends: Centre for Peace, Human Rights and Refugees
• Seoul to Send W7.1 Bil. Aid to Flood-Hit North
  By Yoon Won-sup Staff Reporter South Korea will send 7.1 billion won ($7.5 million) worth of emergency aid to North Korea, which is continuing to suffer from the effects of recent heavy rain the Ministry of Unification said Friday. Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said in a press briefing that the government has decided to send instant noodles, bottled water, blankets and medical supplies to the North and he will discuss the details with Korea Red Cross Chairman Han Wan-sang.
• U.S. provides humanitarian aid to North Korea's flood victims
  The United States said Friday it was giving US$100,000 humanitarian relief to North Korea's flood victims through non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The U.S. Agency for International Development announced it was providing aid to help North Korea as it copes with "severe destructive impact" of recent floods. Two NGOs, Mercy Corps and Samaritan's Pursue, would each receive $50,000 to provide blankets, shelter materials, water containers and other needed supplies, the agency said.
• Seoul to Send Relief Aid to N.Korean Flood Victims
  The South Korean government decided Thursday to send emergency relief supplies to North Korea following massive flooding in the communist country. The government began discussions with the Korea National Red Cross on what kinds of supplies to collect and when to send them. The government plans to discuss with the KNRC ways to first send urgent relief materials such as flour, noodles, blankets and clothing and then send heavy construction equipment needed to fix damaged facilities.
• Flood Damage in Coal Industry
  Pyongyang, August 17 (KCNA) -- The recent downpours and strong rainstorms hit hard the coal industry in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. According to the data available, more than several hundreds of thousands of tons of coal were washed away and some 400 pits, cutting faces and stopes were submerged or collapsed. Over 90 industrial buildings covering at least 11,700 square meters and 30-odd public buildings covering over 40,000 square meters were totally or partially destroyed. More than six hundreds coal mining facilities including electric motors, compressors, tram cars and transformers were inundated.
• Flood-Damaged Railway Sector under Rehabilitation
  Pyongyang, August 17 (KCNA) -- The railway transport has been heavily damaged by the torrential rains which have poured from August 7 in the DPRK. �@According to data available, rail-roadbeds covering some 78,000 cubic meters were washed away at more than 100 sections, railroads were cut off by some 62,400 cubic meters of stones and earth triggered off by landslide at some 200 sections and four tunnels were under water throughout the country. Heavy rains destroyed railway retaining walls of more than 36,000 cubic meters at 57 sections and over 280 meter-long railway bridge beams. Thirteen electric transformer substations for railway were flooded, more than 1,160 poles for railway communication and some 120 concrete poles destroyed or collapsed. The natural disaster has paralyzed the passenger and freight transport of railway.
• We Must Help N.Korea's Flood Victims
  North Korea's flood damage is reportedly very serious. According to a report to the UN World Meteorological Organization, Pyongyang saw 205 mm of rainfall on Aug. 11, Yangduk in South Pyongan Province 225 mm on Aug. 9, Shingye in North Hwanghae Province and Pyonggang in Gangwon Province 183 mm and 157 mm respectively on Aug. 10. The rains started on Aug. 7 and continued until Aug. 16. One can imagine the level of recent rainfall by comparing it to the monthly average of precipitation in South Korea in July, which is 272 mm.
• Damage by Flood Increased in DPRK
  Pyongyang, August 16 (KCNA) -- Flood-damage is further increasing in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. �@The continued heavy rainfalls across the country have done a huge damage to people's living and the national economy. �@As of August 14, more than 46,580 houses for over 88,400 families have been destroyed totally or partially and flooded in Pyongyang, North and South Hwanghae provinces, North and South Phyongan provinces and Kangwon and South Hamgyong provinces, leaving over 300,000 flood-victims. �@More than 11 percent of paddy and dry fields throughout the country were inundated, buried or washed away, some 55,000 square meters of railway roadbeds were carried away and over 400 industrial establishments were submerged under water.
• Heavy Rains Throws Shadow over Prospect of Agricultural Production
  Pyongyang, August 15 (KCNA) -- Unprecedented torrential rains have poured down in the DPRK for days in succession from August 7, throwing a shadow over prospect of the agricultural production. It is hard to expect a high grain output owing to the uninterrupted rainstorms at the most important time for the growth of crops in the country. Department Director of the Ministry of Agriculture Ri Jae Hyon told KCNA that the damage to farm crops by the current torrential rains is heavier than the previous ones in our country. As of August 14, more than 11 percent of rice and maize fields were submerged, buried or washed away taking the country as the whole, he added. At least 26,000 hectares of paddy and dry fields were completely inundated in South Phyongan Province and 20,000 hectares of paddy and dry fields in South Hwanghae Province at a time when farm crops are coming into ears. These provinces are main granaries of the country.
• Flooding in North Korea kills and displaces hundreds
  S. Korea plans relief effort and Int'l Red Cross Committee calls for aid
    Torrential rainfall has pounded North Korea since August 7 and international aid organizations as well as the South Korean government are planning to launch an emergency relief effort for the communist nation. According to a report by North Korea's state-run Korea Central News Agency on August 14, hundreds of North Koreans have died or are missing and the houses of over 63,000 families have been destroyed or submerged. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that there are more than 300,000 flood victims in North Korea.        
• U.S. to consider flood aid to North Korea
  The United States would consider humanitarian aid to help North Korea following massive floods there, the State Department said Tuesday. The reports of extensive damage has "caught our attention," department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. "If there is a humanitarian need, we will take a look and see if we could help out in some way," he said. The decision would be "based on needs and whatever we might have to offer," he said.
• Up to 300,000 may be homeless in North Korea floods
  By Jon Herskovitz Reuters Wednesday, August 15, 2007; 2:28 AM SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean authorities have indicated flooding may have left up to 300,000 people homeless, a U.N. aid agency spokesman said on Wednesday, and crop losses may be severe in the impoverished state that has battled famine.
• Huge Damage by Torrential Rain
  Pyongyang, August 13 (KCNA) -- The torrential rain that hit the DPRK from August 7 has persisted, causing huge human and material damage. According to the preliminary information available from different parts of the country as of August 12, the torrential rain left hundreds of persons dead or missing and destroyed more than 30,000 houses for over 63,300 families or rendered them inundated
• 'Hundreds dead' in N Korea floods
  Tuesday, 14 August 2007, 13:05 GMT 14:05 UK
  The flooding follows days of torrential rain in North Korea Flooding in North Korea that has killed hundreds of people is worse than last year's massive floods, officials have told the World Food Programme (WFP). North Korea was devastated by seasonal floods in August last year. Hundreds of people are thought to have died, although exact figures are not known. Heavy rain has swollen rivers, flooding huge areas of farmland and destroying thousands of homes, state media said. North Korean authorities have asked the WFP, the UN's food agency, for help. "Our understanding is that the damage is very extensive. It has affected a greater area than the floods of last year," Paul Risley of the World Food Programme told the BBC News website.
• DPRK Hit by Torrential Rains
  Pyongyang, August 9 (KCNA) -- The rain front staying in the middle of Korea has brought about torrential rains to some west and east coastal areas of the country. �@According to the observation data between 00:00 on Tuesday and 09:00 on Thursday, it rained in mountainous areas North Hwanghae Province 300-400mm and in some areas of South Phyongan, Kangwon and South Hamgyong provinces 100-200mm. �@In particular, Koksan County of North Hwanghae Province had 431mm of precipitation. And Yangdok County, Phyongsong City and Tokchon City of South Phyongan Province witnessed rainfalls of 309, 193 and 145mm respectively, while Hoeyang, Sepho, Popdong, Phyonggang and Phangyo counties of Kangwon Province rainfalls of 378, 209, 190, 182 and 178mm respectively. In Kowon County and Hamhung City, South Hamgyong Province, it rained 160 and 145mm respectively. �@A heavy rain hit Jangyon and Monggumpho areas in South Hwanghae Province between 03:00 and 06:00 on Tuesday. �@The deluge of rain has inflicted a heavy damage to agriculture and other sectors of the national economy and people's living in the relevant areas.
• Swiss Cooperation Office Hosts Reception
  Pyongyang, August 2 (KCNA) -- Country Director of the Swiss Cooperation Office of DPRK of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Katharina Zellweger Wednesday hosted a reception on the occasion of the national day of the Swiss Confederation. Present there on invitation were officials concerned, diplomatic envoys of various countries and representatives of international organizations here. Speeches were made there.

 
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• U.N. relief agency considers stepping up food aid to N. Korea
  A U.N. relief official said North Korea currently receives only a small portion of the food aid it needs and his agency is considering stepping up aid to feed almost 2 million more people, a U.S. government-funded radio station reported Saturday. In an interview reaching here Saturday through the Korean version of the VOA's Web site, Robin Lodge, a spokesperson for the World Food Program (WFP), said international relief agencies, including the Office of Food for Peace, recently gathered in Rome, Italy and discussed the possibility of sending the communist state additional food that could feed 1.9 million people there.
• North seeks medicine, even if expired for a year
  July 11, 2007 A letter from a Red Cross hospital official in North Korea did not mince words. "We welcome any donation of medicine, even if its expiration date has passed," the official said. Moon Kyung-tae, vice chairman of the Seoul-based Korea Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, said yesterday the official sent the letter through a civic group, Unification Affairs Research Institute, in February. The North is willing to take medicine that has expired for up to a year, Moon said, and also was willing to accept responsibility for any problems that might arise.
• Some rice will be sent by rails to Pyongyang
  July 10, 2007 South Korea will start sending 50,000 tons of rice aid to North Korea by road next week, as part of its promised loan of 400,000 tons of rice, officials said yesterday. While 350,000 tons of rice will be delivered by sea, 30,000 tons will be delivered via rail in the west of the Korean Peninsula, and another 20,000 tons will be delivered via an east coast rail line, a Unification Ministry official said. The two Koreas conducted a historic test of the reconnected railways across the border in mid-May. [Railway]
• Vehicles Donated to Korean Farm
  Pyongyang, July 5 (KCNA) -- The New Zealand-DPRK Society donated vehicles to the DPRK-New Zealand Friendship Haksan Co-op Farm, Hyongjesan District, Pyongyang. A presentation ceremony was held at the farm on Thursday. Present at the ceremony were Pak Kyong Il, chairman of the DPRK-New Zealand Friendship Society, and other members of the society and officials of the farm and Peter Wilson, member of the New Zealand-DPRK Society, who is on a visit to the DPRK.
  Prior to the ceremony, the participants looked round cozy houses, a kindergarten and a nursery there and Haksan-ri People's Hospital and enjoyed an art performance.
• The Battle for Rice Aid to N. Korea
  [Analysis] The timing will almost certainly prompt divisive conflicts in political circles
    Lee Byong-chul (merrycow)
  Published 2007-07-03 09:44 (KST)   The South Korean government has again become an attractive target for right-wing rage. Yet the government is certainly set to be "colorblind" in pursuing its North Korean policies. The government resumed rice aid to North Korea on June 30 after more than a year as Pyongyang takes a step toward fulfilling an international agreement aimed at disarming the North's nuclear weapons program. [Aid weapon] [Dilemma]
• South Korea resumes rice aid to North Korea amid optimism in nuclear standoff
      A South Korean ship carrying rice left for North Korea on Saturday as the North took a step closer to shutting down its main nuclear reactor, officials said. On Tuesday, South Korea pledged to resume rice aid to North Korea after more than a one-year hiatus as the North allowed international nuclear inspectors to visit its main nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, the first step to fulfill an agreement signed in February to disarm its nuclear weapons program in return for energy and other assistance. [Aid weapon] [Dilemma]

• S. Korea to resume rice aid to N. Korea this week
        South Korea will resume shipping rice aid to North Korea on Saturday after more than a one-year hiatus as the North takes steps toward nuclear dismantlement, South Korea's unification minister said Tuesday. [Aid weapon]
• Seoul Increases Aid to Pyongyang via Global Agencies
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter South Korea has been increasing aid to North Korea via international relief agencies amid mounting criticism of its direct aid to the Stalinist North, which has not yet dismantled its nuclear weapons program. The Ministry of Unification plans to provide aid to the North seven times this year through international agencies, including the World Food Program (WFP), ministry officials said.
• S.Korea to Give N.Korea Food Aid Via UN
  By JAE-SOON CHANG The Associated Press Wednesday, June 13, 2007; 2:49 PM SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea plans to provide North Korea with 50,000 tons of corn via a U.N. food agency, an official said Wednesday, despite Seoul's decision to delay official food aid until after Pyongyang starts dismantling its nuclear program. The government also plans to send 10,500 tons of rice directly to the Communist country as part of emergency flood aid pledged last year, the official said on customary condition of anonymity, citing policy. [Aid weapon] [Dilemma]
• WHO and Republic of Korea continue support for women and children's health in DPRK
  13 FEBRUARY 2007 | SEOUL -- A World Health Organization (WHO) and Republic of Korea project to improve the health of women and children in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) continues into its second year. The US$ 20 million project, funded by the Republic of Korea, will benefit five million people in the DPR Korea.
• CFK Team Visits North Korea over Easter 2007

• Foreign NGOs in NKorea try to counter culture of dependence
  by Philippe Agret
  To cope with the pouring rain, the hospital tossed sawdust down the stairway leading to the operating theatre. Two surgeons washed their hands in a sink, but sometimes they lack soap. Much like the rest of North Korea, a political pariah and economic black hole, the nation's hospitals subsist with whatever they can get their hands on, making ends meet with obsolete equipment, short-cut procedures and a smattering of foreign assistance.
  Like others NGOs, the group has set a goal of bringing the most basic treatment to the population -- but also to encourage North Koreans to develop their own medical infrastructure. Premiere Urgence's primary effort has been producing intravenous drips -- one of the only medical supplies made in North Korea -- for the 12 hospitals where it works.

• Rice Aid Depends on First Step, Seoul Tells Pyongyang
  Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung on Monday said Seoul will start sending rice aid to Pyongyang once North Korea starts meeting its obligations under a Feb. 13 six-nation agreement. He indicated the North can get rice aid if it honors just one of the requirements -- shutting down its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon or readmitting inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency [Dilemma][Aid weapon]
• Seoul to link aid to shutdown of North Korean nuclear reactor
      South Korea has told North Korea it is important that the North start shutting down its key nuclear facilities as agreed in the six-nation talks on its nuclear program in February before Seoul resumes rice aid shipments, Seoul's point man on the communist nation said Monday. [Aid weapon]  
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• Seoul Agrees no-Strings Rice Aid to North
  The Tongjeon Tunnel on the Donghae railway, 3.8 km from the Southern Military Demarcation Line in Goseong County, Gangwon Province. North and South Korea agreed to conduct test-runs on two inter-Korean railways -- the Gyeongui railway in the west and Donghae railway in the east -- in May. South Korea has agreed to send 400,000 tons of rice worth W108 billion (US$1=W928) including transport costs to North Korea starting late May. The agreement came in the 13th Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Promotion Committee talks concluded in Pyongyang on Sunday, where the two also agreed on a trial run of two cross-border railways on May 17. [Aid weapon]  
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• With North dragging feet, South put in difficult position regarding aid
  [Analysis] North's failure to meet six-party deadline means South's oil, rice shipments thrown into jeopardy
        North Korea has not yet shut down its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, meaning it has missed the deadline set under the February 13 agreement forged at the six-party talks to end its nuclear program. If the North does not carry out the agreed steps until April 20, the South Korean government will inevitably have to abrogate its contract to ship 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to the North, which it was supposed to give the North in exchange for shutting down its nuclear reactor under the terms of the six-party talks agreement. Observers are worried the contract the Seoul government made with an oil company may have to be completely reworked and will result in a large loss of money. [Dilemma]
• WFP Aid Drive for North Korea Falls Short
  The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) has only been able to gather one-fifth of the amount of recovery aid it is seeking for North Korea, with less than a year left in the aid program, the Yonhap News Agency in Seoul reported Monday. Quoting the agency's tally, the report said a resource update for North Korea dated Thursday showed the WFP received donations totaling just short of $21 million, accounting for 20.53 percent of the aimed $102 million. The donations include $3.2 million carried over from previous operations, the report said. Russia remained the biggest donor with $5 million, which is almost 5 percent of the total, it said. Switzerland provided $2.57 million. Germany donated $1.66 million, according to the report. Other contributors include Cuba, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Italy and Poland.
• Seoul Could Delay Rice Aid to N.Korea
  Seoul could delay shipment of 400,000 tons of rice to Pyongyang unless North Korea shuts down its nuclear facilities this week. The South promised the rice aid in inter-Korean ministerial talks in March. On Saturday, North Korea missed a deadline to shut down its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon under a Feb. 13 six-nation agreement. [Aid weapon]
• UCAN: Caritas team visits North Korea, agrees to expand aid
  4/9/2007 UCANews (www.ucanews.com) SEOUL, South Korea (UCAN) – A Caritas Internationalis (CI) team recently visiting North Korea reached an agreement with local officials to continue and expand aid for medical and food-producing facilities.
  Bishop Lazarus You Heung-sik of Daejeon, president of Caritas Corea, led a 10-member team on the March 27-31 visit. "North Korean officials told me they were ashamed and disgraced to let us know the real situation of some places, but they did," Bishop You said at an April 3 press conference in Seoul. The North Koreans badly need aid from CI, he observed.
• BDA Dispute Won't Delay Rice Aid for N.Korea: Seoul
      Seoul says it will send 400,000 tons of rice to Pyongyang even if North Korea does not shut down its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon by April 1, the deadline stipulated in the Feb. 13 six-nation agreement. Implementation of the agreement hit a snag because North Korea has yet to receive some US$25 million that had been frozen in a Macau bank.
• The First Shipment of the Fertilizer Aid
  March 26, 2007 The First Shipment of the Fertilizer Aid A Vietnamese vessel carrying the first shipment of 6,500 tons of composite fertilizer will leave the southern port of Yosu for the North's western port of Nampo at 2:00pm on March 27, 2007. * The second vessel carrying 6,000 tons of composite fertilizer is planned to depart from the port of Yosu for the port of Nampo on March 30, 2007. * Additional shipment schedule will be fixed according to the internal procedure.
• North Korea admits food shortages
  South Korea has resumed some aid shipments to the North North Korea has made a rare admission that the country faces food shortages and needs help from outside, an aid official has said. Pyongyang has asked the World Food Programme to expand its assistance to meet the gap, the WFP's regional director Tony Banbury said. [Media]
• UN agency warns that millions are going hungry in North Korea
  The Associated Press Published: March 28, 2007
  BEIJING: North Korea is facing one of its biggest food shortages in 10 years, with millions of people going hungry because of a poor harvest and a huge drop in donor aid, a United Nations official said Wednesday. The official, Anthony Banbury, Asia director for the United Nations World Food Program, returned recently from a six-day trip to North Korea. He said that officials there had said they faced a food gap of one million tons and had asked the UN agency to expand its assistance, a rare admission and plea for help from the North Korean regime. While a shortfall in the food supply has been a recurring problem in recent years, North Korea has been able to compensate through "multilateral food aid through the WFP, bilateral assistance and commercial imports," Banbury said. But a weak harvest in 2006, disastrous flooding over the summer and a decrease of about 75 percent in donor assistance have dealt severe blows to the impoverished nation, he said. [Victim]

• Seoul to Resume Relief Aid to N. Korea Next Week
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter South Korea will resume the long-delayed flood relief aid to North Korea next week as part of its humanitarian aid program to the communist country, the Ministry of Unification said Thursday.
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• Fertilizer aid to North to resume
  March 17, 2007 South Korea will start shipping fertilizer to North Korea later this month as a form of humanitarian aid, the South's Red Cross chief said yesterday. "We will send fertilizer aid to North Korea beginning March 27," said Han Wan-sang, president of the Korean Red Cross.[SK Aid]
• Seoul to Help N.Korea Fight Cattle Disease
  Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said Thursday that the government would help North Korea fight an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Lee said the North informed Seoul of the situation and asked for medicine and other aid to battle the livestock virus. The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease occurred at a farm near Pyongyang last January forcing a cull of 466 cows and 2,630 pigs presumed to have been infected. Lee said that the North had requested the antibody for the disease, diagnosis kits, spray guns, sterilizers and other related supplies and that South Korean ministry officials were discussing how much to send. According to the minister, the North first appealed to international organizations for assistance in fighting the disease but when Seoul heard about the problem the government immediately offered its help. Lee also said that when former prime minister Lee Hae-chan visited the North recently, Pyongyang asked that Seoul restart shipments of emergency aid supplies for flood victims that were halted after the North's nuclear test last year. [SK aid]
• Seoul to Help North Curb Cattle Disease
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said Thursday South Korea would provide North Korea with quarantine equipment to help combat an outbreak of a foot-and-mouth disease. ``On Wednesday, the North asked us to send quarantine equipment while informing us of the current situation regarding the outbreak,'' he told reporters. Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious and sometimes fatal viral disease of cattle and pigs. Lee said the North has culled more than 2,600 cows and 400 pigs since the outbreak in a farm adjacent to Pyongyang in January. ``This aid is also closely linked to the safety of our farms in the South,'' he said. ``We should stop the commutable disease from crossing the inter-Korean border. Otherwise, it may spread to South Korean farms.''
• Pyongyang Demands 300,000 Tons of Fertilizer in Aid
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter North Korea on Wednesday called for some 300,000 tons of fertilizer in humanitarian aid, the Ministry of Unification announced Wednesday. The demand cames five days after the inter-Korean ministerial talks resumed in Pyongyang after a seven-month hiatus.

