Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...
...also playing a role. Lee, a month after his inauguration earlier this 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...
...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 trade and aid to Pyongyang is an official state secret, so no one knows precisely how much - those policy changes hurt overall food supply in the North, and also helped continue to drive up food prices in the country...
Diplomatic and NGO sources in Seoul now say that Beijing has begun to move to address the emerging North Korean shortages. In March and April it donated at least 50,000 metric tons of food aid to Pyongyang. With the Olympics in August and a crackdown on North Korean refugees sneaking into China already well under way, Beijing wants nothing to do with the exodus from the North a growing food crisis would inevitably spur...
...Dealing with Pyongyang is a maddening, sometimes humiliating process. Hill privately has let it be known that it drives him nuts to be portrayed as aiding and abetting such an odious crowd. But bribing Kim is the only realistic strategy. When the next U.S. Administration takes over in January, it's going to come to the same conclusion - whether the President is named McCain, Obama or Clinton...