North Korean harvests improving

North Korea made headlines a couple of years ago when it asked for food aid. The isolated country finally had to break out to prevent its population from starving.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recently returned from a trip from North Korea to give an assessment on the country’s food security. The F.A.O. finds that harvests have improved over the last couple of years but not enough to prevent malnutrition for many.

From Reuters Alert Net, we read the latest on food security in North Korea.  

The U.N. organisation forecast a 10 percent increase in the main 2012 harvests and 2013 early season crops compared with a year earlier, and said production was expected to hit 5.8 million metric tons.

The country faced a staple food deficit of 207,000 metric tons, the lowest in many years, but 2.8 million people remained vulnerable to undernutrition, the FAO added.

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"DPR Korea still needs international help," Kisan Gunjal, FAO economist and the mission's co-leader, said in a statement. "The new harvest figures are good news, but the lack of proteins and fats in the diet is alarming."

Video: North Korean children bear brunt of food crisis

From Al Jazeera, a video on the food crisis in North Korea.

North Koreans escape from hunger

From IRIN, a story about North Koreans fleeing the food shortages within their country.

Thailand is fast becoming a transit country for North Koreans fleeing severe food shortages and poverty, authorities say.

Thousands now make their way along the more than 5,000km, often-dangerous route, through China and Laos to the kingdom en route to South Korea.

Since 2004, when just 46 North Korean asylum seekers were reported by Thailand's Immigration Bureau, the numbers have jumped to nearly 2,500 in 2010.

Thailand is the easiest route to access and the most accommodating, compared with Mongolia or Vietnam, where border security is tighter and in some cases, those fleeing have been sent back to face harsh punishment.

The trend is likely to continue, judging by a recent report by the World Food Programme (WFP), citing a bitter winter, crop loss, and lack of resources to secure cereal supplies from outside the country.

"We are at a crossroads right now: if we manage to get food into the country we can reach thousands of hungry children and their mothers on time," Claudia von Roehl, WFP country director, told IRIN from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. "Our primary concern is for those who are most vulnerable to food shortages - children, mothers and the elderly."

Government rations - mainly cereals, maize and rice - provide only about a third of people's daily food needs; some families are already resorting to negative survival strategies, including cutting down on the size and number of meals, the UN food agency reports.

In recent months, the government has distributed between 150-200 grams per person per day, while the full ration is close to 600g.

Eating grass

One young women just arriving in Thailand said her family in North Korea had cut down to one meal a day.

"We never had any days that we felt full in our stomach. Many times we cut the grass in the forest to eat."

The soft-spoken 26-year-old former teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, began her exodus six years ago, by crossing the 526km Tumen River into China and then spending five years working to pay off the smuggler fees that made her escape possible.

Local Chiang Rai Police Chief Potsawee Chotienchaikun has talked to many of the asylum-seekers who regularly surrender themselves to authorities after reaching the Mekong River.

Thailand's reputation as a safe port of entry for North Koreans has spread by word of mouth, he believes.

"I think the people who have escaped in the past have made contact with their friends in North Korea and told them where it is safe to go. The South Koreans welcome the people because they are the same nationality, they speak the same language and the South Koreans have enough resources to take care of them."

Those resources reportedly include an initial re-settlement subsidy of six million won (US$5,330) per person and housing assistance.

But despite the fact that part of the subsidy goes straight into the hands of the traffickers who orchestrated the escape, the overall benefits seem to outweigh the losses.

"Here in Thailand it's quite clear that every North Korean who has arrived is being considered by the South Korean embassy and is being sent to South Korea," says the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, Phil Robertson.

"There's a system here that works in terms of North Koreans who can reach their destination."

But the root of the problem remains the scarce food resources in North Korea, an isolated nation of more than 24 million; Robertson hopes the country will continue to allow in teams to assess the situation.

"We would continue to press for the advancement and openness that we've seen to be made permanent because people should not be allowed to starve."

Meanwhile, for the lucky few, the sight of the smiling Buddha on the Thai side of the Mekong River is a sign of hope.

"When I crossed into Thailand, I was very happy. My life is safe now and I realize that I have survived," said the former teacher.

According to media reports cited by North Korean Economy Watch, a weblog on North Korean economic issues, more than 20,000 North Korean defectors have arrived in South Korea since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in a truce. The number does not account for the estimated tens of thousands hiding in China.

EU to bring food into North Korea

The European Commission has negotiated with North Korea to gain special access into the country to distribute food aid. North Korea traditionally blocks all food aid entering into the country. They are now forced to open up due to mass starvation caused by a combination of flooding, disease and a harsh winter. 10 million Euros worth of food will be purchased by the World Food Programme and Save the Children.