• Korea Maranatha Sinyong Ltd Commissioned
  Pyongyang, February 23 (KCNA) --A ceremony of commissioning Korea Maranatha Sinyong Ltd was held here on Thursday. It will contribute to creating funds necessary for business activities at different factories and enterprises and keeping production going at a high rate there. Present there were Paek Hyon Bong, chairman of the DPRK Committee for Promotion of External Economic Cooperation, officials concerned and diplomatic envoys of different countries here. Also on hand was a delegation of Maranatha Trust, Australia led by its President David Thomas Bussau. Speeches were made there. [Economic reform] [Opening] [Religion]
• Small Tractor for the New Zealand Friendship Farm in North Korea
  The NZ - DPRK Society raised funds to provide a small tractor for use in the livestock activities of the NZ Friendship Farm outside Pyongyang.

• Aid to North separated from politics
  Unification Ministry says assistance should continue 'if possible,' regardless of the actions the country takes February 21, 2007     Lee Jae-joung Humanitarian aid will keep flowing to North Korea "if possible," no matter what the country does politically, the Ministry of Unification announced yesterday. [Aid weapon]
• Group to build hospital in Pyongyang
  February 20, 2007 A private organization and doctors from Seoul National University Hospital are working together to close the health gap between South and North Korean children. A private organization called "South and North Korean Children Shoulder to Shoulder" yesterday revealed a plan to build a children's hospital in Pyongyang by June of next year.
• Will the Giant Rabbit Feed North Korea?
  German hare no solution to Pyongyang's food needs Shannon McCann (joethefig)     Email Article  Print Article  Published 2007-02-16 12:19 (KST)    In late 2006, Carl Szmolinsky's prized German Gray Giant rabbit, Robert, won the title of "Germany's Biggest Rabbit." Robert weighed in at an impressive 23 (10.5KG) pounds and gained some worldwide attention due to his size. This caught the attention of North Korean officials. Soon after, officials from the North Korean embassy in Germany contacted Szmolinsky and arranged a visit to look at his famed rabbit collection. They were so impressed with the size of these hares that they purchased eight females and four males, including Robert, and shipped them back to Pyongyang. It has been reported in many media outlets that Pyongyang is planning on establishing a breeding program for these rabbits which it is hoped will eventually help alleviate North Korea's food shortages. This followed a request by Pyongyang's state run news agency in September 2006 that suggested that people should breed rabbits for food. Providing he receives a visa, Szmolinsky is supposed to travel to North Korea in the spring. He will be supervising and training staff to get this breeding program off the ground.
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• Pyongyang City Water System Improved
  Pyongyang, February 3 (KCNA) -- The project for renovating the Pyongyang City water system has been completed. This will help ensure the production and supply of drinking water on a higher level on the basis of modern equipment and information means. A ceremony for the completion of the project was held on the spot on Friday. Present were Minister of City Management Choe Jong Gon, Vice-Chairman of the Korean Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries Jon Hyon Chan who is chairman of the DPRK-Kuwait Friendship Association, Vice-Chairman of the Pyongyang City People's Committee Han Hyon Sop, other officials concerned and working people in the city. A visiting delegation of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development headed by its Deputy Director General Hesham Al-Waqayan was on hand. The minister of City Management made a speech at the ceremony. Then the participants went round the renovated water system.

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• `Number of Undernourished N. Koreans More Than Doubled'
  The number of undernourished people in North Korea has more than doubled over the past decade with a diminishing dietary energy supply despite the country's increased food production, the Yonhap News Agency said Friday citing a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report. FAO said in its annual report in Rome on Wednesday that it estimated the number of undernourished in North Korea at 7.9 million for 2001-2003, more than twice as many as the 3.6 million recorded for 1990-1992.
• Unification Ministry Transfers Projects to Red Cross
  Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding with Han Wan-Sang, head of the Republic of Korea National Red Cross, that transfers to the aid organization some projects related to North Korea, including separated-family meetings and fertilizer shipments [Aid weapon]
• South debates fate of intended N.K. aid
  Cement, rice, trucks, meant to go North, await their fate As the South Korean government halted aid to North Korea flood victims in October last year in the wake of the North’s nuclear test, the Ministry of Unification and related businesses have been discussing what to do with the remaining unshipped supplies. The government planned to send relief supplies including rice, cement, and construction vehicles through the Korean National Red Cross in August last year to aid the damage sustained from flooding which hit both Koreas the month prior. However, due to the North’s October 9 nuclear test, the South suspended the intended aid shipments. [Aid weapon]
• Report: North Korea Skips Food Ration
  The Associated Press Wednesday, January 17, 2007; 11:15 AM SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea skipped giving extra food rations to its people on New Year's Day, except the elite citizens of Pyongyang, a South Korean aid group said Wednesday, a possible sign the country's food situation may be worsening.
• No food crisis in North Korea despite floods: paper
  Reuters Wednesday, January 3, 2007; 1:40 AM
  SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has no serious trouble feeding its people despite heavy floods and sanctions by "enemy states" Japan and the United States, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper said on Wednesday, quoting an agricultural official of the North. Even in a good year North Korea does not produce enough grain to feed its people. But aid officials have said the secretive communist state is expected to face a severe shortage soon due to crop damage caused by the July floods and decreased food donations from abroad. "It is not a satisfactory production level relative to our goal, but the problem of feeding the people is in no way at a serious level," Kim Kyong-il of the North's agricultural ministry was quoted in the Choson Sinbo newspaper as saying. The paper is published by an association of North Korean residents in Japan with reports from Pyongyang, and is seen as carrying the official voice of the North. "Because of economic sanctions by enemy countries like the United States and Japan, there have been problems in a series of plans to modernize farming," the newspaper said. [Sanctions effect]

• North needs to get serious about humanitarian need
  [Editorial] North Korea’s food situation looks serious. This year’s harvest was not a good one, and ever since Pyongyang launched a missile in July, the South has withheld rice and fertilizer aid, and there has been a dramatic drop in international aid, as well. Seoul says humanitarian aid should be something that should be "pure," unattached to any political situation, but it is still unable to take action as it seems to be merely looking around, unsure about what to do. We hope to see it take a profoundly changed approach before the situation gets worse.
• ‘Too Early to Resume Aid to N. Korea’
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung on Thursday said North Korea should make more progress in the nuclear disarmament talks before South Korea can resume its aid shipments to Pyongyang. [Aid weapon]
• N. Korea in need of 1.5 million tons of rice, S. Korean activist says
  The international community is required to provide at least 1.5 million tons of rice to North Korea to help prevent a repeat of the famine that struck the communist state in the mid-1990s, a South Korean civic activist said Tuesday.
• Seoul's aid to N. Korea reaches record
  The South Korean government's humanitarian aid to North Korea this year surpassed 200 billion won for the first time, the Unification Ministry said yesterday. The tally between January and October showed that the amount of rice and fertilizers supplied to the destitute state reached 210.8 billion won. It is the largest annual volume since 1995. By year, the respective amount was 185.4 billion in 1995, followed by 2.4 billion in 1996, 24 billion in 1997, 15.4 billion in 1998, 15.4 billion in 1999 and 33.9 billion in 2000. The amount surged to 97.8 billion won in 2001 and maintained a similar amount on a yearly basis. [Aid weapon]
• FAO says North Korea would need minimum 1 million tons of food aid
  North Korea completed its crop harvest, and results suggest the country will need at least 1 million tons of food aid from the outside, according to a report released Thursday by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In "Crop Prospects and Food Situation," the fourth such report put out by the FAO, North Korea was categorized as a nation with widespread lack of access to food.

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• 'Food Aid to North Could Be Resumed'
  By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter As North Korea has decided to return to the six-party talks, international food aid to the Stalinist state will likely to be resumed, a U.N. food agency said Wednesday. Since the North's nuclear test, food-supplying nations have shunned sending aid because they cannot be convinced whether the aid is used for humanitarian purpose, Anthony Banbury, World Food Program (WFP) regional director for Asia, said. "Returning to the six-party talks can help create a more favorable overall environment," Banbury said in an interview with the Radio Free Asia. [Aid weapon]

• Disastrous North Korean Famine Looms
  By Peter Alford
  Introduction by John Feffer
  What are the causes and consequences of North Korea’s extended famine of recent years? Though it is not blessed with plentiful arable land or a consistently temperate climate, North Korea has long tried to feed itself and avoid dependence on the outside world. Food security represents, for the government in Pyongyang, a very concrete expression of juche, or self-reliance. Though such a policy has meant that one-third of the population remains rural—a very high percentage for a modern, industrialized country—North Korea continues to push hard to guarantee sufficiency in basic grains.
• Food Aid to Pyongyang Should Continue: WFP
  By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter Amid increasing denunciations of North Korea's proclaimed nuclear test on Monday, the United Nations food agency said yesterday that food support for the reclusive regime should continue. [Aid weapon]

• North Korea Today  
  38th Edition
  Good Friends: Centre for Peace, Human Rights and Refugees
• medical supplies for North Korea
  Aid to North Korea: Rep. Bae Ki-sun, right, of the governing Uri Party, who chairs the National Assembly's Special Committee on Peaceful Inter-Korean Unification, delivers medical supplies for North Korea to Park Jong-hwa, president of the Korea International Foundation for Health and Development, in front of the Assembly buildingin Yoido, Seoul, Monday. /Korea Times photo
• North Korea Today  
  37th Edition
  Good Friends: Centre for Peace, Human Rights and Refugees
• Aid Materials from China
  Pyongyang, September 20 (KCNA) -- The government of China provided the DPRK with aid materials including food and diesel fuel in connection with flood damage.
• North Korea Today  
  36th Edition
  Good Friends: Centre for Peace, Human Rights and Refugees
• Printing press to give notebooks to N.K. students Pyongyang press being restored; production at a trickle
  A supervisor of the Hankyoreh Foundation for Reunification and Culture, a journalist, and four printing technicians arrived on September 8 to a printing press in Pyongyang, which is being restored by the foundation to provide notebooks to North Korean children. When they arrived, the ‘Pyongyang Children’s Learning Plant’ was nearly quiet, with few machines in normal operation yet. At the beginning of this year, The Hankyoreh pledged to turn a rundown printing press in Pyongyang into a student notebook-printing facility by October. The pledge came after North Korea offered to help the Hankyoreh’s cultural foundation build the press.  
• North Korea food shortage reaches 800,000 tons
  The World Food Program yesterday said it estimates that North Korea's food shortage has reached 800,000 tons this year. Jean-Pierre de Margerie, head of WFP's Pyongyang office, told the Voice of America the impoverished country needs at least 5.3 million tons of rice each year. He said this year's shortage is mainly due to lower food production after floods this summer, fewer imports from China and South Korea's suspension of its food aid.
• North Faces Food Shortage
  North Korea will likely suffer from a shortage of about 800,000 tons of food this year, an official of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said on Thursday. Decreased income from China and South Korea's aid cut, as well as floods in July, will aggravate the shortage, Jean Pierre de Margerie, North Korea country director for the agency, said in an interview with Voice of America. ``800,000 tons is a massive quantity, considering the North's annual need of 5.3 million tons,'' he added. The Canadian director said he will meet the North Korean government next week and discuss WFP support in more areas.
• WFP Expects NK to Run Out of Food in 2 Months
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ The U.N. food agency said Tuesday that North Korean children may have to spend this year's Christmas without food unless the country gets additional donations from abroad within the coming weeks. John M. Powell, deputy executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), stressed that its stockpiles for North Korea will dry up within the next two months without any fresh pledges. ``We expect to be running out of commodities within the next two months,'' he told a press conference in Seoul. He said it takes at least three or four months to translate a pledge into food that can be consumed by a hungry child. ``Unless we get a pledge in the next month or so, no one will eat after Christmas,'' he said.
• North Korea Today
  Good Friends: Centre for Peace, Human Rights and Refugees
  34th edition, September 2006
• North Korea Today
  Good Friends: Centre for Peace, Human Rights and Refugees
  34th edition, August 2006
  Latest flood has produced casualties and damages more than the Earthquake in Pakistan and the Tsunami in Indonesia past years. The North Korean government and the North Korean media (including Chosunshinbo????), however, drastically downsized the figures of casualties (dead and missing) while the Korean Central Broadcasting?????? stated that this was the ‘worst flood in a century’ and the latest toll on the damaged infrastructure roads and bridges is far greater than the initial reports whereas the human casualties are unchanging. It is most likely that once the actual magnitude of the flood is known to wider public and the international community, the government could not save face and would have to be responsible for the political consequences if and when the true scale of the damages of the flood is known.

