Word: kim
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...emerging shortages demonstrate, again, how vexing it is for the outside world to deal with Kim Jong Il and his regime. Less than two weeks after U.S. intelligence officials in Washington presented evidence that Pyongyang had helped Syria build a nuclear reactor - a site destroyed by the Israeli air force last September - sources tell TIME that a team of U.S. diplomats and officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development is now in Pyongyang, as part of the overall nuclear talks, trying to negotiate an expedited package of food aid. The U.S. has proposed giving the North 500,000 metric...
...Bush Administration dangled the assistance last month as a carrot in front of Kim: if North Korea delivered a "satisfactory" declaration on its entire nuclear weapons program, as it agreed to do in the so-called six-party talks, the extra food aid from the U.S. would kick in. In the eyes of some current and former diplomats, the North never has come clean about all aspects of its nuclear program, but the urgency of the food situation has now apparently made that a secondary concern. "No one wants a rerun of the 1990s or anything close to that," says...
...year, decided he would continue Seoul's humanitarian assistance of food aid and fertilizer regardless of progress in the nuclear talks - but only if the North requested it. He has made all other economic dealings with Pyongyang contingent on the North's good nuclear behavior, and that has infuriated Kim...
Indeed, despite the mounting evidence of trouble on the North Korean farm, Kim refused to request more handouts from Seoul, and turned instead to China for additional food supplies. But the global run-up in food prices has hamstrung Beijing's response. Starting in December 2007, as public discontent about rising food prices in China grew, Beijing implemented a series of measures to reduce its grain exports. Among other things, it eliminated a 13% tax rebate on grain exports. Since a substantial portion of Chinese-grown rice and grains go to the North on commercial terms - Beijing's overall agricultural...
...Pyongyang). Among the steps Pyongyang urgently needs to take now, Noland and others believe, are to conclude negotiations for expanded aid from the World Food Program. (Pyongyang sharply curtailed the activities of the organization following a rare bumper crop in the North three years ago.) Kim also has to swallow his pride and ask the South to restart the flow of food assistance to the North...