From the Guardian, writer Maev Kennedy relays what the EU has learned on conditions within North Korea.

"It is of course outrageous that year after year the North Korean government has been starving its own people while funding programmes that are not to the benefit of the people and certainly not for the benefit of mankind – but that is no excuse for closing our eyes and closing our hearts when people are in desperate need," Kristalina Georgieva, EU commissioner for international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, said. "My own team came back and told me that the need is very real and acute. If we are to act, we must act now."

North Korean government rations, believed to be keeping two-thirds of the population alive, have been steadily reducing, down from 400g per person per day in April to 150g in June – the equivalent of a small bowl of rice.

Georgieva sent observers who were given unusual permission to visit hospitals and clinics, kindergartens and nurseries, markets and farms, and the state food distribution centres. They reported widespread hunger, near-empty markets and warehouses, and many people being treated in hospital after eating grass.

"Among the most saddening stories were of starving children begging in the market place to people who had absolutely nothing to give them. We cannot allow that to happen if we are in a position to help," she said.

Georgieva has been in discussion with the World Food Programme, which is using the offer of European money as a lever to increase the number of international staff in the country monitoring food distribution, and to permit up to 400 visits a month, including members of her own team.

"This is a targeted, one-off response. We will be monitoring from port to hospital. I have asked that all the food from Europe be not bought at the same time: any sign of food not getting through, or being diverted away from the people we want to help, and it stops there, we give no more," Georgieva said.

North Korea asks for more rice from other governments

It appears that North Korea may be suffering through another famine as it is asking for food aid from individual governments. This presents a big change for the isolated dictatorship for in the past they only relied on assistance from the World Food Programme.

From the Guardian, writer Julian Borger gives us more details on North Korea's change in asking for help.

The WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has begun a food needs assessment in North Korea, but the WFP said that last year it managed to raise only a fifth of the budget it needed for its North Korean aid programme.

That shortfall may be one of the reasons Pyongyang is trying a direct approach this year, observers said.

"This year, all 40 North Korean embassies have been ordered by Pyongyang to ask governments for food. They have each been given a quota," an Asian diplomat said.

Another Asian official said the order appears to have been given in December: "Kim Jong-il has told his embassies to get as much rice as possible."

In November the WFP and FAO warned that the majority of North Korea's population faced continued hunger this year after harvests were affected by unusually bad weather.
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North Korea has repeatedly been hit by famines in recent decades, particularly when bad weather has exacerbated the effects of inefficient collectivist farming practices and a shortage of mechanisation. The situation was particularly acute in the mid-1990s when between 600,000 and more than 2 million people are believed to have died.

North Koreans going hungry without aid

North Korea suffered a devastating famine in the mid-1990's. Ever since that time, the country has depended on foreign aid to feed it's people. That aid has stopped since North Korea's began testing of nuclear weapons.

Now, the UN's World Food Programme says the hunger and malnutrition are at dangerous levels, and they themselves are unable to feed everyone.

From this Gruadian article, Tania Branigan tells us more about the WFP's statement.

The UN aid agency said it was reaching fewer than a third of those targeted and about a fifth of those in need.

It blamed a lack of international donations, with none since the state's nuclear test in May, and said it faced new restrictions from Pyongyang. It said it had received 15% of the $504m it needed.

Torben Due, the WFP's representative for North Korea, told reporters in Beijing that since January it had been delivering reduced food packages and reaching 1.7 million people. "It is amongst the lowest [number] we're ever had in the DPRK [North Korea]," he said.

The agency estimates that 8.7 million people need food aid, and the emergency operation launched last autumn aimed to reach 6.2 million. It has been distributing a tenth of the 40,000 metric tonnes it aimed to deliver each month.

"There's a need to do more, and that's why we are asking these donor countries for more," Due said.

US aid group kicked out of North Korea

Once again a government puts politics over the good of it's people. North Korea has kicked out the aid group Mercy Corps, who have provided food the the North Korean people.

North Korea has been messing with nuclear weapons again. Many feel that the expulsion of Mercy Corps is in response to US criticism of the nuclear program. North Korea has also detained two US journalists accused of spying.

From the Reuters article written by Paul Eckert, we hear from Mercy Corps and their hopes to return to North Korea soon.

Amid tensions over North Korea's nuclear program and an expected missile launch next month, its reclusive government informed Washington last week of its decision not to accept more U.S. assistance, the State Department said.