• South Korean flood aid for North
  South Korean officials met with Northern counterparts on Saturday South Korea has pledged 100,000 tons of rice and construction material to flood-ravaged North Korea. The pledge comes on top of a 20bn won (US$20m) donation that the South's government and civic groups have promised to their communist neighbour. "It is a separate case from annual aid to the North," Vice Minister of Unification Shin Eon-sang said during a news conference. North Korea was hit by torrential rains and high winds last month.
• Korea April 2006-08-20
  A personal newsletter written by Daniel Gerster, of the Swiss NGO Campus fuer Christus
  A personal note about this newsletter:
  My personal reports often sound more positive than one would expect. I am aware that there are things in North Korea that should never receive our approval. However, in my opinion, the media covers these elements more than enough. Also, we will never be able to make a positive difference as long as we only focus on the negative aspects or try to portray others in a bad light. There are many people living in Korea who just happen to be Koreans. I have great respect especially for a lot of Koreans, who, because of their living conditions, have remained natural, almost pure. There are many things that they could teach us too. People whom I have a lot of wishes for, whom I will never forget and whom I will hopefully see one day again. The photos do not always have a direct connection to the accompanying text, but are all taken ourselves.
  Daniel Gerster
• North Korea to accept UN food aid
  The flooding has wiped out tracts of agricultural land The UN food agency says North Korea has agreed to accept emergency food aid in the wake of heavy flooding in July. The decision is a reversal for Pyongyang, which said previously that it did not need international help and could manage by itself. North Korea was hit by torrential rains and high winds last month. Official media said the severe weather killed hundreds of people and left thousands homeless, as well as damaging large tracts of agricultural land. The World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement that it would supply 150 metric tons of food to feed 13,000 residents in South Phyongan province, 80km (50 miles) east of the capital. North Korea also agreed on Thursday to send its Red Cross officials to meet counterparts in South Korea on Saturday to discuss food and reconstruction aid.
• Aid groups look to ship supplies to North Korea
  By Choe Sang-Hun International Herald Tribune Published: August 17, 2006
  SEOUL The World Food Program and the South Korean government said Thursday that they would soon start shipping emergency aid for flood victims in North Korea, as relief officials scrambled to estimate the extent of a humanitarian crisis stemming from torrential rains, floods and landslides last month.
  Outside governments and humanitarian agencies are still largely in the dark about the damages what damage had occurred in North Korea.
  In one estimate, Good Friends, a Seoul-based relief agency, announced on Wednesday that more than 54,700 North Koreans were dead or missing and 2.4 million people - a tenth of the North's population - homeless as a result of the floods.
• Charity sees much higher toll from huge North Korean floods
  By Choe Sang-Hun International Herald Tribune Published: August 16, 2006
  SEOUL More than 54,700 people are believed to have been killed or to be still missing from massive floods last month in North Korea, a South Korean aid group said Wednesday, adding that the toll could rise by a few thousand. Good Friends, a Buddhist charity based in Seoul that releases a weekly newsletter on North Korea, said that the floods, which were triggered by torrential rains, had also left 2.5 million North Koreans homeless.
  Black-market grain prices are skyrocketing, as damaged roads blocked what meager ration shipments were available. Grain may be in short supply because the United Nations Security Council called for economic sanctions following North Korea's missile tests on July 5, and South Korea suspended a planned delivery of 500,000 tons of rice for the North. [Sanctions effect]
• Seoul to Give $20 Million to North's Flood Victims
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter South Korea will provide North Korea with 20 billion won ($20.6 million) worth of relief goods to help flood victims, a senior Unification Ministry official said on Friday. The government will match 9.86 billion won worth of funds raised by civic groups in South Korea. ``We decided to join the efforts by civic groups to help rebuild flood damage in the North after considering the requests from various sectors of society,'' Vice Unification Minister Shin Un-sang said at a press briefing. The aid package from the civic groups will not include rice as it will require large amount of funds, he said. Instead, less expensive items such as medicine, clothes, flour and instant noodles will be delivered.
• Seoul to Resume Rice Shipment to North Korea
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter South Korea's shipment of rice to North Korea through the Red Cross will soon resume to help flood victims, Seoul officials said on Thursday. It is a reversal of Seoul's policy established in early July when Pyongyang launched missiles, raising security concerns in Northeast Asia. But the ministry emphasized that the decision was made solely on humanitarian grounds.
• North wants aid, just not those noodles
    August 10, 2006 ? North Korea formally asked South Korean civic groups for humanitarian aid for its flood victims ? but it doesn't want instant noodles. The country said it does want construction materials, construction equipment, blankets and medicine, according to a fax sent from the communist country to a South Korean civic group. The message was the first formal request from the North seeking aid. The North Korean Committee for Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration sent the message to its South Korean counterpart yesterday, thanking the civic groups here for helping the North's flood victims. In the message, North Korea specified what they prefer to be included in the aid package. Instant noodles and clothes were singled out as less-wanted items. The South Korean committee will meet with its North Korean counterpart tomorrow at the Mount Kumgang resort to further discuss assistance. The South Korean committee has launched a fundraising drive for North Korean flood victims. Aid packages by some civic groups have already been sent to the North, and more were on their way yesterday from Incheon. Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok is scheduled to meet today with Han Wan-sang, South Korea's Red Cross chief, to discuss the government's flood relief program for the North. Floor leaders of the five political parties will also meet today to discuss the aid to the North.
• Seoul to Resume Rice Shipment to North Korea
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter South Korea's shipment of rice to North Korea through the Red Cross will soon resume to help flood victims, Seoul officials said on Thursday. It is a reversal of Seoul's policy established in early July when Pyongyang launched missiles, raising security concerns in Northeast Asia. But the ministry emphasized that the decision was made solely on humanitarian grounds.
• ROK MoU on floods and railways
  The Central and Pyongyang Broadcasting Station reported on July 26 that North Korea had held a celebrative central reporting meeting to mark the 5 3 rd anniversary of its victory in the national liberation war .
  The Central Broadcasting Station reported on July 21 that heavy rain had caused severe human and physical damages in Pyongannamdo ( Province ), Gangwondo ( Province ) and Hwanghaenamdo ( Province ) from July 14 to 1 6, and North Korea is concentrating on rehabilitating the damaged areas . The detailed reports are following :
  There were a lot of casualties in Pyongannamdo . With 6,200 houses and 490 public buildings being destructed and drowned , vast farmlands was also drowned , lost and buried in the same area .200 roads and bridges and railroad tracks were destroyed and electricity and telecommunication networks were severed . Gangwondo also suffered from the similar magnitude of damages :6,000 private houses and 200 public buildings destructed and farmland drowned , lost and buried . Especially , in terms of arable lands , Hwanghaenamdo was the most affected area . International organizations such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies ( IFRC ) urgently reported on the flood in North Korea and appealed for assistance to the international community . They are carrying out relief activities in the limited areas they are allowed to access by the North Korean authorities but complaining about difficulties such as lack of relief goods and medicine , and defective disaster rehabilitation systems . (As of July 25) Casualties Refugees Damaged houses Destructed roads Damaged arable land Estimate by IFRC More than 248 people 12,585 households 20,885 172.3 km 13,290 ha Estimate by WFP 60,000 people 30,000 ha
  The Central Broadcasting Station reported that a delegation from the Russian Railroad Corporation had paid a visit to North Korea and signed a protocol to the effect that the two parties would complete railroad tracks reconstruction between Hasan ( Russia ) and Rajin ( North Korea ) within the end of this year . [Floods] [Railways]
• North Korea Requests Flood Aid from South
  North Korea has made its first official request for South Korea to provide aid to help the North recover from recent flooding, the South Korean side of an inter-Korean committee said Wednesday. In a fax sent to the South Korean side (of the committee), the North Korean side made a request for assistance with a specific list of relief equipment the North needs. The North expressed its gratitude for South Korean civic organizations' efforts to help repair flood damage, the committee said in a statement. According to reports, heavy rains left hundreds dead and thousands missing or injured in the North last month. The request came amid the South's government's suspension of aid, including humanitarian assistance, to the North following its missile tests on July 5. [Aid weapon]
• 51st DPRK TRIP REPORT
  Kathi Zellweger, Caritas HK
  18 TO 29 JULY 2006
  In July and early August heavy rainstorms hit parts of the DPRK. At the time of the visit, it was not clear how many lives had been lost, how many people were made homeless and how serious the damage to infrastructure and crop was. The government was still assessing the situation. The IFRC had, however, through their national counterpart, started to distribute family emergency kits and WFP had offered food aid. With the involvement of resident NGO reduced and the WFP program scaled down, doubts remain as to how the community away from Pyongyang will cope in future. The struggle for survival will continue and bad weather is affecting the already fragile situation.
  * In areas visited, no major flood damage was observed, but local officials knew that some places had been badly affected. The government, however, was at the time of the visit not considering appealing for international support, although donations would not be rejected. *
  The Ministry of Agriculture estimated a loss of approximately 100,000 tons of grain with some 30,000 hectares of arable land flooded. *
  People were busy with various community services (embankment repairs, building and renovation jobs or working in the fields) and the opening hours of the markets in Pyongyang, possibly also elsewhere in the country, had been reduced to 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. *
  The market visited was very busy and the availability of goods – for those with money – has again increased. Grain is officially still no longer sold in the market and food rations from the Public Distribution System were reported to be irregular. *
  Since the introduction of the first economic reform steps 4 years ago it is obvious that the ‘taste of money’ has penetrated North Korean society, resulting in increased pressure and control, but also in a greater awareness of prices and costs of goods and services. *
  At the market, the exchange rate for US dollars and Euros had remained similar to March this year, my previous visit, at Won 2,900. *
  In the fields hardly any tractors were operating, women and children were busy weeding and for heavier work, oxen are used. In many fields the maize looked stunted and farmers mentioned that the agricultural season had started late and in July the temperatures were too low. A decrease in the maize harvest is very likely. [Economic reform]
• Call for flood-aid for North gains momentum
  South Korea is considering a one-time package of aid to avert famine in North Korea despite strains between the neighbors over Pyongyang's July 5 missile tests, officials said yesterday. Three major storms hit North Korea last month, causing floods that killed at least 151 people, and possibly more.
• GNP chair poses mission North
    August 08, 2006 ? The leader of South Korea's main opposition party proposed Monday to send a fact-finding mission to North Korea to assess the extent of flood damage in the communist country. "It's a good idea to visit North Korea to grasp exactly how broad the damage is," said Kang Jae-sup, chairman of the conservative Grand National Party, at a party meeting.
• '549 dead' in N Korea flooding
  The flooding has wiped out tracts of agricultural land At least 549 people died and another 295 are still missing as a result of floods which struck North Korea last month, a pro-Pyongyang daily said. Days of heavy rain caused flooding which North Korean media have already confirmed led to "hundreds" of deaths. But the figures, from the Japan-based daily, are the most specific released so far on the extent of the disaster. Last month, the UN food agency estimated that about 60,000 people had been left homeless by the flooding. The Choson Shinbo newspaper is based in Japan and is run by a pro-North Korea association. Over 7,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, the daily said, and almost 40,000 acres (16,000 ha) of farmland had been washed away.
• North Raps Lawmaker Who Wants to Help Flood Victims
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter A North Korean media denounced a conservative South Korean lawmaker on Saturday for saying that Seoul needs to give relief goods to the North's flood victims but should scrap inter-Korean economic cooperation projects. Rep. Chung Hyung-keun of the largest opposition Grand National Party (GNP) on Thursday raised the issue of helping the North, which is still suffering from the recent floods. But he once again urged Seoul to stop the joint industrial park project in Kaesong and the tourism programs in Mt. Kumgang to block money flowing to the North's weapons development programs.
• North Welcomes Aid
  North Korea's Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Committee took a positive stance yesterday toward accepting humanitarian aid from South Korea, Yonhap News Agency reported. "There's no reason for us to reject flood relief from the South as long as it's not politically motivated," Kim Song-won, head of the committee said from Dandong, China. The remark is the first positive comment from a North Korean official on flood relief from the South amid chilly inter-Korean relations following last month's missile threats
• Parties Back Flood Aid to North Korea
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter South Korea is considering offering relief goods to flood-hit North Korea amid soured relations between the two Koreas over Pyongyang's missile launches last month, a government source said Friday. The move came as political parties and civic groups call for extending food and medicines to the North where nearly 300 people are reportedly dead or missing after three major storms last month. The storms displaced tens of thousands and devastated the North's potato crop that is likely to push the impoverished regime into famine, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). The government is seeking to match the amount of flood-recovery materials to the Communist regime sent by civic organizations in the South, hoping the humanitarian aid will help improve the worsened inter-Korean relationship, the source said, asking not to be named.
• With bipartisan nod, Seoul to fund NGO flood aid
    August 05, 2006 ? Prompted by bipartisan recommendations from political parties that the government should send medicines and emergency food to flood victims in the North, a government official said yesterday it will provide financial support upon request for humanitarian assistance projects by non-governmental groups. "The Grand National and the Democratic Labor parties said [Thursday] that humanitarian aid programs should resume, and we welcome such a position," Uri Party chairman Kim Geun-tae said yesterday. "Humanitarian aid to the North must not be blocked by politics." He urged the government to resume its humanitarian aid to the North unconditionally. After North Korea fired seven missiles and refused discussions about the launch with the South last month, Seoul withheld previously promised rice and fertilizer aid in protest. [Aid weapon]
• Help the North, for now
  [EDITORIALS] The floods that tore through North Korea have reportedly left immeasurable damage. The human casualties, including the dead and the missing, so far number 10,000 though reports on the number of victims range from 1 million to 1.5 million. Although we cannot know the actual situation of comprehensive damage because North Korean authorities have not made an official report, things certainly seem grave since North Korea has canceled not only the Arirang Festival but also the August 15 Unification Festival. Taking into consideration the pain of the North Korean people, it is proper for the government and normal people to take the initiative and help the North Koreans, but even if we want to assist them, the status of the North and South Korean relationship makes it difficult to do so. Perhaps this is due to the chilly relationship between the two countries since the North's recent test-firing of missiles, but either way, North Korea isn't putting out its hand. [Aid weapon]
• Harvest Still Possible in North
  By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter Torrential rain in North Korea last month destroyed 3,000 hectares of arable land and submerged 20,000 hectares, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. This year's grain production will not be affected, however, when the inundated land dries, the organization predicted. ``The total area has been severely impacted and we calculated the total affected area is two percent of the total national crop area,'' Cheng Fang, an Asian officer and economist in the Commodities and Trade Division at the FAO, said yesterday in an interview with Radio Free Asia (RFA). Damaged crops included corn and beans but the flood will not harm the rice harvest when the water dries, he added. ``The land totally washed away, that means almost all crops are lost, but for the submerged areas, some production can be recovered, like rice,'' he said. People are concerned about the North's flood damage as it cancelled the ``Arirang Festival,'' mass games set to start next month, due to the flood. In addition, ``Good Friends,'' a private aid group for the North estimated 30,000 hectares of farmland destroyed, equivalent to 100,000 tons of lost food production. Alistair Henley, regional director of the International Red Cross, however, refuted the toll Wednesday in an interview with RFA saying North Korea is less damaged than China. ``We're dealing at the same time with bad floods here in China where we're talking about at least tens of millions of people being displaced,'' he said. ``The situation in North Korea is absolutely, in no way, anything like that.'' Fang also said that we cannot forecast the flood will lead to poor crop production because 90 percent of crops are still on the submerged ground. ``I believe the North can gather a good harvest depending on the coming months' weather conditions,'' he stressed.
• Unification Ministry Under Pressure to Provide Flood Relief to North Korea
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter
  Relief for North Korean flood victims: Members of the Join Together Society, a South Korean relief organization, pose in front of a container ship before sending flood aid, including instant noodles and flour, to North Korea at a port in Inchon, west of Seoul, Thursday. South Korea has suspended government-level humanitarian aid to the North since Pyongyang test-fired seven missiles on July 5. / Korea Times Photo by Ryu Hyo-jin Heavy damage reportedly inflicted by torrential rain in North Korea last month has put South Korea's Ministry of Unification in a dilemma with increasing calls for humanitarian flood relief to the North, despite ongoing chilly inter-Korean relations after the North's missile threats. The ministry said on Thursday a detailed report on the North's flood damage, whether produced by the communist country or the United Nations, should be a prerequisite for it to consider sending flood relief to the North. [Aid weapon]
• North Korea's folly
  [EDITORIAL] Pyongyang turned down a recent offer from the South Korean Red Cross to send relief materials to victims of calamitous flooding in the North. It reportedly said it would use its own resources for the work. Was it putting a bold face on one of the biggest natural disasters it has experienced in recent years? Or, was it displaying its ill feeling against South Korea, which refused to discuss its request for massive food aid after the July 5 test firing of missiles?
• Flood Relief for North Korea Puts Unification Ministry Into Dilemma
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter Relief for North Korean flood victims: Members of the Join Together Society, a South Korean relief organization, pose in front of a container ship before sending flood aid, including instant noodles and flour, to North Korea at a port in Inchon, west of Seoul, Thursday. South Korea has suspended government-level humanitarian aid to the North since Pyongyang test-fired seven missiles on July 5. / Korea Times Photo by Ryu Hyo-jin Heavy damage reportedly inflicted by torrential rains in North Korea last month have put South Korea's Ministry of Unification into a dilemma with increasing calls for humanitarian flood relief to the North, despite ongoing chilly inter-Korean relations after the North's missile threats. [Aid weapon]
• N. Korea declines aid from Red Cross after flooding
  From news reports North Korea, which was hit by torrential rain and flash floods last month, declined offers of aid from the International Red Cross and its South Korean branch, an official said. "We asked the North Korean government what it would need in terms of relief aid to help in their efforts to recover after last month's heavy rains," said Kim Hyung-sup, a spokesman at South Korea's National Red Cross. "North Korean authorities replied that while they appreciate the offer, they are able to manage on their own. I seriously doubt that." The International Committee of the Red Cross - to which the South Korean Red Cross belongs - also offered aid, which North Korea declined, Kim said.
  Hundreds of people are dead or missing in North Korea after the rains, the country's official Korean Central News Agency said on July 21. Floods last week also damaged farmland, tens of thousands of shelters and public buildings. Hundreds of roads, bridges and railways were destroyed, it said. South Korea was also hit and damages in the South are estimated at around 2 trillion won ($2.1 billion). North Korea canceled two festivals this month, citing relief efforts. It postponed its Arirang Festival, featuring its mass games, as well as an annual festival with South Korea to mark their independence from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II. "The biggest problem for North Korea will be food shortages, especially in winter and next year, because most of its farmlands were flooded," Kim said. "Water and medical supplies are likely to be in demand, either because of the wounded as well as concerns of infectious diseases that may spread in the aftermath of the rains."
• Private Group to Send Aid to Flood Victims in North
  By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter A private South Korean organization plans to provide aid to North Korean victims of floods caused by the recent torrential rains, an official of the group said Tuesday. A ship carrying the aid will depart from Inchon, west of Seoul, tomorrow and arrive at North Korean port city of Nampo, one or two days later, according to Ryun Hyun-hee, a public relations officer of the Join Together Society, an international relief group.

• Flooding in North Displaces 60,000
  The flooding that displaced thousands of South Koreans and caused billions of won in damages didn't limit its destruction to the southern half of the peninsula. An estimated 60,000 North Koreans have become displaced or homeless due to recent floods, and the country is believed to have lost up to 100,000 tons of food from the submergence of farmland, Yonhap News Agency reported on Monday. An inter-agency team, including people from the WFP and the International Federation of the Red Cross, made a field visit on Thursday to Songchon County, South Pyongan Province, where the damage has been most severe, the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) said in report released late last week.
• N Koreans homeless after floods
  N Korea has been reliant on aid for more than a decade About 60,000 people have been left homeless by recent flooding in North Korea, according to the UN food agency. The floods have also destroyed 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of farmland, causing the loss of 100,000 tonnes of food, the World Food Programme said.
• Who’s Using Humanitarian Aid as a Political Weapon?
  By Stephen Gowans July 21, 2006
  When Zimbawe’s ZANU-PF government was accused of using food aid to punish political supporters of the Western-backed opposition Movement for Democratic Change, a hue and cry was raised in all quarters. Newspaper editorialists, government officials, elected representatives, NGO spokesmen and human-rights imperialists deplored the manipulation of humanitarian assistance.
  But when the Washington Post reported that South Korea had suspended food aid to the North to force Pyongyang back to six-party talks (1), the silence was deafening. There were no outraged editorials, no marches, no letter writing campaigns.
  The common sense view is that only Washington’s “outposts of tyranny” use food as a weapon, but never the US and never its allies. On the contrary, Western powers and their allies frequently create humanitarian crises to pressure civilian populations or their governments to behave in desired ways [Aid weapon]
• S. Korean Aid to North Korea Tops $1 Billion
  South Korea's economic assistance to North Korea in the first half of this year topped 141 billion won ($148 million), while the total government aid to the impoverished state since 1995 exceeded 1 trillion won ($1 billion). According to government statistics on Sunday, the Unification Ministry gave assistance worth 141 billion won to the North in the first half of the year, the highest ever on a yearly basis. Last year's assistance reached around 123 billion won, including rice aid. [Statistics]
• Flows of aid to stop until crisis abates
  South willing to meet North only on missiles, weapons
  July 08, 2006 ? The Roh administration yesterday started edging toward a tougher stance on the North Korean missile tests, announcing that it will directly challenge the North about those tests at inter-Korean ministerial talks next week. A senior government official said that Seoul would withhold promised aid to the North until the missile crisis is over. That decision did not include a delay in the provision of the last promised fertilizer shipment to North Korea, however; a ship left port yesterday bound for North Korea with the last 20,000 tons of that assistance. [Aid weapon]
• Seoul's W1.2tr funds on N.K. now uncertain
          Uncertainties caused by North Korea's test-firing of missiles are likely to slow down Seoul's funding of economic and humanitarian aid programs for the communist country and execution of funds earmarked in this year's budget. The Ministry of Planning and Budget said yesterday it was reviewing a request by the Unification Ministry of 1.18 trillion won ($1.24 billion) for its inter-Korean programs next year, slightly less than this year's 1.2 trillion won. However, officials at the ministry were cautious in saying that the escalating tension surrounding the North's missiles could require some adjustment in the budget.

• Dr. Corn Ready to Reap More Peace Corns in NK
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter
      Kim Soon-kwon, president of the International Corn Foundation (ICF), vividly remembers the time when Kwon Ho-ung, now Pyongyang's chief delegate to the inter-Korean ministerial talks, and Ra Un-sok, North Korea's key official involved in inter-Korean businesses at Kaesong and Mt. Kumgang, used to follow him around through the North's cornfields. In an interview with The Korea Times, Kim, 61, fondly recalled the mid-1990s when he started to visit the impoverished North with the aim of developing hybrid corn, and to sow the ``seeds of reunification.'' Kwon and Ra were his guides and ``quite hard-working in the fields,'' he said. ``And they used to say, Dr. Kim, no matter how rough the political situation gets between the North and South, the technological cooperation on corn will eventually bring us together. One day when you're working on a cornfield up in the mountains in the North, we'll come running to you, shouting, 'Dr. Kim! Reunification has come!'''
• Civic Aid to N. Korea on Steady Increase
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter More civic organizations have begun to provide humanitarian aid to North Korea since the communist country's food crisis in the late 1990s. The aid ranges from agricultural assistance to medical services and services targeting children or the disabled. Drawing from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund, the South Korean government has also increased the subsidies it provides civic organizations helping the North. This year, the government set aside some 11.5 billion won for that purpose, up 1.1 billion from last year. The comparable sum, given to a number of civic organizations in a matching-fund way, stood at 3.3 billion won in 2000, 3.8 billion won in 2001, 5.4 billion won in 2002, 7.4 billion won in 2003 and 8.8 billion won in 2004. This year, 50 projects, including the Eugene Bell Foundation's project to wipe out tuberculosis and World Vision's seed potatoes project are drawing from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund, according to the Unification Ministry.
  Kim said that monitoring activities for civic aid have also become easier in the past years. ``At first, the North did not understand the need because it has a unique state-control system. But now, North Koreans seem to understand that each civic organization has its sponsors and they want to know about how their contributions are used.''

