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I was at an interesting conference on food security over the weekend at the Munk Center at the University of Toronto; Jeff Sachs gave an impassioned plea for action via video link. Jina Park, a committed UT student, alerted us to one of those lone legislators who take it upon themselves to keep the North [...]
A compounding factor in the food situation in North Korea is the course of the FMD outbreak in the country. Given the food shortages, culled animals are no doubt being eaten. But that is obviously not a good thing, and if the disease—which has so far affected mostly pigs—jumps to draught animals then both the [...]
During the recent Senate Foreign Relation Committee hearing on North Korea, Senator Mark Rubio (R-Fl) gently questioned Administration witnesses Stephen Bosworth and Kurt Campbell about the possible fungibility of food aid. The Administration witnesses predictably declined to take the bait: Senator Rubio: One of the arguments that has been made is that, clearly, in a [...]
There will be a mini film festival as part of the North Korea Freedom Week 2011 (April 24 – 30, 2011) that the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) is partaking in. The following three movies, Seoul Train, Kimjongilia, and Abduction, will be shown at the West End Cinema located 2301 M Street, [...]
We noted surprise in an earlier post of Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s fulsome embrace of the Libya model for North Korea. Now the North Koreans have provided a predictably full-throated response: “The U.S. launched a military attack on Libya in collusion with some Western countries on March 19. It openly interfered in the [...]
Talk about impacts. Turns out that the historical earthquake in Japan earlier this month shifted Korea and Japan further apart. No, not diplomatically, just physically. Dokdo island moved the most at 5cm and Seoul moved around 2cm to the East. However, the entire Japan moved around 2.4m to the East making the distance between the [...]
There are currently six UN agencies with a footprint in the DPRK: the World Food Program (WFP), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and UNICEF. UNDP houses the Coordinator’s office for the UN Country Team. Over the last two years, the entire operation has faced scrutiny from [...]
During the brief period that I attended elementary school in Seoul, the homeroom teacher always had the class leader (banjang) write down names of those who misbehaved on the blackboard while the teacher was away. Lest s/he gets punished by the teacher later on, the young students suppressed the urge to chat and play with [...]
The US, South and North Korea have spent the last year in a complicated dance over the Six Party talks. Seoul seems set on establishing preconditions for the talks that are unlikely to be met. The US has stuck with its strategy of “strategic patience” and following Seoul’s lead. Pyongyang has experimented with a succession [...]
As our friends know all too well, we are pretty obsessed with the North Korean food economy; it’s a revealing window into the entire system. Marc Noland commented recently on a DailyNK story that suggests the sale of party membership for food. But one other tidbit in the story pointed to the size of the [...]