North Korea said a 2008 protocol, which would have provided 500,000 metric tons of U.S. food aid over a 12-month period, was "no longer in effect," said Paul Majarowitz, director of Mercy Corps NGO Food Assistance Program in North Korea.

"We were given a letter by the North Korean government that asked us to close our field offices by March 20, and our main office by March 31, and have all of our staff and equipment out of the country by March 31," he said.

The expulsion covered only the food aid program, not the private aid agencies themselves, Majarowitz added.

"We're complying with that request and, at the same time, we're negotiating with them, trying to see if there is an avenue to restart or to resume the program," he said in remarks at the Korea Economic Institute in Washington.
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U.N. investigator Vitit Muntarbhorn told the world body's Human Rights Council last week the situation in North Korea was "dire and desperate". Authorities were moving to close all markets on which many people rely for food, he said.

North Korean authorities were also apparently planning to ban small-lot, or "kitchen" farming, which had been vital for the survival of much of the population, while army personnel were forcing farmers to provide them food, Muntarbhorn said.

Probe: UN Program Open to NKorean Abuses

from The Associated Press via Google

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER

WASHINGTON (AP) — A United Nations anti-poverty program in North Korea paid $50,000 to a company with ties to North Korean weapons sales and left itself open to exploitation by the communist-led country, according to a Senate investigation released Wednesday.

The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations takes issue with the operation of the U.N. Development Program in North Korea, which was suspended last year. The report alleges that the UNDP made itself open to abuse by, among other things, paying the salaries of local staff directly to the government without verifying how they were disbursed, even though the agency suspected that the government was "skimming" money from the payments.

Citing wire transfers and other financial documents, the report also said that North Korea used a bank account reserved for UNDP funds to move $2.72 million of its own money out of the country. According to the report, North Korean government officials told Senate investigators these transfers were made soon after President Bush declared the country part of an "axis of evil."

Officials of the communist country told the investigators the transfers were made through the UNDP account to avoid international scrutiny and possible sanctions that they believed were imminent, the report said.

The findings were scheduled to be discussed at a Senate hearing on Thursday.

Phone and e-mail messages left with the North Korean Mission to the U.N. were not returned Wednesday.

The Bush administration said it's too early to remove North Korea from a U.S. terrorism blacklist, a major demand by Pyongyang in international nuclear disarmament negotiations.

Some of the problems identified in the report were covered by a U.N. audit last year, which found that the UNDP paid North Korean staff and suppliers in hard currency without approval and hired only government-approved staff in violation of U.N. procedures.

"But we went beyond that," said Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, the committee's top Republican.

"The North Koreans had set up what I call a money-laundering system," he said, referring to the $2.72 million in transfers. "By using the U.N. seal of approval, clearly the hope was that it wouldn't attract any attention."

UNDP officials, Coleman said, "let themselves be manipulated by a rogue nation."

Coleman also highlighted the $50,000 in funds paid to Zang Lok Trading Co. on behalf of other U.N. agencies. The report includes a letter from the U.S. mission to the U.N., sent to the UNDP last year, which says that "Zang Lok has ties to a North Korean entity that has been designated under United States laws as the main North Korean financial agent for sales of conventional arms, ballistic missiles and goods related to the assembly and manufacture of such weapons."

The report said that UNDP officials told the subcommittee it didn't know, nor had any way of knowing, whether Zang Lok is connected to North Korean weapons sales.

In a statement issued Wednesday in response to the report, the UNDP said it paid Zang Lok on behalf of two other U.N. agencies for computer equipment, which were received in "good order." The UNDP added that it ceased doing business with Zang Lok after being notified by the U.S. government about its ties to a "designated entity."

As to the $2.72 million in funds that were transferred, the agency said: "UNDP is not happy that its name may have been used inappropriately by the North Korean government in connection with deceptive financial transactions. It has formally raised this matter with the North Korean government."

The statement also notes that the Senate report does not conclude that these transfers could have been prevented had the UNDP been more vigilant.

"UNDP is also pleased to note that contrary to persistent allegations it has faced, the report finds that the $2.72 million in question was not UNDP's money," the agency said.

The UNDP suspended its operations in North Korea last year because the reclusive nation failed to meet conditions set following allegations by the U.S. that U.N. aid money was being diverted to Kim Jong Il's regime. Among the conditions: that the UNDP no longer pay North Korean staff in hard currency and no longer employ North Koreans loaned from government agencies.

David Morrison, a UNDP spokesman, said in an e-mail that the agency has faced "persistent and detailed allegations about funding diversion and misconduct in its former operations in North Korea. We collaborated fully with the subcommittee's investigation, and are gratified that the staff report contains no suggestion that these allegations can be substantiated."