• North Korea Food Aid Revived, Without U.S.
  Washington Concerned About Oversight of Who Gets Aid
  By KIRIT RADIA May 11, 2006 - In an agreement reached Wednesday in Pyongyang and announced today, the United Nation's World Food Program will resume food aid to North Korea within two weeks. The renewed program, which will be significantly smaller than the one that ended in December 2005, was allowed to resume as North Korea once again faces severe food shortages. WFP's regional director for Asia Tony Banbury called the agreement "an important breakthrough." "We have worked hard to reach this point, now we have signed the deal, and we can restart our food aid operations immediately," Banbury said. The program is aimed at the most vulnerable of North Korea's impoverished population and intended to improve nutritional deficiencies within the country. Specifically, it will target women and children in the country's poorest regions. The United States, however, has not given any food to North Korea since the previous program's suspension and will not participate in the new program, citing concerns about the delivery of such aid within North Korea [Aid weapon]
• North Korea at Dire Food Impasse
  In the long term, food aid may undermine Kim Jong-il
  Bhuwan Thapaliya (Bhuwan) Published on 2006-05-19 07:38 (KST)
  North Korea has the world worried about its nuclear weapons potential. But that's not what most worries South Koreans, who are concerned about its menacing food crisis and its possible economic collapse. After decades of a command economy, North Korea is almost stripped bare and has become one of the poorest nations as well as the largest food aid recipient in the world, while South Korea, by contrast, under capitalism, has gained economic momentum and has developed as a model for emerging nations. [Bizarre]
• Agape International, "Project North Korea",
  Newsletter from Swiss NGO, September 2005
• Rakrang Physical Rehabilitation Center Starts Operation
  Pyongyang, May 8 (KCNA) -- The Rakrang Physical Rehabilitation Center located in Thongil Street, Pyongyang, has begun its operation on the occasion of the Day of the World Red Cross and the Red Crescent (May 8). The center, with a total floor space of 2,900 square meters, has been built on the site of 4,300 square meters by the joint efforts of the Central Committee of the DPRK Red Cross Society and the International Committee of the Red Cross. It, equipped well with necessary facilities for diagnosis and treatment of disabled people, has a patient assessment room, casting room, plaster modification room, sick ward, physiotherapy department room and a modern orthopedic surgical operating theater. The center produces various kinds of prostheses, crutches and tricycles for more than 400 cripples a year. Michael Rechsteiner, head of Physical Rehabilitation Programme of the ICRC, told KCNA at the centre that the ICRC has made a contribution to treating over 2,300 disabled persons at the prosthesis center built in Songrim City, North Hwanghae Province, since it started activities in the DPRK in 2002.
• U.N. to Resume Food Aid to N. Korea
  By Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, May 12, 2006; Page A17
  BEIJING, May 11 -- After a government-imposed shutdown of more than four months, the World Food Program announced Thursday that it would resume food aid to hungry North Koreans, but on a sharply reduced scale.
  Tony Banbury, the U.N. agency's regional director for Asia, said he signed an accord with the government in Pyongyang that will allow 10 staff members to operate a $102 million feeding program, helping 1.9 million of the neediest North Koreans over the next two years.
  The accord, reached Wednesday after prolonged negotiations, ended the uncertainty that has prevailed since the government of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, announced in August that it would accept development aid but no longer wanted food aid. That forced the World Food Program, which runs North Korea's main feeding operation, to halt work at the end of December. Banbury called the new agreement "an important breakthrough" for North Korea's undernourished poor. But he said the number of people receiving food would drop considerably under restrictions laid down by North Korean officials -- from 6 million in 163 counties under last year's $200 million-plus program to 1.9 million in 30 counties under the new program.
  "They explained this by saying they needed less food, that their crops were getting better and that they did not want to create a culture of dependency," Banbury told reporters during a stop in Beijing.
• China Donates Equipment and Materials to DPRK
  Pyongyang, May 3 (KCNA) -- The Chinese government donated equipment for examining bird flu and materials for preventing it to the DPRK. The equipment and materials presented by the Chinese government this time will help prevent the spread of bird flu in the country via its border and trading ports.
• US Rights group Urges Pyongyang to Accept Monitoring of Food Aid
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ A U.S. human rights organization on Thursday urged North Korea to allow international monitoring of food distribution, saying its recent policy changes on outside aid may cause renewed hunger among its people. Recent decisions by Pyongyang to suspend operations of the World Food Program in the country and revive the food rationing system may leave many in hunger, said Washington-based Human Rights Watch in a press conference in Seoul.
  North Korea experts in Seoul, however, said recent decisions by the communist country suggest it is making efforts to stand on its own rather than depend on emergency donations. And the revival of the public distribution system illustrates its improved food situation, they said.
  ``When the rationing system was reduced (in the late 1990s) it was because the government didn't have food to distribute. Now that it has expanded the rationing system, it is in a better situation,'' said Chon Hyun-joon, senior research fellow with the Korea Institute for National Unification, a public research body on North Korea in Seoul. [Manipulation] [Friction]
• North Korea: Policy Changes May Foster New Hunger
  Government Must Grant Fair Access to Food and Aid
  (Seoul, May 4, 2006) ·Recent decisions by the North Korean government to suspend the operation of the World Food Programme, ban the private sale of grain, and fully reinstate the discredited Public Distribution System could lead to renewed hunger for North Korea? already poor and destitute people, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. While most international discussion of North Korea is about nuclear weapons, hunger remains a serious problem. Regressive policies from a government that doesn? allow free expression or independent observers to monitor the situation could someday lead to a repeat of the food crisis of the 1990s.
  The 34-page report, ·a href="http://hrw.org/reports/2006/northkorea0506/">A Matter of Survival: The North Korean Government? Control of Food and the Risk of Hunger,·examines recent worrisome developments in North Korea? food policies, its marginalization of the World Food Programme (WFP), its refusal to allow adequate monitoring of food aid, and the implications of the government? new policies. Human Rights Watch noted that only a decade ago, similar policies led to the famine that killed anywhere from 580,000 to more than 3 million, according to independent researchers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). [Manipulation]
• A Matter of Survival The North Korean Government's Control of Food and the Risk of Hunger
  Human Rights Watch, New York

• Catholics Leave for Pyongyang
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ A delegation from the South Korean Catholic Church left for Pyongyang early Wednesday to tour regions in the North it has provided with humanitarian assistance, the Archdiocese of Seoul said. The 61-member delegation from the Seoul archdiocese, led by Monsignor Choi Chang-hwa, will take field trips in and around Pyongyang until Saturday, it said. ``This is the first time a Catholic delegation has traveled to North Korea on such a large scale, and with laymen included,'' Ma Young-ju, an archdiocese's public relations official said. Pyongyang sent an Air Koryo plane to Incheon International Airport to pick up the delegation, Ma said.
• Kathi Zellweger: DPRK Trip Report, 7 TO 21 MARCH 2006
  This was the 50th trip of Kathi Zellweger, of Caritas Hong Kong, to the DPRK, and perhaps the last since Caritas Corea is taking over DPRK operations.
• Caritas continues its work in DPRK (North Korea)
  Vatican City, 8 November 2005 - Caritas Internationalis, a Confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service agencies, has pledged at its Korea Country Group meeting in Seoul to continue its relief and development work in the DPRK. The first Caritas food aid shipment reached the shores of North Korea on 24 November 1995. Ten years later, Caritas is in the process of shifting its involvement from humanitarian aid to a more development-oriented support, or from a 'band aid' approach to strengthening local livelihood and capacity.
• Carirtas Coreana
  Caritas Coreana is a national committee of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea(CBCK) for coordinating the activities of the Catholic Church in the field of relief, welfare and development.
• UN Conditionally Approves Aid for Pyongyang
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ The World Food Program's executive board has approved a new two-year program to provide food aid to children and young women in communist North Korea, the U.N. agency said in a statement released Friday. "The World Food Program's governing Executive Board today approved a two-year plan to build on the agency's ten-year record of humanitarian assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) by tackling nutritional deficiencies and chronic hunger," said the statement released from Rome, referring to the North's official name, DPRK. Valued at $102 million, the new assistance program is mainly aimed at providing vitamin- and-mineral enriched foods to " young children and women of child-bearing age," the statement said. The agency, however, said it would have no choice but to withdraw the program unless the communist state agrees to allow it to monitor the distribution of its assistance.
• S. Korea to Ship 150,000 Tons of Fertilizer to NK
  The government has decided to send a total of 150,000 tons of fertilizer to North Korea from February to April, according to the Unification Ministry Wednesday. The first shipment will leave the South's port of Yosu next Tuesday headed for Nampo in the North, according to the ministry officials. ``We will finish the transportation by late April, so that the fertilizer can help this year's farming in the North,'' Ko Gyong-bin, director-general of the social and cultural exchanges bureau at the ministry, told a briefing. The fertilizer is a humanitarian gesture and the South did not attach any conditions to the aid, he said.

• $20 million is slated for North's children
  March 29, 2006 ? Seoul will give the World Health Organization just over $20 million for women and infant health programs in North Korea, the Unification Ministry said yesterday. Lee Jong-seok, the minister, signed an agreement with Lee Jong-wook, the director-general of the WHO in Seoul yesterday. The grant is a two-year one; this year, Seoul will contribute $10.68 million, half in cash and half in kind, with the balance to be sent in 2007. The ministry invoked human rights of infants, children and their mothers in explaining the reasons for the grants. An official there said the grants would also be used to build infrastructure to support public health programs. The money will be used to train medical workers, renovate hospitals and improve the management of Pyongyang's Health Ministry, the ministry said.
• NK Kids to get $20 Mil
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter The government will provide North Korea with some $20 million in the next two years through a specialized United Nations health agency to help improve the health conditions of babies and children in the communist country.
• India Donates Rice to DPRK
  The Indian government donated 2,000 tons of rice to the DPRK, the KCNA reported on February 7. A ceremony of conveying rice to the DPRK took place at Nampho Port on February 7. Present at the ceremony were Jo Si Bong, vice-minister of Food Procurement and Administration, officials concerned and N. T. Khankhup, Indian ambassador to the DPRK, and staff members of the embassy. The Indian government has donated to the DPRK various kinds of humanitarian aid materials including food and medicament on nine occasions since 1995.
• WFP in talks with N Korea on continuing food aid
  By Anna Fifield in Pyongyang Published: March 13 2006 10:46 | Last updated: March 13 2006 10:46 Senior officials from the World Food Programme will arrive in Pyongyang on Tuesday to begin what are likely to be complicated negotiations on the future of its relief activities in North Korea, as the irascible state imposes stringent new conditions on aid agencies.
  This week's talks come as non-governmental organisations embark on further sensitive discussions with Kim Jong-il's regime, which wants any remaining aid workers to be regrouped under a European Union umbrella by the end of this month
• South's fertilizer shipped to North
  March 01, 2006 ? A South Korean vessel carrying the first shipment of South Korea's fertilizer aid to North Korea left yesterday for Nampo port. The 3,900-ton "Pioneer Kona" left Yeosu port, 455 kilometers southwest of Seoul, shortly after 10 a.m., carrying 6,000 tons of fertilizer. The shipment is the first of 150,000 tons Seoul has agreed to provide to the impoverished North for its spring crop. The Pioneer Kona is expected to arrive at the North Korean port on Thursday, according to officials at Seoul's Unification Ministry. The shipment follows a request for aid by the North earlier in the month. It also asked for an additional 300,000 tons of fertilizer later in the year. The South Korean government has yet to decide whether it will provide the additional 300,000 tons, according to ministry officials.
• UN Conditionally Approves Aid for Pyongyang
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ The World Food Program's executive board has approved a new two-year program to provide food aid to children and young women in communist North Korea, the U.N. agency said in a statement released Friday. "The World Food Program's governing Executive Board today approved a two-year plan to build on the agency's ten-year record of humanitarian assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) by tackling nutritional deficiencies and chronic hunger," said the statement released from Rome, referring to the North's official name, DPRK. Valued at $102 million, the new assistance program is mainly aimed at providing vitamin- and-mineral enriched foods to " young children and women of child-bearing age," the statement said. The agency, however, said it would have no choice but to withdraw the program unless the communist state agrees to allow it to monitor the distribution of its assistance.
• S. Korea to Ship 150,000 Tons of Fertilizer to NK
  The government has decided to send a total of 150,000 tons of fertilizer to North Korea from February to April, according to the Unification Ministry Wednesday. The first shipment will leave the South's port of Yosu next Tuesday headed for Nampo in the North, according to the ministry officials. ``We will finish the transportation by late April, so that the fertilizer can help this year's farming in the North,'' Ko Gyong-bin, director-general of the social and cultural exchanges bureau at the ministry, told a briefing. The fertilizer is a humanitarian gesture and the South did not attach any conditions to the aid, he said.

• 'Effects of NK Economic Reform Hard to Detect'
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) _ North Korea's economic reform steps have generated economic activities, but the degree of implementation and impact is not that visible, according to a U.N. humanitarian report. The country's weak managerial capacity is also limiting aid project implementation, the report said. The UNICEF Humanitarian Action Report 2006, dated Monday, asks the international community to donate $583.48 million to fund UNICEF's actions for the year, including $11.2 million for North Korea. Funding for North Korea is broken down into $7.3 million for health and nutrition, $3.2 million for water and environmental sanitation, and $700,000 for education. ``In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), chronic food and energy shortages are continuing to deplete people's coping mechanisms,'' the report said.
• UNICEF Humanitarian Action Report 2006
• NK Awards Medal to US Aid Worker
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ North Korea has for the first time conferred a medal to a U.S. citizen, a news report said Sunday. On Tuesday, Han Song-ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the United Nations, awarded a ``goodwill'' medal to the widow of Ellsworth Culver, co-founder and former president of Mercy Corps, an international aid agency, at a ceremony in Portland, said the Minjok Tongshin, a news agency based in Los Angeles. The posthumous medal was awarded on behalf of the Presidium of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly. ``The deceased is one of pioneers who made efforts achieve a new development of North Korea-U.S. relations during his life,'' the news agency quoted Han as saying.
• N.Korea Gives Posthumous Medal to American
  N.Korea Gives Posthumous Medal to American Activist for Leading Aid Projects, News Report Say
  The Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea Jan 15, 2006 - North Korea has awarded a medal for the first time to an American the late leader of a U.S.-based aid group for his efforts to help the communist state fight hunger and poverty, a news report said. The North has posthumously awarded its friendship medal to Ellsworth Culver, co-founder of the international aid organization Mercy Corps, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Sunday, citing Minjok Tongshin, a Los Angeles-based Korean community newspaper.
  Culver is the first U.S. citizen to receive a medal from North Korea, Yonhap said. The two countries, which fought in the 1950-53 Korean War, have been in a standoff since 2002 over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
  North Korean U.N. diplomat Han Song-ryol delivered the medal to Culver's widow at a ceremony Tuesday in Portland, Ore., where the aid group is headquartered, Yonhap said. "The deceased is one of pioneers who made efforts achieve a new development of North Korea-U.S. relations during his life," Han was quoted as saying. Culver, who died in August at age 78, led the charity's efforts to provide the North with food and medical supplies. Through more than 20 visits to the communist state, he helped foster the agency's "extraordinary rapport with North Korean officialdom," the agency's Web site said.
• WFP Suspends Food Assistance to NK
  NEW YORK (Yonhap) _ The United Nations World Food Program (WFP), which was helping to feed a third of the 22 million people of North Korea as recently as August, has ended all feeding programs there at the request of the government, a WFP branch director was quoted as telling the New York Times Saturday.
• By Order of North Korea, U.N. Halts Food Assistance There
  By JAMES BROOKE Published: January 7, 2006 TOKYO, Jan. 6 - The United Nations World Food Program, which was helping to feed a third of the 22 million people of North Korea as recently as August, has ended all feeding programs there at the request of the government.
  "Operations are completely halted," Richard Ragan, an American who represents the agency in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, said Friday in a telephone interview. Noting that government pressure had already forced a cutback this fall, he said: "We were feeding 600,000 people in December. As of Jan. 1 we are feeding nobody."
  The agency has closed its five offices outside Pyongyang, closed its 19 food processing plants in the country and cut its foreign staff there nearly in half, to about 25, Mr. Ragan said from Beijing. In the last decade the agency has spent an estimated $1.7 billion to feed North Koreans. A major source of food for the nation's poor, the agency is believed to have helped cut malnutrition rates.
  "One of their key concerns was about how we monitored our program," Mr. Ragan said, noting that food program workers made 300 to 500 inspection visits each month. "The Chinese don't monitor at all, as far as I am aware," he said, while South Korea has announced that it plans to make 20 inspection visits this year. In addition to evicting the World Food Program's staff, the North has ordered the 12 European aid groups working in the country to leave by spring. Three left in recent days because of an expulsion order that was imposed last fall after the European Union proposed a United Nations resolution criticizing the North's human rights record. [Espionage] [Response]
• North's rice shipped to the South
  January 06, 2006 ? The first rice from a joint project in North Korea arrived at Gyeonggi provincial government offices yesterday following transport from Incheon port where it was unloaded last Tuesday. The first rice ever to come from the North was in 1984 as part of an aid shipment for flood damage. The 1 metric ton of rice was part of 14.8 metric tons harvested from a joint North-South model farm project in Ryongsong district in Pyongyang. For the project, Gyeonggi province provided rice seeds, agricultural machinery, and technical know-how while the North provided the farmland and labor. The joint venture took place after the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, with members from both the North and the South, made a pact concerning agricultural technology sharing last April. It is the first time that the two countries have participated in a cooperative venture for harvesting rice.
  The rice is to be repackaged into 2 kilogram sacks and sent to organizations for the disabled, and national unification organizations and their affiliated groups. In addition, the rice is going to be made into rice cakes and kept for commemoration in the future.
  In a statement that seemed to downplay current disputes over rice imports, Kang Min-su, an official at the Korean Catholic Farmers' Association, said, "Amidst the problems we are having concerning import rice, we welcome the rice from North Korea because after all, we are one race." Mr. Kim continued, "I hope this joint venture helps North Korea with their food problem as well as be a small step towards reconciliation." [Joint Korean]
• Seoul Sends First Aid Shipment of Year to N. Korea
  INCHON (Yonhap) -- The first batch of South Korean aid for North Korea this year set sail here on Wednesday after a brief ceremony. The Korean Foundation for World Aid is sending 540 million won ($539,460) worth of powdered milk, baby food, running shoes and wheat flour on the cargo ship Tradefortune from a port in Inchon City, west of Seoul. About 40 officials and guests attended the ceremony, with a brief Christian service in which they prayed for reconciliation of the two Koreas and safe transportation of the aid. The aid is a part of cooperation in agriculture, public hygiene and children's nutrition that the foundation and the National Reconciliation Council of North Korea agreed to on Dec. 8.
• Seoul Gives 60,000 Tons of Coal Aid to NK
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter South Korea will finish the transportation of a total of 60,000 tons of coal aid to North Korea by the end of this month, a Unification Ministry official said Tuesday. The South has already transported some 10,000 tons of imported hard coal, which is processed and distributed in the North Korean border town of Kaesong to be used in the households, the official said.
• Seoul to Help N. Korean Infants
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ The South Korean government has decided to provide $10 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) this year to help finance the organization's program to aid millions of infants and pregnant women in impoverished North Korea, a government official said Monday

