Open Sources
Damn. It’s still Groundhog Day! “Military talks between the rival Koreas have “collapsed,” a unification ministry official in Seoul said on Wednesday, dealing a setback to efforts to restart international aid-for-disarmament talks.”
“The United States policy is that when we provide assistance, humanitarian assistance, it is based on need and no political consideration should be involved. That’s the first condition,” King said in an exclusive interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul. The two other principles are to balance demands and requests as resources are limited, and to ensure transparency in aid distribution “to be certain that aid we provide goes to those who are most vulnerable, those who are most in need,” King said, adding that any aid request should meet those criteria.
A Strong and Prosperous Nation!
North Korea is reportedly importing animal feed grain from China to distribute on the market for human consumption as the regime struggles with food shortages. According to Radio Free Asia, Pyongyang gave the animal feed to its military as well as to merchants, bringing down the surging cost of rice.
Sure, you may scoff at the idea of importing animal feed for human consumption, but in the case of North Korea, we should at least be thankful that it’s not the converse. And any money Kim Jong Il spends on feeding human beings is arguably an improvement in his fiscal priorities.
Don Kirk has a much longer piece on North Korea and Egypt in the Asia Times. I hope they’re paying Don something for his work, because its standards and talent have reached such a nadir that without Don’s contributions, I’d drop them from my RSS entirely.
A report on the spreading of corruption in North Korea. North Korea may be the only place in this world where one woman’s travelogue is newsworthy. Reports of this kind are often inconsistent in their finer details, reflecting the fact that North Korean society is like an ice cube tray.
The latest Good Friends dispatch is here.
The Onion profiles a courageous Chinese dissident.