Word: koreans
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...North Koreans are, unfortunately, no strangers to hunger. In the 1990s, a severe famine is thought to have left up to a million North Koreans dead. Though aid workers say the country is not facing a full-blown famine, the shortage appears to be the worst food crisis since the 1990s. Erica Kang, director of the Seoul-based human-rights group Good Friends, says a "few hundred thousand people are in danger or at risk of famine" in North Korea. Marcus Noland, an expert on the North Korean economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, believes that...
...feeding the north has become increasingly challenging. South Korea had been one of the biggest bilateral donors of both food and fertilizer for years, but Seoul has given no aid at all this year. Relations between the two Koreas turned icy after the inauguration earlier this year of South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, who reversed a decade of conciliatory police and linked further economic cooperation to the dismantlement of Pyongyang's nuclear program. Lee has said Seoul would continue to provide humanitarian aid, though Seoul's Ministry of Unification says Pyongyang...
...deteriorating food situation comes at an especially confusing time. Last month, reports emerged that North Korea's paramount leader, Kim Jong Il, may have suffered a stroke, and he vanished from sight for several weeks. (In early October, North Korean media reported that Kim attended a university soccer match, his first public appearance since August.) Then Pyongyang abruptly backtracked on its agreement with the U.S. and four other countries to dismantle its nuclear program. U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill flew to Pyongyang in an attempt to get the agreement back on track, but his talks with the North Koreans didn...
...eyes are on this year's grain harvest, which has just begun. In mid-September, the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial that "all workers should take part in the autumn-harvesting battle," in the hope of a bumper harvest. The crops might give a respite to the food crisis when they become available later this year, but some aid workers and North Korea watchers believe the relief will be only temporary. Early estimates predict this year's harvest will be as much as 30% below average, because of a lack of fertilizers, which means the food...
According to Korean news reports, Choi became depressed when rumors started circulating last month in the country's very active online communities that she was a loan shark and had driven a fellow actor, Ahn Jae Hwan, to kill himself. The word on the Net was that Choi had been pressuring Ahn to repay a loan of some $2 million. After enduring the accusations (which police said after her death were untrue), Choi killed herself in a "momentary impulse," according to the investigative team, driven by malicious rumors and prolonged stress...