• A U-turn on reforms could starve North Korea
  Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland International Herald Tribune THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2005
  Food and the future While the world focuses on North Korea's nuclear program and the stalled six-party talks, a second set of negotiations with profound implications for the Korean Peninsula are occurring beyond public view. The primary participants are the governments of North and South Korea, the United States and the World Food Program, the United Nations food aid agency. At stake is whether the North Korean regime will turn back the clock on economic reforms, strengthen political control over the population and torpedo an ongoing humanitarian aid effort.
  All interested governments should stand behind the integrity of the WFP process; in South Korea's case, this would imply channeling a greater share of food assistance through multilateral channels. A revival of the failed socialist model would not only mark a U-turn in North Korea's reforms, but would also set the stage for a recurrence of humanitarian problems in the future. (Stephan Haggard is a professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego, where he directs the Korea-Pacific Program. Marcus Noland is a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, Washington) Food and the future [Economic reforms] [Aid weapon] [Victim]
• To Link or Not to Link: The Human Rights Question in North Korea
  By John Feffer Though it would be difficult to find anyone in the United States who would praise North Korea for its dismal human rights record, this consensus of opinion by no means extends to practical foreign policy. In other words, there is broad agreement on what is wrong in North Korea, from the political labor camps to the lack of basic freedoms of speech and assembly, but little agreement on what to do about it or who should be doing it. At the governmental level, policymakers are divided on whether to link the human rights issue to other pressing concerns such as the nuclear crisis or humanitarian aid. In Congress, an effort is under way to embed the human rights movement in a grand regime change·strategy targeting the world's remaining dictatorships, but financial considerations and traditional balance-of-power calculations may derail this initiative. In the world of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), an evangelical movement has clothed its primary concern for religious freedom in the garb of general human rights and has gained much political capital, thanks to vocal church support and a faith-based climate of opinion. But mainstream human rights organizations remain wary of the missionary zeal and hard-line strategies of these evangelicals. [Aid weapon] [Regime change]
• Christian Friends of Korea
  December 2005 Activity Report
  CFK Team Returns from December 2005 DPRK Visit The winter snow made its first appearance during our recent visit to North Korea from November 26 - December 3, beginning a cold and bleak season that will stretch from now until late March. In our travels to 7 tuberculosis treatment facilities, and 3 general hospitals that we are providing regular support to, we were able to understand more of what life is like for the people of North Korea during the cold months when visitors are rare.
• UN talks over N Korea food aid
  Mr Morris said the WFP wanted to continue working in the North The UN food agency and North Korea have ended two days of talks on a future aid programme for the country after it demanded an end to emergency food aid. James Morris, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), was negotiating over staff numbers and the monitoring of any future programme. The WFP has already scaled back its food aid programme in the North and will stop it at the end of the month. The North said in September it wanted development aid, not food hand-outs. Pyongyang says its harvests have improved, and it wants help with long-term development instead.
• WFP Chief, NK to Discuss Food Aid
  SEOUL (Yonhap) -- The head of the World Food Program (WFP) arrived in North Korea on Tuesday to discuss the agency's aid operation in the communist regime with local officials, the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. WFP Executive Director James T. Morris was greeted by North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon and the director of the world body's North Korea branch Richard Ragan at Pyongyang airport, according to the agency. Morris plans to meet top officials, including North Korea's number two leader Kim Yong-nam and Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun, to consult on the organization's operations there.
• USAID Chief Says He Witnessed Mass Burial in NK
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- A chief U.S. administrator on international aid, while criticizing red tape on U.S. provision of food assistance, said he witnessed a mass burial of North Koreans dead from hunger and knows what famine can do.
  We were in China [in 1998] , and we had telescopes, and they dumped 29 bodies in a big pit, and they covered over the bodies. It was a famine, and a lot of people refused to recognize it at the time," said Natsios. "They are terrible events, only comparable in my view to genocide."
  Speaking separately to Yonhap on Friday about North Korea, he reiterated the U.S. demand that the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) be allowed to continue its food distribution operation in the country, or else USAID would have to suspend its food aid to Pyongyang [Spin]
• U.S. Puts Off N.Korean Food Donation
  By JOE McDONALD, Associated Press Writer Sat Dec 3, 7:42 AM ET
  YILAN, China - The United States has put off buying 25,000 tons of food aid promised to North Korea this month, insisting on assurances the aid will be delivered by the World Food Program so it will not diverted to the military or ruling party. North Korea has told the U.N. agency to shut down its feeding program by the end of this year and switch to economic development assistance instead of humanitarian aid. The North says it can feed its people with its improved harvests and aid from neighboring China and South Korea. Washington, one of the North's biggest food donors, believes the impoverished nation still needs food aid, the U.S. State Department said in a written statement. But the department wants to ensure the donations are distributed by WFP. "We have not procured the 25,000 tons originally scheduled to have been shipped later this month due to uncertainties about whether the World Food Program emergency feeding operation to which it was to be delivered would still be in place to receive it and monitor its distribution," said the State Department statement, dated Thursday. [Diversion] [WFP] [Aid weapon]
• Aid Strengthens Kim's Regime
  by Andrei Lankov December 1st, 2005 Reprinted from The Asian Wall Street Journal
  Andrei Lankov, a North Korean studies specialist from the Australian National University, currently teaching at Kookmin University in Seoul, writes. "Stopping all aid could lead to renewed famine, especially in those areas of the country closed to foreigners. But excessive and unconditional aid is likely to halt all reforms, since the Pyongyang government would simply reverse to its old policies, using foreign aid to pay for the system's inherent inefficiencies." [Aid weapon]
• 'NK's Grain Output Largest in 10 Years'
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- North Korea's estimated grain production for 2005-2006 is the highest in more than a decade at 3.64 million tons, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a report Monday. Despite the increase, the communist state's grain deficit remains quite large, with efforts to expand production hindered by factors including limited arable land and a dilapidated irrigation network, the report said. The USDA report derives its estimate from weather analyses, satellite imagery and data gathered on the ground. It has been released annually for the past four years. "The USDA estimates North Korean total grain production (including corn, milled rice, wheat and barley) at 3.64 million tons, up 150,000 tons or 4 percent from last year and the largest crop since 1994-1995," the report said. Corn production is expected to reach 1.8 million tons, up 4 percent from last year. 11-29-2005 18:35

• 'N.K. still telling foreign aid agencies to pack up'
  With a bumper harvest almost certain this year, North Korea is sticking to its earlier request for foreign aid agencies to stop emergency humanitarian deliveries and leave the country by the end of the year, U.N. officials said yesterday.
  The World Food Program and other international aid groups are negotiating with the communist state over the decree, but even if foreign aid workers have to withdraw from the country, those who have uncompleted projects at hand would be allowed to stay until February or March next year, the officials said. "As far as UNICEF is concerned, North Korea made it clear that it wants UNICEF to continue its work in the country," Anupama Rao Singh, regional director of UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Office said in an interview with The Korea Herald yesterday.
  Singh was in Seoul after a four-day trip to North Korea, accompanied by Pierrette Vu Thi, a UNICEF representative in Pyongyang.
  "The North Korean officials told us too that aid agencies should shift the humanitarian work to development assistance." However, since UNICEF has worked in a way that has helped build the country's capacity, the North Korean officials are very supportive of its operations," Singh said.
  Vu Thi, who is stationed in Pyongyang, agreed that this year's crops are clearly looking very promising, but she expressed concerns over North Korea's move to refuse food aid.
  "Sustainability is an issue here. The situation there is still fragile. The agricultural industry is prone to natural disasters and this year's good harvest does not guarantee (future luck)." Singh noted that although the situation in North Korea, particularly the malnutrition rate of children, has improved remarkably over the past six years - from around 60 percent in 1998 down to 35 percent in 2004, it is still vulnerable and precarious.
• Washington Threatens to Cut NK Food Aid
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter The United States is threatening to cut off its food aid to North Korea if the communist country sticks to a plan to force out U.N. food distribution agency monitors by the end of the year. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said on Wednesday it will be obliged to halt food shipments if World Food Program (WFP) officials are made to leave the country. Washington has pledged an average of 50,000 tons of food per year to North Korea via the World Food Program (WFP) over the past three years. About half of this year's pledge has so far been delivered. In August, Pyongyang requested the WFP withdraw its monitoring officials by the end of this year, saying that the nation no longer needed direct assistance and preferred to receive development aid. [Aid weapon]

• US politician praises North Korea
  Mr Richardson was allowed to tour Yongbyon nuclear plant North Korea is committed to dismantling its nuclear weapons programme, an unofficial US envoy has said, after a visit to the capital Pyongyang. Bill Richardson said he was "very pleased" with North Korea's willingness to make progress in six-nation talks. Pyongyang has already pledged to abandon its nuclear weapons in an earlier round of the talks. Mr Richardson, former US ambassador at the UN, said North Korea now wanted to focus on a civilian nuclear programme. "Their view is that what needs to be addressed is the light water reactor," he said.
  Separately, Mr Richardson said North Korea had told him UN food aid workers will be allowed to remain in the country, reversing an earlier threat to kick them out.
• President of IFRCRCS Arrives Here
  Pyongyang, October22(KCNA)--Juan Manuel Suarez del Toro, president of the International Federation of Red Crescent Societies, and his party arrived here on Saturday. They were greeted at the airport by Paek Yong Ho, vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the DPRK Red Cross Society, and the head of the aid delegation of the federation.
• North Korea's problem with food
  By Sarah Buckley BBC News
  Mountainous North Korea is difficult to farm North Korea struggles to feed itself due to a mixture of geography and economic policy. Photographs which depict a lush, rural environment are misleading. The country needs an average of 1m metric tonnes in food aid a year. "North Korea is not an agrarian country," said Kathi Zelleweger, a frequent visitor to the country with aid organisation Caritas. It is mostly rugged mountain terrain, and only about 18% is arable. It is dependent on fertilizer and machinery to make that land productive, both of which are expensive. AVERAGE DAILY INTAKE An average urban dweller gets 250g cereal from government In addition, can afford approx 30g maize And may forage for mushrooms, edible grasses, acorns etc Recommended amount is 550-590g of blend of foods, equivalent to 2,100kcal Politics compounds topography. Agriculture in North Korea was collectivised in the 1950s, in line with its Stalinist philosophy of self-reliance. This means farmers have a low incentive to work hard, said Paul French, a writer on North Korea.
• N Korea hungry to reassert control over food
  By Anna Fifield Published Financial Times: October 21 2005 03:00 | Last updated: October 21 2005 03:00
  The market stalls in Pyongyang, where rice and maize have been sold at prices allowed to fluctuate according to supply and demand, are now empty and the stools that sellers occupied are upturned, according to foreign residents in the North Korean capital. With a bumper harvest and an influx of South Korean rice coinciding with progress in nuclear disarmament negotiations, Kim Jong-il's regime appears to be reasserting both its domestic and international control by taking food back into its jurisdiction. The regime is reinstituting parts of its public distribution system of rations and has ordered aid agencies involved in humanitarian rather than development work to leave the country as soon as next month. The agencies feed about 6.5m people - a third of North Korea's population. "They don't want to show any weakness," says Bradley Martin, author of a recent book, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader. "Face is so important to them and to be thought of as beggars would be almost intolerable for North Korea." With a fifth round of the six-party talks on the North's nuclear weapons programme approaching next month, one aid worker says: "What kind of negotiating tactic are they going to use when they have to admit they can't even feed themselves?" Before the mid-1990s famine that led to the starvation of as many as 2m people, Pyongyang used to supply its citizens with 700g-900g of food a day. That amount dwindled to as little as 128g in 1997 and is now in the 200g-300g range. Much of the shortfall has been made up by aid agencies, which brought not only maize and rice into the country but people to distribute and monitor it as well. Chung Hyung-keun, a South Korean lawmaker who sits on the national assembly's intelligence committee, says this was a source of grave concern for the regime, which relies on a knowledge vacuum to keep the populace under control and fend off foreign interference. There are only 200 non-Koreans in a country of 22m. "They don't want foreigners, especially NGOs, to see how miserable North Koreans are," Mr Chung says. North Korea's economic reforms of 2002 permitted staples previously distributed through the Public Distribution System to be sold in markets and increased wages to enable people to pay for them. But this led to exponential inflation that put basic goods out of the reach of many ordinary North Koreans and sparked a level of social inequality that could cause unrest. Observers say the recent reversal is part of Pyongyang's wider effort to reassert control, which started with its sudden ban on mobile phones last year and the reimposition of a ban on Sunday driving. "If you want to draw a conclusion [from this], it might be that the markets work too well," said a foreign resident in Pyongyang. "What they don't understand is when you reform economically you can't do it half way." Journalists visiting Pyongyang last week were not permitted to go to any markets to verify the reports that staples had been removed. However, Cha Sung-il, a 45-year-old manager for the Pyongyang Metro, said the amount of rice he had been receiving had risen recently. "We receive about 45kg a month for the family," Mr Cha said. By many accounts, including North Korea's own, food production has improved markedly. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that cereal production will increase by 400,000 tonnes to 3.9m tonnes this year - the biggest harvest since 1995. South Korea's bilateral assistance has also contributed to the decision to roll back some of the changes to food distribution, analysts say. South Korea pledged this year to provide the North with 500,000 tonnes of rice. As one diplomat who monitors North Korea puts it: "They are getting 500,000 tonnes of strings-free rice from South Korea, which is saying 'these are our siblings, we have to make allowances'. North Korea loves that." But this is not to say the food crisis is over. North Korea still faces a shortfall of about 900,000 tonnes this year, and 37 per cent of children and a third of mothers still suffer from chronic malnutrition. Richard Ragan, head of the World Food Programme's North Korean operations, fears a sharp decline in living conditions if its 19 factories have to start closing next month. "A lot of progress has been made over the last 10 years but it could easily fall apart," Mr Ragan said. [Economic reforms]
• Why Seoul Helps the North
  By Chung-in Moon October 18th, 2005 Chung-in Moon, Professor of political science at Yonsei University in Seoul, writes, "Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that food aid does not exist within a vacuum. It is but one part of a complex and trying effort by the South Korean government to improve inter-Korean relations, reduce military tension and help its North Korean brethren." [SK aid]
• Foundation feeds 5,000 from bakery in the North
  October 18, 2005 ? PYONGYANG ? A bread factory established in North Korea by the South's Korea Welfare Foundation has been providing 5,000 buns with red bean stuffing daily to children at 10 kindergartens and orphanages near the famine- stricken country's capital Pyongyang. The buns are named "Unification Bread." "The Unification Bread Factory" has been producing bread eight hours a day. About 20 North Korean workers operate the facility. The plant's equipment was donated by South Korean food maker, Samlip Corporation, and ingredients given by sponsors of the foundation. According to the foundation, children between ages four and eight, mostly orphans, have been fed the bread for the past five months. "Before we provided the bread, we visited the Pyongyang Nursery Center, where children were eating powdered milk," Lee Kwang-mun, senior director with the Korea Welfare Foundation, said. "Now, we are making bread with the same ingredients that are used in the South. With our production, about 5,000 children can have a good meal every day." Since 2001, the Korea Welfare Foundation has supported 14 nurseries and a hospital in the North, in addition to the operation of the bakery. by Kim Ho-jung, Ser Myo-ja
• NK Food Shortage Remains Serious: UN
  GENEVA (Yonhap) -- North Korea is likely to reap its best harvest in a decade this year, but food remains out of reach for a large portion of its 23 million people, a United Nations food agency said on Thursday. The communist state's confidence about food seems to be growing, at least outwardly. Last month, Pyongyang called for the U.N. to replace the current emergency aid with development assistance on a long-term basis by the year's end, citing its better food capability. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young that his country would be able to solve its chronic food shortages if the South lends help for just one or two more years, according to Chung, who met Kim in Pyongyang in June. The World Food Program also reported that the North was beginning to reintroduce a food rationing system that was phased out following its worst famines in the mid-1990s.
• Congress Rejects Food Aid for Local Development
  October 10, 2005 International Relations Center www.irc-online.org
  Both House and Senate leaders recently rejected an administration-backed recommendation by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to allot $300 million of its food aid budget to purchase food grown by local or regional producers. Once again congressional members bowed to special interests, including agroexporters, shipping firms, and nonprofits that deliver U.S. food aid.
• U.N.: Food Problems Remain in N. Korea
  By FRANCES D'EMILIO The Associated Press Thursday, October 13, 2005; 2:57 PM
  ROME -- Cereal production in North Korea this year is expected to be the highest in a decade, but chronic food insecurity will likely remain widespread, a U.N. food agency said Thursday. North Korea has struggled to feed its people since the mid-1990s, after natural disasters and mismanagement caused its economy to collapse. Famine has killed an estimated 2 million people.
  Last month, North Korea asked international aid groups to stop sending emergency humanitarian assistance by year's end. Despite the optimistic harvest forecast, "a large proportion of the population will remain food insecure," the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report. The Rome-based agency said it and the World Food Program, a U.N. humanitarian aid organization, had conducted annual crop and food supply surveys in North Korea since 1995, but that this year, the government did not request such a mission. Interpreting rainfall information, satellite imagery and other input, the Food and Agriculture Organization said that this year, the harvest is expected to be favorable and that cereal production would be "the largest crop since 1995."
• N. Korea Said Increases Food Distribution
  The Associated Press Saturday, October 8, 2005; 10:12 AM SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea is stepping up efforts to resume full-scale distribution of food across the country, a sign the situation in the communist nation is improving, a U.N. relief agency said. The World Food Program, which has been feeding an average of 6.5 million North Koreans during the last several years, said new ration cards have been issued to people and the government has banned cereal sales at markets as it steps up its distribution program.
  "Government plans to revive the public distribution system are becoming more apparent, although steps in this direction do not seem to be happening uniformly across the country," Richard Ragan, the WFP's country director, said in a Friday-dated report on the agency's Web site. {PDS}
• 40,000 North Korean Children Could Die From Malnutrition: UNICEF
  SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Malnutrition rates among North Korean children have decreased in recent years, but still as many as 40,000 could die from a poor diet and related illnesses, a U.N. agency warned on Monday. Taufique Mujtaba, program coordinator of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said at a symposium in Seoul that new medical facilities are necessary to protect the children from malnutrition-related illnesses. Diarrhea and respiratory infections that come with malnutrition are the main causes of death for North Korean children, Mujtaba said.
• Pyongyang Returns to Food Rationing: WFP
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter North Korea has halted sales of grains in cooperative markets and is returning to a food rationing system, the U.N.'s World Food Program (WFP) has confirmed. In a report released Saturday by the aid agency's office in Pyongyang, the WFP said the grain sales have stopped completely in the capital and some surrounding rural areas.
• North Korea plays politics with food aid
  By Jeffrey Robertson 2 North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon, in a veiled reference to the US Special Envoy on Human Rights in North Korea, recently accused the United States of politicizing food aid. Yet, speaking with irony so thick it could be sliced, he demonstrated North Korea's complete mastery of food-aid politics [Aid weapon] [Media]
• North Korea Says Bumper Crop Justifies Limits on Aid
  By JAMES BROOKE Published: October 6, 2005 ONJUNG-RI, North Korea, Sept. 29 - Against a yellow sea of ripening rice, red flags flapped smartly in the autumn breeze on a recent day, apparently signaling that collective farm work brigades were harvesting a bumper crop in this fertile corner of North Korea.
  "All people in the D.P.R.K. are now out to give helping hands to the farmers in harvesting," the Korean Central News Agency said of the fall harvest campaigns around this nation, formally called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. After a decade of reliance on food aid, Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, had declared 2005 to be "The Year of Agriculture." But the trundling tractors, hard-working peasants and marching soldiers with harvest baskets on their backs could also have been staged to impress two busloads of journalists who sped along a highway, heading toward South Korea. Separated by a six-foot-high fence and blanket restrictions against interviews with farmers, the visitors had no way of getting a closer view of food supplies in this secretive society.
• Hungry for Human Rights
  Stephan Haggard, University of California, San Diego Marcus Noland, Institute for International Economics
  The Washington Post September 28, 2005
  The recent diplomatic attention to North Korea's nuclear ambitions should not distract us from a second, equally grim, problem posed by that country: its chronic food emergency.
  In the 1990s, as many as 1 million North Koreans died in one of the worst famines of the century. This catastrophe would be the equivalent of roughly 15 million dead in the United States. Now, once again, North Korea's citizens are facing man-made food shortages that pose difficult challenges to other nations [Aid weapon]
• S. Korea to Continue Food Aid to N. Korea
  By BO-MI LIM The Associated Press Thursday, September 29, 2005; 3:57 PM
  SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea will keep sending food aid to the rival North despite the communist regime's demand that international donors halt emergency food shipments and provide development aid instead, an official said Thursday. North Korea, with 22 million people, has relied on foreign assistance since natural disasters and mismanagement caused its economy to collapse in the mid-1990s.
• North Korea to Resume Food Rationing
  The Associated Press Sunday, October 2, 2005; 12:25 PM
  SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea plans to resume full-scale food rationing across the impoverished communist country after ending grain sales, a U.N. relief agency said. "As of Oct. 1, reports are that cereal sales in the markets will cease and public distribution centers will take over countrywide distribution," the World Food Program said in a Friday-dated report posted on its Web site.
  North Korea significantly scaled back its food- rationing system in July 2002 while introducing an economic reform program that increased wages. The reform measures failed, however, as inflation soared amid shortages of food and other goods. [Economic reform]
• Harvest Brisk in DPRK
  Pyongyang, September 30 (KCNA) --All people in the DPRK are now out to give helping hands to the farmers in harvesting. Special trains are in service to thousands of officials, workers and members of the neighborhood units in Pyongyang going everyday to the farms in North Hwanghae Province and on the outskirts of the capital city to help the farmers there in harvesting and threshing. The daily number of them averages at least 1.17 million. The rice and maize harvesting quotas have been carried out at 12.9 and 52.4 percent respectively, taking the country as a whole.

