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As we observed in an earlier post, the decrepit state of the North Korean commercial fleet appears to be posing problems for sanctions-busting. Last year it was hoped that the dramatic rescue of a North Korean ship and crew by the South Korean anti-piracy unit off the Somali coast would pave the way toward improved [...]
Transparency International recently put out their international rankings, and North Korea finished dead last, tied with Somalia for 182nd place. (For what it is worth, the US came in 24th, while South Korea placed 43rd.) The North Korean result is not entirely surprising: both our surveys of North Korean refugees as well as Chinese enterprises [...]
On 25 November, the FAO/WFP released a special report on the food situation in North Korea that concluded that despite an improvement in the fall harvest relative to the previous year, the North continues to face an “uncovered deficit” and that the population faces another year of “prolonged food deprivation.” In other words, the new [...]
In case you missed it—and we would be worried if you didn’t—there was an interesting exchange between State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland and a reporter over food aid to the DPRK and Somalia. We have pointed out that pressures from the Horn of Africa will inevitably affect responsiveness to the WFP’s Korean appeal. But this [...]
