North Korea has ceased supplying food rations to its citizens

South Korean NGO Good Friends says the North Korean government there totally stopped supplying food rations to its citizens.

The Buddhist welfare organization says promised Chinese aid of grain to North Korea has not arrived, and that has compelled Pyongyang to authorize people to buy food in private markets, which now operate around the clock.

Good Friends says the ruling communist party issued a directive May 26th that work units and individuals should fend for themselves. This can be understood as either a frank confession by the government of the severity of the situation there or that the government has abandoned efforts to solve the food crisis.

North Korea has long struggled to feed its people. A famine in the mid-1990's is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of people. The United Nations Children's Fund estimates that one out of every three children in North Korea is stunted by malnutrition.

Seoul cut most food aid to Pyonygang following the sinking of a South Korean patrol vessel in March. An international investigation concluded a North Korean torpedo caused the Cheonan warship to explode, killing 46 sailors.

Some international entities, including the World Food Program and the European Union, provide some food and humanitarian assistance to North Korea but the aid is far short of what experts consider is required.

[VoA]

September 9th marks North Korea’s 60th Anniversary

The 60th anniversary of North Korea’s communist regime will be marked by a series of large-scale ceremonies to take place in and outside Pyongyang.

Prior to North Korea’s independence declaration on September 9, 1948, then leader Kim Il Sung founded the North Korean People’s Army first to unify the Korean Peninsula under communism. From its birth, the communist regime put priority on military power, something which got strengthened when Kim Jong Il took over after his father died in 1994.

The North’s top military brass forms the inner circle of the regime and enjoys a host of privileges. This military priority, however, deprives North Koreans of food and accordingly imposes hardships on them such as chronic malnutrition and starvation. According to the U.N. relief agency, today more than 60 percent of North Koreans, mostly in unprivileged demographic regions, subsist on two meals a day. In other words, the situation is worse there than in Bangladesh.

North Korea has maintained a military machine consisting of 1.2 million active solders and 1.8 million reserve forces which takes more than 60 percent of the country’s budget. Pyongyang has also spent billions of dollars to develop nuclear weapons. Had the regime bought food with the money, it could have fed its people.

[Dong-a Ilbo]

U.N. confirms Millions At Risk in North Korea food crisis

The first survey on food and nutrition in North Korea since the country granted broad access to aid groups shows millions of people are going hungry, with households reducing their food intake and more children becoming malnourished.

The survey -- conducted jointly by the United Nations' World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization -- also shows a widening gap between how much food North Korea is able to produce or purchase and how much its population needs. The WFP called it the largest food gap since 2001 for the country of 23 million.

Said Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the WFP's country director for North Korea, "The last time hunger was so deep and so widespread in parts of the country was in the late 1990s."

The three-week survey covered 53 counties in eight of North Korea's nine provinces, the WFP said.

Under a letter of understanding, North Korea agreed to open much more of the country to aid and to allow random surveys to see whether the intended beneficiaries are actually getting the food. North Korea previously allowed food aid to 50 counties in the country, with restrictions; under the new agreement, it will allow aid to 150 counties, covering most of the country.
[CNN]