• OCHA Bulletin August September 2005
• North asks groups to leave and change aid focus
  September 26, 2005 ? North Korea has asked international relief agencies to stop their aid operations in the famine-stricken communist country, Radio Free Asia reported, quoting a handful of European non-governmental groups. The non-profit broadcaster, which is funded by the U.S. government, said Friday that Choe Su- hon, deputy foreign minister of North Korea, told United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday that all international agencies should cease operations inside the country by the end of this year. Relief groups in Pyongyang confirmed they have received similar requests from the North Korean government. Ann O'Mahony, spokeswoman for the Irish non- governmental group Concern, told Radio Free Asia that all Concern staff were told to leave the country by the end of this year. The Irish organization has been working in the North to improve the country's food production. The report said North Korean officials have told the agency it is time to stop humanitarian aid and to begin development assistance projects.
• NK's Pullout Request Baffles NGOs
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ Officials working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in North Korea are bewildered by the nation's official request for them to leave by the end of this year, Radio Free Asia reported on Sunday. [Media]
• North Korea Seeks Less Dependence on Aid
  By BO-MI LIM The Associated Press Sunday, September 25, 2005; 3:06 AM
  SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea's demand that food aid be terminated and changed into development assistance underlines the regime's desire for a long-term strategy for feeding its people and becoming less dependent on foreign help, experts on the country say. The North, emerging from a famine that killed 2 million people by some estimates, announced Thursday it wanted all emergency humanitarian assistance from international organizations to stop by the end of the year, in part because of what it called political interference from the United States.
  In line with the North's request, the United Nations' World Food Program, which provides food assistance to about 6.5 million North Koreans, said earlier it would end a decade of emergency food shipments by January and focus on development projects. "North Korea has survived a life-and-death situation where people starved to death and there is now some stability, albeit at a minimum level," said Paik Hak-soon of the Sejong Institute in Seoul. "They now want a long-term survival strategy."
• Current Rice Aid Distribution to NK Misguided: Lawmaker
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter An opposition lawmaker Thursday criticized the distribution of South Korea's rice aid to North Korea, claiming that more of it was funneled to Pyongyang, a relatively well-fed capital city in the hunger-stricken nation. Of 800,000 tons of rice aid given by the South in 2003 and 2004, for example, 18.83 percent went to Pyongyang, which takes up only 13.7 percent of the North's population of some 22.4 million. Rep. Chung Moon-hun of the largest opposition Grand National Party (GNP) and his aides produced the results of an analysis based on the data of rice aid distribution by region and population.
  Critics in the South have already said that the South has to strengthen its monitoring system of rice aid to prevent it from feeding the North's strong military. [Diversion] [Aid weapon]
• Discussion of "Food Aid to North Korea or How to Ride a Trojan Horse to Death"
  September 20th, 2005
  1 Comments by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland
  2. Response by Ruediger Frank [Aid weapon]
• Social Workers to Help North Korean Children
  He said that social workers will also discuss forming an international children's organization to put pressure on North Korea to address poverty and human rights abuses of children there.
  Gary Bailey, vice president of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and the chairperson of the National Social Work Public Education Campaign in the United States, also echoed the importance of the project. [Victim]
• North Korea Halts U.N. Aid
  .By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: September 19, 2005 BEIJING, Sept. 18 (AP) - The United Nations will end a decade of emergency food shipments to North Korea by January at the request of its government, which says it has enough food coming from other sources, Richard Ragan, chief of the World Food Program's office in Pyongyang, the North Korea capital, said Sunday. He said in a telephone interview that if donors supported the shift, the money would be used instead for development projects in North Korea. North Korea has made requests to halt emergency food aid in the past. Mr. Ragan said officials there told him they believed they would be able to meet their food needs with aid from South Korea and increased trade with China.
• OCHA Bulletin June July 2005
• Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) opens new Pyongyang restaurant
  In June, ADRA opened a European style Café in the centre of Pyongyang. This economic development project is linked to ADRA's own bakery and produces around 5 MT of bread rolls and high calorie biscuits each day for two school feeding projects in conjunction with WFP and German Agro Action (GAA)....
  In collaboration with the Peoples Services committee, ADRA found a suitable shop location in February 2004; a former fish shop close to the Koryo Hotel.....
  Eleven staff members have been recruited and trained in Management, Marketing, Business Planning, Customer Service and western cooking styles [Economic reform]
• Rason Hospital Opens
  Pyongyang, August 5 (KCNA) -- The Rason International Catholic Hospital has been built in Rason, an economic and trade zone of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It is a general medical service center donated by the International Cooperation of Catholic Medical Service (ICCMS) from the humanitarian purpose of helping promote the health of citizens. The hospital, with an area of 25,000 square meters and a total floor space of 8,000 square meters, is situated on a scenic beach in Anju- dong of the city. It, equipped with modern facilities for diagnosis, operation and first aid, has surgical, medical, pediatric and other departments and a sick ward. The ICCMS has also rendered a large quantity of medicines to the hospital. A monument was erected in the front yard of the hospital to convey the donation of the medical service center by the ICCMS. The opening ceremony took place on August 5. Participating in the ceremony were Chairman of the DPRK Committee for the Promotion of External Economic Cooperation Paek Hyon Bong, Vice- Minister of Public Health Choe Chang Sik, officials concerned and working people in Rason. On hand were Dr. Wolf Werner Johann, president of the ICCMS, and its members. The ceremony was addressed by Chairman of the City People's Committee Kim Su Yol. Congratulatory speeches were made by Paek Hyon Bong and Wolf Werner Johann. After the ceremony, the participants went round the hospital.
• DPRK TRIP REPORT 23 JULY TO 13 AUGUST 2005
  Kathi Zellweger, Caritas Hong Kong.
• Food Aid to North Korea or How to Ride a Trojan Horse to Death
  By Ruediger Frank September 13th, 2005
  Ruediger Frank, a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Korea University, Seoul, writes: "And so, it comes as no surprise to read in the Chosun Ilbo ...that the World Food Program was asked to shut down its Pyongyang office...We know what happens next. The North Koreans will be accused of not being grateful, the South Koreans will be told that it is their fault, the already not-so united front of the five nations at the Six Party Talks will be further weakened, and the North Korean leadership will open a bottle of Champaign."
  One would think that after the last decade of intensive contacts, most people dealing with North Korean officials have finally understood that these men and women are neither maniac nor irrational, but rather highly professional and well motivated. Yet to not everyone is ready to treat them as such.
  Food aid is one sad example. Why would any state-educated North Korean, who after decades of anti-capitalist training is constantly on alert, seriously believe that countries which make their distaste for the regime and its leaders more than clear almost on a daily basis are ready to provide any kind of assistance without strings attached - even if they actually were? After all, this technique is at least as old and as well publicized as Greek mythology and the Trojan Horse. Consequentially, a deep sense of suspicion on the North Korean side has to be expected and can indeed be observed.
• Hunger and Human Rights: The Politics of Famine in North Korea
  Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
  The U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea is an independent, nongovernmental organization based in Washington, D.C. Created in 2001, the Committee was established to conduct independent research on human rights abuses in North Korea, and to disseminate its findings. It is not affiliated with the U.S. government. [media] [Diversion] [aid weapon]
• Refutation (Clarification) of Material Press Release
  (South Korean Ministry of Unification) Title: - Regarding Press Release indicating South Korea is unconditionally providing food support without distribution transparency. Department: Public Relations Policy Support Contact No. (02) 3703-2305 Attachment File: Press Release.hwp 2005 September 2nd (Friday) Regarding Press Release indicating South Korea is unconditionally providing food support without distribution transparency. South Korea supported North Korea with 150,000 tons of rice in 1995. Due to continued suffering of North Korean citizens from the famine since then, South Korea has continued its humanitarian efforts. South Korea considers the fair distribution of food to needy North Korean citizens to be the most important goal. Until now, the North and South Korean have continuously engaged in discussions to increase the transparency of food distribution. In order to ensure the fair distribution of food, the distribution site has been inspected and documented in the North-South Food Loan Agreement. South Korea has visited the distribution site and is confirming distribution status. South Korea has consistently stressed that the equitable distribution of food must be confirmed in order for food support to continue. North Korea has cooperated and agreed in this regard. This year, the number of distribution sites being inspected and the number of inspections have increased in comparison to last year. As a result, there is better distribution transparency. [Diversion]
• Response to MoU
  Haggard and Noland

• WFP aid to the North in danger of collapse
  August 03, 2005 ? The World Food Program said yesterday in an emergency report that without new aid from the international community, the number of North Korean residents receiving food assistance will fall from 4.6 million to 1.9 million in the second half of the year. Primary beneficiaries of the WFP include the elderly, pregnant and nursing women, and children in nurseries and kindergartens. The UN organization noted that by using its Immediate Response Account, WFP would be able to increase cereal rationing to 4.6 million people in August and September. However, without new contributions 2.7 million will no longer receive rations from October. It added that cooking oil supplies have already been cut off to beneficiaries The World Food Program spent $121 million on supplying food aid to North Korea last year.
• Red Cross to Give Medical Aid to N. Korea
  A delegation of South Korean Red Cross embarks on its sevenday visit to North Korea today to deliver medicine and medial equipment worth 3 billion won ($3 million) to the North.

• Rice shipments to North get underway by two routes
  July 27, 2005 ? The Ministry of Unification yesterday started shipping some of the 500,000 tons of rice that the South Korean government had promised to North Korea earlier this month. On the road that runs alongside the Gyeongui railway line, 60 trucks crossed the military demarcation line to deliver 1,500 tons of rice to Kaesong, while in the Donghae coast region, 40 trucks brought 1,000 tons to a bottled water factory at Mount Kumgang.
• Paek Nam Sun Receives Credentials from UN Resident Coordinator
  Pyongyang, July 14 (KCNA) -- Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun received credentials from UN Resident Coordinator in Pyongyang Timo Pakkala Thursday.
• Seoul to Send Supplies for NK Flood Victims
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter South Korea's Red Cross will send emergency supplies to North Korea this week to help victims of flash flooding that claimed 88 lives and left thousands homeless late last month. ``The relief supplies will be enough for about 3,000 families and mostly focus on clothes and daily necessities,'' a Red Cross official said, adding that the aid agency will coordinate the delivery with its North Korean counterpart.
• Trucks Begin Fertilizer Shipments to NK
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter South Korea began trucking 20,000 tons of fertilizer to North Korea over the weekend as part farming aid to help ease a worsening food shortage, the Unification Ministry said. A convoy of trucks headed across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone to the North Korean border town of Kaesong carrying the initial 2,000-ton load of fertilizer on Saturday.
• Seoul to Support N. Korean Babies
  By Kim Jae-kyoung Staff Reporter The South Korean government will increase aid to the North next year for a new project that supports North Korean babies and pregnant women, the Ministry of Planning and Budget said Tuesday. According to the 2006 budget proposal submitted to the ministry, 56 ministries and central administrative bodies have requested a total of 203.5 trillion won for next year's budget, a rise of 4.4 percent from a year before
• DPRK Hit by Rainstorm
  Pyongyang, July 1 (KCNA) -- Different areas of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea were hit by a strong wind and disastrous rainstorm. It rained heavily in Pyongyang, North and South Phyongan, North and South Hwanghae and South Hamgyong Provinces between 15:00 on June 30 and 06:00 on July 1.
  The torrential rain coupled with a strong wind (more than 10 meters per second) has brought a severe damage to various economic sectors and people. The damage was serious as there was a heavy rain at night. Officials of national and local institutions and people in the afflicted areas are now turning out in efforts to recover from the damage and investigate its correct amount.
• WHO Seeking to Improve Quality of NK Medical Faculty
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ The World Health Organization plans to join forces with the South Korean government in sharpening the knowledge and skills of North Korea's collective medical faculty, senior officials of the U.N. body said Thursday. The WHO has donated medicine and medical equipment to raise the level of the North's health service and ``such efforts should be continued, but now in tandem with training programs,'' Eigil Sorensen, the WHO's representative in the North, told a press conference. Sorensen stressed that North Korean doctors and health workers are dedicated, but the country's isolation from the outside world, together with chronic food shortages and sub-grade pharmaceutical supplies, puts limits on the services they can provide patients. [Sanctions]

• Rainy Season Begins in DPRK
  Pyongyang, June 28 (KCNA) -- The rainy season has set in in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from June 26 afternoon. Jong Ryong U, vice chief of the National Meteorological Institute under the Hydro-Meteorological Service, told KCNA that the year's rainy season has begun more than one week earlier than the normal year. He went on to say: The feature of this rainy weather, which is likely to last for two months, is conspicuous from the beginning. It had been difficult to distinguish the rainy season from dry season in recent years. From last year the start and end of the rainy season have become obvious again. It is expected that there would be a heavy fall of rain coupled with strong wind and flood during the current rainy season. This rainy weather will seriously affect the yield of first crops such as wheat and barley, the growth of which has been delayed owing to unfavorable climate, he added.
• . North to cut food ration, agency says
  June 27, 2005 ? In an emergency report on the food crisis in North Korea, the World Food Program says the regime is expected to cut its daily food ration for individuals from an already substandard 250 grams of rice and corn to 200 grams. The ration was cut from 300 grams to 250 ? considered half of what is required for basic sustenance ? in January. The United Nations relief agency said in its report Friday that many counties have confirmed that the reduction to 200 grams will go into effect at the beginning of July.
• S. Korea to Send More Fertilizer to North
  Seoul Agrees on Additional Fertilizer for NK South Korea agreed on Sunday to the North's request for 150,000 tons of additional fertilizer aid, Unification Ministry officials said. The transportation begins today with the shipment of 5,000 tons of fertilizer from Yosu, South Cholla Province, to Nampo, a west coast port in North Korea.
• OCHA Bulletin April May 2005
  The latest news from the UN agencies (WFP, WHO, etc) in DPRK
• N. Korea Seeks Aid From Seoul
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter North Korea has ``no reason to hold even a single nuclear bomb'' if the United States treats it in a friendly manner, the North's chief delegate to the 15th round of inter-Korean ministerial talks said Wednesday. North Korea also asked for additional food assistance on a humanitarian basis while expressing gratitude for the earlier shipments of rice and fertilizer aid.
• Foreign Assistance to North Korea
  By Mark Manyin June 16th, 2005
  Mark Manyin, Specialist in Asian Affairs at the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, wrote: "Congress and the Administration have a variety of options for future assistance to North Korea. Given the suspension of the KEDO project, the immediate decisions will revolve around food aid, particularly given increased demand for food assistance from other areas of the world. Additionally, if talks with North Korea over its nuclear program begin and score a breakthrough, there will likely be consideration of a broader economic assistance package."
• Report on U.S. Assistance Provided Inside North Korea"
  USAID Report
  May 26th, 2005
  US AID, in this report to Congress required by the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, discusses US aid to the DPRK though the World Food Program. It also discusses aid given in response to the April 2004 Ryongchon blast and the April 2005 Bird Flu Outbreak.
• North Korea -- U.S. Humanitarian Assistance
  Press Statement Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman Washington, DC June 22, 2005
  The United States will donate agricultural commodities through the World Food Program and separately is prepared to support health and food security programs for the people of North Korea. Our objective is to help relieve the suffering of the North Korean people, despite our concerns about the North Korean government's policies.
• PL480 Food Aid: We Can Do Better
  by Christopher B. Barrett and Daniel G. Maxwell Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower signed the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954 into law as US Public Law 480, commonly known as PL480. Global food aid programs, the largest of which is PL480, have brought together governments, businesses, multilateral institutions such as the World Food Programme (WFP), and American private voluntary organizations (PVOs) in a valuable public-private partnership intended to reduce hunger and suffering around the world. Over the past half century, PL480 programs alone have contributed more than 340 million metric tons of food aid to save and improve the lives of hundreds of millions of poor and hungry people around the world.
  Since government food stockpiles are largely a thing of the past, most US food aid is now purchased through government procurement systems. Registered vendors earn a slight premium above prevailing market prices. However, at an annual value of about $2 billion, US food aid programs are too small to have any major effect on the general prices America's farmers receive in an economy where annual food expenditures top $900 billion.
• N.Korea Wants More Fertilizer
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter North Korea has asked the South for an additional 150,000 tons of fertilizer aid, the government confirmed Monday, one day ahead of a new round of inter-Korean ministers' talks. Seoul officials said the North's Red Cross requested the fertilizer aid, worth around 68 billion won, in a telephone message to its South Korean counterpart on Saturday

• NK Ships Arrive for Fertilizer Pickup
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter When the North Korean freighter ``Paik Du San'' chugged into Ulsan port on Sunday, it marked the first time since 1984 for a Northern vessel to make a call at a South Korean harbor. Twenty-one years ago, the port call was for Pyongyang to deliver supplies to Seoul following a massive typhoon. This time, the communist North will be the beneficiary of 200,000 tons of South Korean fertilizer to help avert a looming food shortage.
• US Denies Halting Food Aid to NK
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter The United States has denied a report that it has halted food aid to North Korea amid a deepening standoff over the impoverished communist country's nuclear weapons programs. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said a Wall Street Journal article claiming Washington had stopped its food donations to the North is incorrect. ``We've completed last year's shipments of 50,000 tons and we're considering what we might want to do this year,'' he told reporters at a regular briefing in Washington on Friday.
• North's ships to dock in South tomorrow
  May 21, 2005 ? For the first time in 21 years, North Korean cargo ships are scheduled to enter South Korean ports tomorrow. The Unification Ministry said yesterday that the vessels will pick up fertilizer aid. Three North Korean boats will cross the inter- Korean maritime border today and enter Ulsan, Gunsan and Yeosu tomorrow to load the shipments. They will depart for North Korea's Nampo and Wonsan on Wednesday and Thursday, the ministry said. In 1984, North Korea sent relief aid including rice, cement and medicines to the South, which had suffered flood damage, via sea. The Unification Ministry said the first shipment of fertilizer aid, 10,000 tons, will be sent overland in 50 trucks from Yeosu to Kaesong. At this week's inter-Korean talks, Seoul agreed to provide 200,000 tons of fertilizer aid to Pyongyang. [NK aid]
• N Korea 'in urgent need of food'
  The North is expected to call for more fertiliser North Korea is in urgent need of more food aid, the UN has warned. The head of the World Food Programme's North Korea mission told the BBC that without new contributions famine-like conditions would be likely to reappear.
• NK Could Face Worst Food Shortage: Researcher
  SEOUL (Yonhap) - North Korea could face its worst food shortage if its nuclear issue is not resolved soon, the head of a South Korean research institute said Tuesday. "Without a quick resolution of the nuclear problem, the North could experience extreme food shortages as seen in 1997," said Kim Woon-keun, who leads the Korean Peninsula Agro-fishery Policy Research Institute.
• World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day Observed
  Pyongyang, May 5 (KCNA) -- Colorful activities to observe the World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day (May 8) are being organized in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea so that all people may take an active part in the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement with a proper understanding of it. Min Pyong Gwan, secretary general of the Central Committee of the DPRK Red Cross Society, told KCNA that on this occasion it is planned to hold various functions including a briefing on Red Cross activities in Pyongyang.
• International Workshop for Peanut Breeders Given in Guinea
  Pyongyang, April 28 (KCNA) -- An international workshop for peanut breeders of African countries was given at the Kim Il Sung Institute of Agricultural Science in Guinea from April 4 to 8. The Guinean minister of Agriculture and Livestock, addressing an inaugural ceremony of the workshop, expressed his sincere thanks to leader Kim Jong Il for sending competent Korean agriculturists to it. Participants in the workshop from Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Nigeria and other countries noted that all the African people deeply revere President Kim Il Sung for the tireless efforts made by him for the development of agriculture in Africa and the south-south cooperation, adding that the workshop offered a good occasion of proving the vitality of the south-south cooperation in practice. Praising Kim Jong Il for his Songun leadership exploits, they stated that the Korean people remain undeterred by any moves of the U.S. to isolate and stifle the DPRK thanks to his mighty Songun politics. The participants adopted a letter to Kim Jong Il at its closing ceremony. [NK aid]
• Life Expectancy in North Falls by 6 Years in Decade
  By Bae Keun-min Staff Reporter North Korea's life expectancy dropped by 5.5 years to 67.2 years in 2002 from 1993. A total of 23.31 million people were residing in the North as of 2002. According to a report on reproduction and health by the North's population research institute, sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFDA), the life expectancy for males in the North fell from 68.5 years to 63.1 years during the 10-year period, while that for females declined from 76.1 years to 71 years. ___

