Word: pyongyang
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...shortages have again made North Korea a ward of the international community. At the request of Pyongyang, the World Food Program (WFP) has stepped up its relief effort in recent months. The agency plans to provide food in the coming weeks for more than 6 million North Koreans - about a quarter of the population. In certain parts of the country, particularly the northeast, the situation is "reaching a level of humanitarian emergency," says Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the WFP's country director for North Korea in Pyongyang...
...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...
...trouble that could have been avoided? Bush Administration officials say they have not delisted Pyongyang because the regime has objected to Washington's proposed verification regime, meaning the means and methods the outside world would use to make sure the North was abiding by the nuclear agreement. Washington wants the inspectors to have as much freedom as possible, able to go pretty much wherever they want whenever they want. To a secretive, paranoid regime like the North's, that's unacceptable. The question is whether the Administration should have gone ahead and removed Pyongyang from the list and then plunged...
...diplomats doubt that negotiations over verification will be nettlesome. For months South Korea's envoys have been warning that this next step could be a deal killer. That's why the reaction to Pyongyang's latest temper tantrum has been measured. The nuclear program is the North's only real source of leverage with the outside world, and so they're using it again. Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for Bush's National Security Council, said the North's actions were "very disappointing" and urged Pyongyang to "reconsider these steps...
...North's latest gambit comes just weeks after reports that "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke, so it's unclear who is making decisions in Pyongyang. Diplomatic sources have told TIME that while Kim did appear to be ill, he was not completely incapacitated. Aides to South Korean legislators say their bosses were told at a recent intelligence briefing to expect Kim to return to power. At any rate, there is little to no policy difference between the upper echelons of the regime and the North Korean military on the nuclear issue. In other words, whether Kim decided...