Subcommittee staffers confirmed that they received substantial cooperation, but noted a passage in the report that said they were not given unfettered access to the UNDP financial system or original records or receipts. Because of that limited scope, they said, the report neither confirms nor refutes allegations made by the U.S.

A year ago, the United States accused the UNDP of funneling millions of dollars in hard currency to North Korea with little assurance that Kim Jong Il used the money to help his people, instead of diverting it to "illicit purposes" including developing nuclear weapons.

The report noted that development projects in North Korea present daunting challenges but concluded, "the North Korean government took advantage of the altruism that drives UNDP programs."

ADB urged to 'gear up' to fight poverty in communist North Korea

from Mainichi Daily News

KYOTO, Japan -- South Korea urged the Asian Development Bank on Sunday to consider communist North Korea a future client and start preparing to fight poverty in the isolated, desperately poor nation.

"With positive developments being made on the (North Korean) nuclear issue, I can envisage the international community's response to North Korea cautiously, but significantly improving," Kwon O-kyu, South Korea's governor to the ADB, said during the development bank's annual meeting in Kyoto.

"In this regard, I suggest that the ADB gear itself up to supporting the reform efforts of potential future clients like (North Korea), when conditions mature," he said.

After a several-year standoff with the United States and neighboring nations over its nuclear weapons program, North Korea pledged in February to shut down its only operating nuclear reactor by mid-April in return for aid and other political concessions.

However, it has refused so far to act until it receives US$25 million (?18.4 million) in funds frozen in a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia. The U.S. and Banco Delta Asia have said that the North's funds -- frozen because of alleged links to money laundering and counterfeiting of US$100 bills -- are now free for withdrawal.

But for unknown reasons, North Korea has yet to take the money.

On Saturday, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso was quoted by Kyodo News agency as saying international talks on ending the nuclear stalemate could resume as early as next week if the frozen funds issue is resolved.

North Korea is one of Asia's poorest countries, but is not a member of the 67-member Asian Development Bank, which was founded in 1966 to fight regional poverty through economic development.

In recent years, North Korea has taken tentative steps toward reforms in an attempt to help its moribund economy. But the dispute over its nuclear programs has stymied any major breakthroughs.

Kwon said inaction over North Korea's isolation and poverty would only "increase the risk that this reclusive country can pose to the world economy."

INTERVIEW-North Korea seeks end of handouts: aid group

from Reuters Alert Net

By Jack Kim

SEOUL, March 14 (Reuters) - North Korea is eager to end its dependence on food handouts and is seeking development assistance to become more self sufficient, the head of one of the biggest donor agencies to the North said on Wednesday.

Private aid from the South to the impoverished North grew in 2006 despite Pyongyang's defiant missile and nuclear tests, but security tensions cut sharply into what had been a growing trend, Lee Yong-sun of Korean Sharing Movement said in an interview.

With recent progress in international efforts to end the communist state's nuclear weapons programme and U.S. efforts to improve ties with the North, Pyongyang is poised to open its doors wider to foreign investment and development help, he said.

"North Korea is seeking more structural development assistance," Lee said. "They are saying they can't live on handouts forever."

North Korea asked the United Nations in 2005 to end all aid through its the U.N. food agency saying its farm production had improved and because Washington was politicising the programme.

But Pyongyang continued to depend on direct food aid from the South. It asked South Korea earlier this month for 300,000 tonnes of fertiliser, and Seoul said it would grant the request. North Korea is expected to also ask for rice aid soon.

"Food and fertiliser are nice but their fertiliser production facilities are obsolete so help is needed to upgrade them, that's the kind of proposals they're making," Lee said.

In one of the latest projects, Lee's group finished the overhaul of a hospital in Pyongyang in December.

The group has been involved in other projects to improve production at North Korean farms and build schools, spending about 10 billion won ($10.6 million) last year. Lee hopes donations will increase to about 15 billion won this year.

North Korea agreed to a breakthrough deal in February with five countries including the South and the United States to begin shutting down its nuclear facilities in return for fuel oil.

Under the agreement, Pyongyang and Washington agreed to work on normalising ties, and their envoys have begun rare dialogue that a North Korean official said was "constructive."

Lee said the deal has sharply improved the outlook among North Korean beneficiaries of aid that there would be more help on setting up a development programme that would let them overcome poverty and dependence on outside aid.

But that has yet to be matched by the government and private donors in the South, he added.

"If the North and the United States are able to agree (on normalising ties), the North will open up more and get into economic development. But melting of the ice among the donors is slower, much slower than the movement between the two countries.