• OCHA Bulletin February-March 2005
  Avian flu in DPRK - WHO and FAO assistance
• WFP to Suspend Food Aid to NK
  Food aid to the young, elderly and poor in North Korean will be suspended in June unless urgently needed new donations of cereal are made, the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) said. In an emergency report dated Friday, the Rome- based agency also said that food rations to pregnant and nursing women and children in nurseries and kindergartens will have to be cut by late July. ``Production in WFP-supported factories producing fortified food for children and PNWs (pregnant and nursing women) will be maintained until the end of August, and assistance to orphanages and hospitals until the end of September,'' the report said.
• Appeal from Duncan Maclaren
  Secretary General, Caritas Internationalis
• Caritas Appeal
  Emergency appeal for the ongoing food and health crisis in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) for the period April 2005 to March 2006
  This appeal seeks US$2,500,000 in cash support to assist in the sectors of food aid, health care, food security/agriculture, and capacity building and training
  1. OVERVIEW The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) - North Korea, first appealed for international assistance in the summer of 1995, after devastating floods had ruined the harvest and the food stock, thus weakening an already frail economy even further. For almost all of the decade since, Caritas has been involved in providing humanitarian assistance to the North Korean people. The first Caritas food aid shipment reached Nampo port on 24 November 1995 and by now assistance valued at over US$30 million has been provided by Caritas and its supporters.
  The humanitarian emergency in the DPRK is not over. North Korea was among the three Asian countries that suffered a decline in living standards during the 1990s. According to government figures, from 1993 to 1998, GNP dropped from US$991 to US$457. Life expectancy declined from 73.2 years to 66.8 years. The infant mortality rate increase from 14 to 22.5 (1999) per 1,000 live births and the under-five mortality rate nearly doubled, from 27 to 48 (1999). Since 1998, however, the country has experienced a modest revival in growth and improvements in living standards.
• U.S. still sending aid goods to North Korea
  April 22, 2005 ? A report from the U.S. State Department submitted to Congress on April 15 shows that despite a 1995 cutoff of official aid to North Korea, some exceptions have been made. The report noted the United States gave $242,000 in aid to help victims of the Ryongchon train explosion in the North last year. Of that, $100,000 went through the Red Cross, while the rest was sent directly as medical aid. Through the World Food Program, America has donated 50,000 tons of grain from December to this month, costing $22.3 million. Another 60,000 tons of grain were sent to the North in the first half of 2004, the report said. The North Korea Human Rights Act, effective from last October, requires the U.S. government to report to Congress on any U.S. aid for North Korea. The State Department report was drawn up to comply with this.
• Unofficially, North asks for 15 billion won in farm aid
  April 21, 2005 ? Through unofficial channels, North Korea has asked for 15 billion won ($15 million) in agricultural support from the South, Seoul officials said yesterday. The request was made through Juamhoe, an informal club of South Korean officials who accompanied then-President Kim Dae-jung to his 2000 summit with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang. Members of Juamhoe, whose name comes from the Pyongyang state guesthouse where they stayed, met on March 30 in Kaesong with members of North Korea's Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation.
• Seoul to Give Anti-Bird Flu Kits to North Korea
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter South Korea will deliver anti-bird flu kits to North Korea through a West Sea route Saturday, the Unification Ministry said Wednesday. The ministry plans to send North Korea two quarantine vehicles and aid goods, including 20 high pressure sterilizers, 20,000 portable diagnosis kits and 18,000 kilograms of acid detergents, worth 720 million won ($710,000).

• South's aid to North depends on talks
  March 23, 2005 ? With direct contact between the two Koreas almost nonexistent, Chung Dong-young, the South's minister of unification, said yesterday that North Korea should have no expectation of receiving fertilizer aid from Seoul unless Pyeongyang resumes bilateral talks. In an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo, Mr. Chung, who also heads the National Security Council, said the two Koreas' governments have always held talks over procedures of the routine fertilizer aid to the North before shipments were made. "Unless there are talks between the two Koreas' authorities, it is difficult to make a decision on giving fertilizer or food aid," he said. Mr. Chung has been among the Roh administration's most conciliatory top officials on North Korea. Over the last six years, Seoul has sent 1.55 million tons of fertilizer to the North. North Korea normally requested about 300,000 tons of fertilizer each time, but Pyeongyang asked for 500,000 tons in February.
• World Food Program to Resume Distribution in North Korea
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter The World Food Program (WFP) plans to resume food distribution in Chagang Province, North Korea, this week as Pyongyang recently allowed it to become accessible for monitoring, the U.N. relief agency said in a recent report. Chagang Province, bordering China, was inaccessible for WFP monitoring since October 2004, making the agency stop delivering food assistance from early last December to late February. "With the seven counties in Chagang reopened, WFP now has access to 158 out of 203 counties and districts, representing 83 percent of the population," the WFP said in the report issued on March 18.
• Reference Book on NK Aid
  The government will publish a reference book for assisting North Korea in emergency situations, providing instructions for how the government and non-governmental organizations can best cooperate, officials said Monday.
• NK to Shut Down U.N. Office
  GENEVA (Yonhap) - A ranking United Nations official said Wednesday that North Korea has requested the closure of a U.N. office in its capital Pyongyang. Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said that the North hopes that the Pyongyang chapter of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) will be shut down. Pyongyang has called for the U.N. to simplify its monitoring of humanitarian activities in the country since last August, according to sources. Currently, a foreigner and four locals are working at the OCHA office in Pyongyang.
• UN agency pleads for food aid for North
  March 15, 2005 ? The World Food Program has issued another appeal to help famine-stricken North Korea, saying that without new donations, many people will be at risk. In an emergency report last week, the UN-led relief agency urged the world to help the communist country's vulnerable population. Although expected cereal shipments will allow the World Food Program to feed its usual beneficiaries with planned rations through May, it faces serious supply shortfalls thereafter.
• Seoul to Continue NK Aid
  Chung Discounts Skepticism From US Congressman By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter South Korea is to make up its own mind about providing aid to North Korea as the communist country is considered a brother while Washington is an ally, Unification Minister Chung Dong- young said at a meeting of ministry officials on Monday. Chung, who concurrently chairs the standing committee of the National Security Council, was reacting to U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde's remarks last week on the Korean Peninsula, spokesman Kim Hong- jae said at a press briefing. [Aid weapon] [Friction]
• Pressure on Aid to North
  Close Cooperation With Washington Must Be Maintained North Korea has no doubt used aid from Seoul and Beijing as one of its weapons in defying Washington's demand that it return to the table of nuclear negotiations. On the other hand, the United States has considered it as the major obstacle to the resumption of the six-party dialogue, which has been suspended since the third round held in Beijing in June last year.
  Despite differences over how to bring the North to the forum, the government must closely cooperate with Washington for the sake of the longstanding strong alliance between the two countries. [Aid weapon]
• Seoul Deregulates NK Aid Groups
  (YONHAP) -The government eased regulations on civic organizations providing humanitarian aid to North Korea, the Unification Ministry said Sunday. The ministry said it removed a guideline mandating at least one year of consistent dealings or contact with North Korea before an aid body can apply for a government-issued license. The license entitles the holder to receive assistance from a government fund set aside to facilitate inter-Korean exchange and cooperation programs. ``The scrapping of the `one-year' clause should allow more groups to take part in helping North Korea,'' a government official said.
• International Red Cross Official Here
  Pyongyang, March 8 (KCNA) -- Reter Meister, chief representative for Asia-Pacific of the International Committee of Red Cross, arrived here today.
• Caritas in DPRK
  Press release by Duncan MacLaren, Secretary General of Caritas Internationlis, after his visit to the DPRK (1 to 8 March 2005).
  On his second visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Caritas Internationalis Secretary General, Duncan MacLaren, said that, after ten years of activity in the country, the needs were still great. He said:- "In the five years since my last visit, there have been some positive changes - there is movement in the economy after the July 2002 reforms, there is more visible trading and more bikes on the road, for example. However, there are also growing gaps between the haves and have nots. While it was satisfying to note the positive impact of aid from Caritas, it was also obvious that there were still many needs." Mr MacLaren was accompanied by Ms Kaethi Zellweger of Caritas Hong Kong.
  Ms Zellweger said that one of the main problems was the energy crisis [Economic reforms]
• OCHA Bulletin December 04 - January 05

• Aid to North not tied to 6-way nuclear talks
  February 22, 2005 ? Giving fertilizer aid to North Korea is a separate issue from the six- party talks on nuclear disarmament, said Chung Dong-young, the unification minister, yesterday. Pyeongyang had requested 500,000 tons of fertilizer earlier this month. At the committee on unification, foreign affairs and trade, Mr. Chung said North and South Korea needed to negotiate and fertilizer aid would be discussed during bilateral talks. He noted that the government could not make a decision on its own as the amount of aid requested was so large, and it therefore needed united support. Over the last six years, Seoul has sent 1.55 million tons of fertilizer to the North. Each delivery followed bilateral discussions and the agreement of the Assembly. The minister added, "No aid was able to avoid this procedure." [Aid weapon] [Friction]
• Government Will Not Link Aid to NK Nukes
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter The government will continue providing fertilizer to North Korea despite Pyongyang's declaration of its nuclear state, Minister of Unification Chung Dong-young said Monday. ``We will not link the fertilizer aid program with North Korea's boycott of the six-nation nuclear talks,'' Chung said at a hearing in the National Assembly. ``We will discuss aid programs with the North when the inter-Korean dialogue resumes.''
  Seoul's fertilizer aid for Pyongyang has become a hot issue after Washington officials reportedly asked Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon to stop providing it to the North. Ban, who was visiting Washington last week, flatly denied such reports. [Aid weapon] [Friction]
• UN food aide surveys North Korea
  February 21, 2005 ? Gerald Bourke, the top World Food Program official in North Korea, said yesterday that the communist state is about 1 million metric tons of grain short of the minimum 5 million metric tons it needs to feed its population annually. Mr. Bourke, who answered questions sent by email, said that because the UN-run food agency follows a strict policy of "no access, no food," there are seven counties in Jagang province, and one county in South Hwanghae province that receive no food aid because the agency's staff is not allowed to monitor conditions there. The suspension of distribution came after the organization was denied access to the areas three times. Mr. Bourke said food aid to most districts of Pyeongyang stopped three years ago, except for orphanages, because residents in the North Korean capital have adequate supplies of food. "The potential for further improvement in output is constrained by a limited availability of arable land, deteriorating soil quality, and acute shortages of energy and of a wide range of much-needed inputs and machinery," Mr. Bourke wrote. He said the food situation in the urban areas is the most serious, saying that cities along the east coast, such as Chongjin and Hamhung, have large populations at risk. Asked whether he knew how much of the distributed food may go to the North's military, he said that the agency had no evidence of systematic diversion of its assistance to the military or the ruling elite. "Privileged North Koreans do not need WFP food aid. The military-elite take what they want from the national harvest in the form Koreans prefer: white rice. WFP tends to provide coarse grains, such as maize and wheat, that only the really hungry - our beneficiaries - would want to eat." Mr. Bourke said that South Korea is one of the major donors, having pledged 100,000 tons of maize each year for the past four years. [Diversion]
• 47th Visit to DPRK - September 2004
  Report by Kathi Zellweger of Caritas
  The international assistance provided, as well as measures taken by the DPRK government, have brought about changes but substantial needs for investment in infrastructure, energy and transport remain crucial if the country is to achieve real and lasting improvements. Moreover, with the economic reform process that started in July 2002 new vulnerability patterns are emerging, creating challenges for the humanitarian aid agencies and the government.
• DPRK Government Decides to Render Emergency Relief Aid
  Pyongyang, January 5 (KCNA) - - The government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea decided to render emergency relief aid amounting to 150,000 U.S. dollars as regards the strong quake and tsunami that occurred in the waters off Sumatra Island of Indonesia on December 26 last year, causing huge material losses to Indonesia, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Maldives and other countries. The government and people of the DPRK express deep condolences and sympathy to the governments and peoples of the afflicted countries and hope that the aftermath of the quake and tsunami will be eradicated and the living of their peoples return to normal as early as possible amidst the international concern.
• DPRK to Render 150,000$-- Damages of Earthquake and Tsunami in Off Sumatra Island
  The strong earthquake and tsunami occurred in the waters off Sumatra Island of Indonesia on December 26 last year causing huge material losses to Indonesia, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Maldives and other countries. Hearing this news, the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea decided to render emergency relief aid amounting to 150,000 U.S. dollars, the KCNA reported on January 5. According to the KCNA, the government and people of the DPRK express deep condolences and sympathy to the governments and peoples of the afflicted countries and hope that the aftermath of the quake and tsunami will be eradicated and the living of their peoples return to normal as early as possible amidst international concern.
• China Donates Meteorological Equipment to DPRK
  The State Meteorological Bureau of China donated equipment for weather news service and observation to the Hydro-Meteorological Service of the DPRK, in accordance with a voluntary cooperation plan of the World Meteorological Organization. A presentation ceremony was held on January 25.
• N. Korea Asks for 500,000 Tons of Fertilizer
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter South Korea has been agonizing over a recent request from North Korea for an ``unusually'' large volume of fertilizer aid, officials in Seoul said Sunday. According to the Korean National Red Cross (KNRC), the North's Red Cross sent a telephone message on Jan. 13 asking for 500,000 tons of fertilizer for this spring. It marks a large increase from the 300,000 tons that Seoul has shipped to the North every year _ 200,000 tons in the spring and the remaining 100,000 tons in the autumn _ since the historic 2000 inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang, with the exception of 2001.
• UN Raises $127 Mil. for NK in 2004
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter The United Nations raised $127.6 million to assist impoverished North Koreans through a joint aid program in 2004, 39 percent below the targeted $191.9 million, according to a report released Sunday. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it collected $96.3 million in food aid and $19.1 million for health assistance under the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP), a multi-agency fundraising program for poverty-stricken nations. The remaining $12.2 million was for agriculture, water and sanitation, and education projects. Pyongyang received $133.1 million through the joint program in 2003, 58 percent of the targeted amount. However, North Korea will not receive CAP aid in 2005 as it withdrew from the appeal in September, stating that it was unable to meet U.N. distribution monitoring requirements due to ``security concerns.''

• Friendship link leads to Korea
  Salvation Army's name seen again in North Korea
  A PROJECT to package yoghurt in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (formerly North Korea) allows The Salvation Army's name to be used in that country for the first time since the Movement's work ceased there during the 1950s. The project - jointly funded by The Salvation Army in Switzerland and Australia - means that the red shield logo appears on every pot of yoghurt produced at the factory in Gynam.
  We learnt so much about the people of North Korea during our visit,' enthuses Major Le Leu. 'They are nervous about engaging with the outside world but are prepared to do so. They need to understand what The Salvation Army is. When a country like the People's Republic of Korea engages with the West we have to respond at its pace. Constructive projects like this will reap positive results.' - R. D.
  Salvationist 11 December 2004
• North Korea Thanks South for Fertilizer Aid
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter Pyongyang officially expressed gratitude on Friday for South Korea's completion of the shipment of an additional 100,000 tons of fertilizer aid to North Korea, according to government officials. ``We express gratitude for the (South's) provision of the 100,000 tons of fertilizer aid for this fall,'' Chang Jae-on, the North's Red Cross chief, said in a letter to his South Korean counterpart, Han Wan-sang. Chang also hoped for the continuation of such cooperation between the two Koreas, saying it will help inter-Korean relations as a whole. ``If Red Cross officials continue to cooperate, it will greatly help inter-Korean relations and reconciliation between nationals in the two Koreas.'' The letter came after Seoul completed shipment of 100,000 tons of fertilizer to North Korea last week. The final batch of 15,000 tons arrived at Nampo Port in the North on Thursday. It raised the total South Korean aid to the poverty-stricken communist state this year to 300,000 tons. Seoul had already sent 200,000 tons between April and June. So far, South Korea has provided 1.5 million tons of free fertilizer to the North, which has been relying on foreign aid since 1995 to help feed its 22 million people.
• Seoul to Send 100,000 Tons of Corn to NK This Month
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter South Korea said Thursday it will send 100,000 tons of corn to North Korea starting late this month as part of donations pledged through the World Food Program (WFP). The state-owned Agricultural and Fishery Marketing Corp. plans to buy corn from China and ship it directly to the North from a Chinese port, a Unification Ministry official explained.
• OCHA Bulleting October-November 2004
• Fertilizer Delivery Accomplished
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter South Korea finished delivering a total of 300,000 tons of fertilizer to North Korea this year, the Korean National Red Cross said Tuesday. ``By shipping out 15,000 tons of fertilizer from Yosu port, we've finished sending the 100,000 tons of fertilizer we had promised to the North during the second half of the year,'' the Red Cross said in a press release. Seoul presented 200,000 tons of fertilizer in humanitarian aid to the North between April and June
• Paek Nam Sun Receives Credentials from Representative of FAO
  Pyongyang, December 9 (KCNA) -- Paek Nam Sun, foreign minister of the DPRK, today received credentials from Noureddine Mona, representative of the FAO in the DPRK. After receiving the credentials, he had a conversation with the representative.
• North Korea - an enigma and an opportunity
  by Major Seth Le Leu
  IT'S easy to assume you know everything about a country from the way it's portrayed in the media. I found out just how wrong that view can be - or, at least, how one-sided - when I travelled to North Korea to see a venture The Salvation Army has entered into.
  North Korea is a beautiful country which, if it were not so isolated, would make a great tourist destination. And if I expected to see an unhappy people, suffering because of their country's isolation, I was in for a surprise.
  The people are industrious and proud. Local communities are entrusted with the upkeep of the roads in their area and everywhere we travelled there were teams of local people engaged in road repairs as part of their community service. It would be a brave mayor in the west who would suggest such a scheme in order to reduce local taxes!
  The country's economy is built on an agricultural foundation which relies on manual labour. Vast numbers of the population work the land and as we travelled we saw the harvest progressing. Teams of people with hand scythes were reaping the precious rice and maize which was loaded onto bullock carts to be taken to the stores.
  Each house in the rural areas had its own garden filled with vegetables, and in many places this produce was on sale from small roadside stalls. However, the North Koreans fear that all this work is not enough to ward off recurrent famine. To this end the government is engaged in a process of diversifying food production.
  For example, on one of the farms we visited ostriches were being farmed and their eggs were on sale in a supermarket in Pyong Yang. Another initiative to enhance food supplies is the establishment of a dairy industry. Dairy products are not a traditional food source in Korea, but for the past six or seven years the North Koreans have been working with the Swiss government to develop goat milk production and products. Children in kindergartens receive yoghurt from the dairy farms and the rest is sold in nearby towns. As people become more accustomed to these products the demand is growing and there is a need to provide machinery to package the yoghurt, which is where The Salvation Army comes in.
  Major Seth Le Leu is a New Zealand Officer serving as International Development Secretary, London.
• North Korea is failing to meet growth target
  Robin McKie and Angela Saini Sunday December 5, 2004 The Observer Sixty years of North Korean communism have had a grim and unexpected impact on its citizens: it has paralysed their growth. While their cousins in the south have thrived physiologically, thanks to the comforts of capitalism, North Koreans remain as stunted in stature as they were after the Second World War. Adolescents look like children, adults like young teenagers. Nor is the height difference a slight one. After studying more than 2,300 refugees who have fled the north over the past four years, anthropologist Sunyoung Pak has found that the average young northern male is 5.9cm (2.32in) shorter than his southern contemporary. The difference for women is 4.1cm (roughly 1.62in). 'North Koreans are clearly suffering from chronic growth retardation,' said Pak, of Seoul National University in South Korea. Her studies, to be published in the international journal, Economics and Human Biology, this month, suggest that North Koreans must have suffered severe malnutrition problems virtually since Korea split into two states in 1948. Her research shows that the only ages at which the average North Korean in her sample and the average South Korean share about the same height is from 50 to 69 years. Since height is determined during the early teenage years, this suggests that North Korea began to suffer food shortages at least by the 1960s.
• The biological standard of living in the two Koreas
  Sunyoung Pak*
  Department of Anthropology, College of Social Sciences, Seoul National University, 151-742 Seoul, Republic of Korea Received 25 September 2004; accepted 25 September 2004 Abstract
  Height data of North Korean escapees are analyzed to assess changes in their biological standard of living. In contrast to the population of South Korea, as well as to that of most of the rest of the world, North Koreans did not experience an increase in physical stature during the second half of the 20th century. The divergence between the height of North- and South-Koreans began among the birth cohorts of the late 1940s and became increasingly pronounced thereafter. This is an indication of the adverse socio-economic circumstances prevailing in the northern part of the Korean peninsula.

