Word: pyongyang
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...Kang and millions of her fellow North Koreans are the overlooked victims of the Korean peninsula's nuclear crisis. It has been nearly one year since North Korea walked out of the six-party talks, the multilateral forum that was created to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons ambition. Last week, there was another round of unproductive exchanges: after a meeting with North Korean officials in New York, the U.S. State Department announced that the North would be returning to the negotiating table. A day later, North Korea denied making that commitment. North Korean Vice Foreign Minister...
...country, says Richard Ragan, head of the WFP's relief operation in North Korea. But donations from governments have withered by more than half since 2002, and the agency will be forced to halt food supplies to nearly 3.6 million people this month, Ragan tells TIME by phone from Pyongyang. "We are inching back toward the precipice," he says...
...North Korea is sending disturbing signals. Pyongyang recently reduced the daily rations of cereals it gives to most citizens to 250 g, half the minimum needed for survival. Thanks to market reforms implemented in the past few years, more North Koreans have been able to supplement dwindling government handouts by buying food at private food markets. But reforms have also caused food prices to soar. The price of rice has doubled in the past year, putting it out of reach of most families. Millions of urban North Koreans have reportedly been sent into the countryside to help with spring planting...
...risk now is that history will repeat itself. Responding to the crisis of the 1990s was made immensely difficult by Pyongyang's secrecy. By the time the extent of starvation was known by the outside world, it was too late. Significant U.S. food aid didn't arrive until late 1997, when the famine had already peaked. The specter of emaciated North Korean children once again threatens to complicate efforts to maintain stability on the peninsula. Trying to pressure North Korea by cutting off aid has in the past had little apparent effect on Pyongyang's policies and tactics...
...Washington insists it won't use humanitarian aid as a stick to prod Pyongyang back to the negotiating table. "The President has always made clear that food shouldn't be used as a diplomatic weapon," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan last week. The U.S. sent more than 500,000 tons of food aid in 1999, but last year it pledged just 50,000 tons, and has yet to promise any new food aid this year. (U.S. officials complain that Pyongyang still isn't allowing adequate international monitoring to ensure food goes to the needy.) Meanwhile, South Korea...