• New Zealand gives NZ$400,000 to World Food Programme
• Russian Premier Signs $360,000 Aid Proposal for N.K.
  [Moscow, KOTRA] Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov approved on Oct. 29 a plan for the Russian federal government to establish an aid fund worth 10.5 million rubles (approximately $360,000) for North Korea, it was disclosed through a government news conference. The fund will be used to cope with emergencies and calamities in North Korea, particularly to provide humanitarian aid to victims of man-made disasters. In addition to the central government, the Ministry of Civil Defense and Emergencies will participate in the program.
• S. Korean Ship Carrying Additional Fertilizer Aid Leaves for N.K.
  [Yonhap,Nov.16th] A South Korean freighter carrying the first shipment of the South's additional fertilizer aid to North Korea departed here on Tuesday night for the North's Nampo port, officials at the South Korean Red Cross said. "The 5,000-ton-class Sun Hope freighter left for North Korea's Nampo port, carrying 5,000 tons of fertilizer," a Red Cross official said. "The vessel is scheduled to arrive in the North on Thursday morning." Yeosu, a South Sea port about 455 kilometers south of Seoul, is home to the nation's major fertilizer plants. In late October, the South Korean government and the Red Cross announced a plan to provide North Korea with 100,000 tons of fertilizer by the year's end, in addition to some 200,000 tons sent between April and June. The South Korean government has been providing fertilizer aid to the North every year.
• zip file
  doc file
  FAO/WFP CROP AND FOOD SUPPLY ASSESSMENT MISSION TO THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA
  22 November 2004 Mission Highlights
  DPR Korea's food production in 2004/05 is estimated to show a slight increase of about 3 percent over last year's revised harvest, thus continuing the trend of recovery witnessed since 2001.
• Seoul to Buy Thai Rice for North Koreans
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter The government has decided to buy 100,000 tons of Thai rice, the last batch of food aid to North Korea, the Unification Ministry said Wednesday. In June this year, Seoul pledged to offer Pyongyang 400,000 tons of rice, including 100,000 tons produced in South Korea, as a long-term loan.
• NK to Suffer Food Shortage Despite Bigger Harvest
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter About 6.4 million North Korean children and old people will need food aid totaling 500,000 tons next year despite the communist nation posting its best harvest in 10 years, according to a new U.N. report.
• $2.2 Billion Flows Into NK Since 1996: Report
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter In response to the critical food shortage in North Korea after the massive flood in 1995, some $2.19 billion of international aid was received by the country, a research institute in Seoul reported Monday, quoting official data of the United Nations. Out of the total sum that flowed into the poverty-stricken nation between July 1996 and October this year, some $1.38 billion, or 62.8 percent, was aided through the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP), through which U.N. agencies, national governments, NGOs and individual donors share information and set the aid goal together. International aid to North Korea can be categorized into the CAP and additional aid from individual countries and NGOs, according to Kwon Tae-jin, a senior researcher at the Korea Rural Economic Institute who wrote the report. [statistics] [Aid weapon]
• Cheju to Ship 10,000 Tons of Tangerines to N. Korea
  CHEJU (Yonhap) - South Korea's southernmost island province will ship 10,000 tons of tangerines in aid to North Korea, local government officials said Friday. The Cheju provincial government and a local civic group working to promote inter-Korean civic cooperation said they asked for support from the Unification Ministry to send the fruit by the end of the year. Cheju is a major tourist destination with extensive tangerine groves. It has donated about 25,000 tons of the fruit to North Koreans since 1998. It also supplied carrots _ 2,000 tons in 2000 and 4,000 tons in 2001.
• EC Posts Int'l Bidding for Farm Implements to Help N. Korea
  - Part of Program to Help Repair Flood Damage, Nov.3 Set As Bidding Deadline [Moscow, KOTRA] An international bidding for contracts to send various farm machines and their parts to North Korea has been posted on a European Commission Web site. The tender has been offered as part of the European Commission's food aid and security program to help North Korea recover from its latest flood damage. The program seeks to provide 75 units each for the following four categories -- tractors, plows, cultivators and trailers - to the North.
• OCHA Bulletin, August-September 2004
• Seoul Conducts Onsite Inspection of Rice Aid to N.K.
  [Yonhap,Oct.18th] South Korean officials conducted rare monitoring of food aid delivery to North Korea last week, praising Pyongyang for cooperating in the verification process, Unification Ministry officials said Monday. Two four-member teams went to two food distribution centers last week in Kosong and Kaesong, North Korean border towns on the eastern and western coasts, respectively. "North Korea's attitude has been generally cooperative in the first round of monitoring at food distribution centers," the ministry said in a press release. "North Korean residents were aware that the rice is being provided by South Korea and expressed their gratitude,"
  Seoul is one of the largest donors to North Korea, with 1.35 million tons of rice sent over the past few years. [Diversion]
• Australia to Offer A$ 1.1 Bil. Worth of Aid to the NK in 2004
  [Sydney, KOTRA] The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade reportedly gave North Korea an A$4 million (or 3.4 billion won) worth of assistance last August. The aid consisted of wheat flour, health-care equipment, children's medicine and the repair/maintenance of sanitary facilities. Having been offered mostly in the form of actual goods, the assistance was originally designed for an advance support to expedite a smoother resolution of the NK's nuclear problem during the official visit of the Australian minister for foreign affairs Alexander Downer to the North. [Aid weapon]
• WFP Confident Over Food Distribution in North Until Next Spring
  [Yonhap,Oct.26th] A top U.N. food official on Tuesday expressed his confidence over smooth food distribution in North Korea until early next year, Japan's public broadcasting station reported. Donated food to the North from other nations will be distributed without any problem until next spring, NHK quoted James Morris, the head of the World Food Program (WFP), as saying.

• North wants fertilizer but no give on families
  North Korea has asked the South urgently to send 100,000 tons of fertilizer, South Korea's Red Cross said yesterday. "North Korea has made three appeals since early last month through Panmunjeom," a South Korean Red Cross official said. South Korea proposed to hold Red Cross talks with the North to discuss the aid package and separated families, a Unification Ministry official said. The North asked the South again to send fertilizer on Tuesday, but did not answer the proposal on talks. "We send 200,000 tons of fertilizer in spring and another 100,000 tons in fall every year as humanitarian aid," the official said. "The government knows the North needs assistance, but public sentiment toward the North has worsened recently." Pyeongyang cancelled a planned family reunion last month.
• Seoul May Reject Pyongyang's Request for Fertilizer
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter North Korea's Red Cross has repeatedly called on South Korea to provide 100,000 tons of fertilizer, officials said Wednesday. But the Seoul government is unlikely to accept the request due to the stalled cross-border talks. ``We are not ready to send fertilizer to the North at the moment because there has been no progress in the government-level talks between the two Koreas,'' a government official said. [aid weapon]
• North Korea Requests Fertilizer Aid From South Korea
  [Yonhap,Oct.13th] North Korea's Red Cross requested 100,000 tons of fertilizer aid from South Korea, but the South indicated it would not be able to provide it because of stalled inter-Korean talks [aid weapon]
• N. Korea's Rice Price Falls Thanks to Food Aid, Corn Harvest
  [Yonhap,Oct.11th] Rice prices in North Korea have fallen by 25 percent thanks to rice aid from South Korea and the North's maize harvest, a U.N. relief agency said Monday. The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) said in its emergency report issued over the weekend that the North Korean market price for rice fell as the latest shipment of South Korean rice aid arrived in North Korea and the communist country began harvesting maize. The agency, however, did not reveal details about the price changes. In an earlier emergency report issued on Aug. 13, the WFP said the cost of rice in North Korea had almost doubled, rising from 240 North Korean won to 500 won per kilogram. According to South Korea's Bank of Korea, Pyongyang has set its official exchange rate for the North Korean won at 150 to one U.S. dollar, but the currency actually trades at 1,000 to one dollar in the black market. On Thursday, Good Friends, a South Korean religious group which sends food aid to North Korea, said the price has been on the rise from 350 won per kilogram during the March-April period to 500 won in June, 800 won in August and 900 won in September. The North's daily rationing of rice, meanwhile, stood at 300-350 grams per person in October, the WFP said.
• NK Rice Prices Fall Thanks to Food Aid: WFP
  SEOUL (Yonhap) - Rice prices in North Korea have fallen by 25 percent thanks to rice aid from South Korea and the North's maize harvest, a U.N. relief agency said Monday. The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) said in its emergency report issued over the weekend that the North Korean market price for rice fell as the latest shipment of South Korean rice aid arrived in North Korea and the communist country began harvesting maize. The agency, however, did not reveal details about the price changes. In an earlier emergency report issued on Aug. 13, the WFP said the cost of rice in North Korea had almost doubled, rising from 240 North Korean won to 500 won per kilogram. [Marketisation] [Economic reform]
• Aid Group to Set Up Church in Pyongyang
  By Moon Gwang-lip Staff Reporter A relief agency is to establish a church exclusively for foreigners in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. When opened, foreign visitors and diplomats will be able to attend English prayer services in Pyongyang. The Korean Foundation World Aid, a group working for aid in North Korea, said Friday that it has agreed with eight U.S.-based missionary groups to join hands in establishing the church for foreigners in Pyongyang. If North Korea grants permission to its foundation, the church, tentatively called the ``Pyongyang International Harvest Church,'' will be the third official church in the North. ``The representatives of the joint team will soon visit Pyongyang to seek the government's permission for the church,'' said Lee Soo-jung, a member of the foundation. The first official church in North Korea, Pongsu Church was founded in 1988. Chilgol Church, was set up in 1999. Missionary groups participating in the plan include the Campus Crusade for Christ and the Love Network for Korea in Los Angeles. According to the plan, a total of $6 million will be invested to construct a four-story building with lodging facilities. The church will also run a school for foreign students, the foundation said.
• A Heartless Homeland
  Why more North Koreans than ever are fleeing their country. By Gregg Chenoweth & Tricia Miller | posted 10/06/2004 9:00 a.m. Christianity Today North Korean refugees rarely tell their stories. They are too busy ducking, whispering, and running. The wrong word finding its way to the wrong person could be disastrous. As a North Korean woman attending university in South Korea explained, "I fear my family will be harmed if I speak." In July, more than 430 North Koreans were airlifted to Seoul from an undisclosed Southeast Asian nation, possibly Vietnam. News reports called it the largest-ever movement of refugees into South Korea. Seoul is normally wary of accepting North Korean defectors for political and economic reasons, but apparently officials helped pave the way for these refugees. [evangelicalism]
• Christian Friends of Korea Newsletter
  September 2004
• US 'hyping' Darfur genocide fears
  Peter Beaumont Sunday October 3, 2004 The Observer American warnings that Darfur is heading for an apocalyptic humanitarian catastrophe have been widely exaggerated by administration officials, it is alleged by international aid workers in Sudan. Washington's desire for a regime change in Khartoum has biased their reports, it is claimed. The government's aid agency, USAID, says that between 350,000 and a million people could die in Darfur by the end of the year. Other officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, have accused the Sudanese government of presiding over a 'genocide' that could rival those in Bosnia and Rwanda. But the account has been comprehensively challenged by eyewitness reports from aid workers and by a new food survey of the region. The nutritional survey of Sudan's Darfur region, by the UN World Food Programme, says that although there are still high levels of malnutrition among under-fives in some areas, the crisis is being brought under control. 'It's not disastrous,' said one of those involved in the WFP survey, 'although it certainly was a disaster earlier this year, and if humanitarian assistance declines, this will have very serious negative consequences.' The UN report appears to confirm food surveys conducted by other agencies in Darfur which also stand in stark contrast to the dire US descriptions of the food crisis. The most dramatic came from Andrew Natsios, head of USAID, who told UN officials: 'We estimate right now, if we get relief in we'll lose a third of a million people and, if we don't, the death rates could be dramatically higher, approaching a million people.'
  Concern about USAID's role as an honest broker in Darfur have been mounting for months, with diplomats as well as aid workers puzzled over its pronouncements and one European diplomat accusing it of 'plucking figures from the air'. Under the Bush administration, the work of USAID has become increasingly politicised. But over Sudan, in particular, two of its most senior officials have long held strong personal views. Both Natsios, a former vice-president of the Christian charity World Vision, and Winter have long been hostile to the Sudanese government. [human rights][Camouflage]
• Hindering the helpers
  Pyongyang's growing suspicion of external aid shows it is retreating further into its shell despite growing pressure to open up. Jonathan Watts explains Friday October 1, 2004 Recent reports that North Korea is trying to reduce the presence of foreign aid agencies in Pyongyang have highlighted the growing pressure on the isolated regime to open up. The pressure comes from two directions - inside- out and outside-in - that have come to reflect the differences between radical and cautious proponents of change. Hawkish inside-outers, who include US neo- conservatives and South Korean Christians, want to bring down the "great leader", Kim Jong-il, as quickly as possible. Their preferred method is to "squeeze" North Korea in order to encourage a mass exodus of refugees similar to that which led to the fall of the Berlin wall.
  Last month, the North unilaterally announced that it would not take part in the next UN consolidated appeal for aid - the means by which it has requested help from international donors for the past eight years. Instead, it wants to switch the focus of support from short-term humanitarian food aid to long-term development assistance. [Media]
• School Bell Tolls Again for Pupils in Ryongchon
  Destroyed School Rebuilt by Domestic and Foreign Support Rehabilitation of Ryongchon County from Train Explosion

• N Korea's Food Rationing Centers Paralyzed
  [Yonhap,Aug.31th] North Korea's state-run food-rationing centers have been increasingly unable to function, forcing ordinary North Koreans to depend on their factories, companies and public offices for grain supplies, a local think tank said Tuesday. The Seoul-based Institute of North Korea Studies said the North's worsening food shortage has virtually paralyzed the operations of its rationing centers nationwide since the 1990s [PDS] [Marketisation]
• Seoul to Buy Rice from Vietnam, Thailand for Delivery to N.K.
  [Yonhap,Aug.10th] South Korea will purchase 200,000 tons of rice from Vietnam and Thailand and send them directly to North Korea beginning next month to help ease its chronic food shortage, officials said Tuesday. The shipment is part of 300,000 tons of rice South Korea plans to buy overseas for delivery to the impoverished communist state by ship.
• Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2005
  (Placed on Calendar in Senate) US Senate S.2812 NORTH KOREA AND BURMA SEC. 597. None of the funds made available in this Act or prior Acts making appropriations for foreign operations, export financing, and related programs as a United States contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria may be made available for assistance for the Government of North Korea or the State Peace and Development Council in Burma, or affiliated groups and organizations.
• Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to the DPRK
  September 16th, 2004
  DPR Korea continued its recovery in agricultural production that started in 2001, with this year's food production showing some improvement over the previous three years.
  The main factors behind this continued recovery include favorable weather conditions especially at the beginning of the season, a relatively low incidence of crop pests and diseases, increased application of fertilizer provided through international assistance, improved irrigation facilities in the main Cereal Bowl region of the country due to completion of the Kechan-Taesong Lake canal funded by the OPEC, improved availability of electricity for irrigation pumping stations, and enhanced mechanization resulting from greater availability of fuel and spare parts.
  The 2003/04 cereal production, including potatoes in cereal equivalent, is forecast at 4.16 million tons, the best harvest over the last nine years, and 4.7 percent larger than last year's revised estimate.
  Despite the recovery over the last three years, domestic production still falls well below the minimum food needs and the country will again have to depend on substantial external food assistance as its capacity to import commercially remains highly constrained.
• DPRK Hit by Torrential Rain
  Pyongyang, September 14 (KCNA) -- Many areas of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea were hit by a torrential rain. There was a heavy rain throughout the country from 15:00 Sept. 11 to 06:00 Sept. 13 owing to a tropical depression, 239 mm in Sinchon, 209 mm in Kangryong, 205 mm in Ongjin, 201 mm in Sariwon, 197 mm in Anju, 196 mm in Kangnam, 157 mm in Sukchon, 155 mm in Pyongyang, 144 mm in Haeju and 138 mm in Pakchon. There was a pouring rainfall of 80 mm in Kangnam, 66 mm in Kangryong, 60 mm in Sinchon, 52 mm in Anak and 50 mm in Phyongwon from 09:00 to 12:00 Sept 12 alone. Nearly 13,000 hectares of farmland were inundated and scores of dwellings and more than ten public buildings were damaged in South Hwanghae Province by the deluge of rain. And river banks and roads were destroyed at some ten spots. In North Hwanghae Province some 2,800 hectares of farmland were submerged and rice plants of more than 2,600 hectares fell down. Ninety dwellings were flooded in Sariwon. In South Phyongan Province some 80 dwelling houses which had been under construction totally collapsed. All efforts are now being focused on healing the damage in the flood-stricken areas.
• ACDPU's US Branc