InfoAnda - Special Report: Crisis grips North Korean rice bowl |

IP traffic to grow 29 percent per year through 2016: Cisco | | 30 May 2012

Iraq OKs pact with timetable; attacks kill 17 | 5 December 2008

Greece must move fast to avert social crisis: report | | 22 January 2010

Japanese workers demand pay rise amid recession | 7 March 2009

Forum Views () Forum Replies ()

Read more with google mobile : Special Report: Crisis grips North Korean rice bowl |

Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Home Business Business Home Economy Technology Media Small Business Green Business Legal Deals Earnings Summits Business Video Markets Markets Home U.S. Markets European Markets Asian Markets Global Market Data Indices M&A Stocks Bonds Currencies Commodities Futures Funds peHUB World World Home U.S. Brazil China Euro Zone Japan Mexico Russia Afghan Journal Africa Journal India Insight Global News Journal Pakistan: Now or Never? World Video Politics Politics Home Front Row Washington Politics Video Technology Technology Home MediaFile Science Tech Video Opinion Opinion Home Chrystia Freeland Felix Salmon Jack Shafer Breakingviews David Rohde Bernd Debusmann Gregg Easterbrook Nader Mousavizadeh James Saft John Wasik Christopher Whalen Ian Bremmer Mohamed El-Erian Lawrence Summers The Great Debate Unstructured Finance Newsmaker MuniLand Money Money Home Analyst Research Global Investing MuniLand Reuters Money Alerts Watchlist Portfolio Stock Screener Fund Screener Personal Finance Video Life & Culture Health Sports Arts Faithworld Business Traveler Left Field Entertainment Oddly Enough Lifestyle Video Pictures Pictures Home Reuters Photographers Full Focus Video Article Comments (1) Slideshow Video Full Focus Editor's choice A selection of our best photos from the past 24 hours. Full Article Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read Secret panel can put Americans on "kill list' 05 Oct 2011 Obama chides banks, taps anger over Wall Street | 4:09pm EDT Knox trial judge says she may be guilty but no proof 12:38pm EDT Ridiculed crystal work wins Nobel for Israeli 10:12am EDT World mourns Steve Jobs | 2:50pm EDT Discussed 347 Exclusive: Democrats push tax hikes first in deficit talks 223 About 400 arrested in Wall Street protest 182 Secret panel can put Americans on ”kill list’ Watched Apple's Steve Jobs dead at 56 Wed, Oct 5 2011 Wealth Summit: Edward Jones CEO boasts hiring to spur growth Tue, Oct 4 2011 Japan tech show merges real, virtual Tue, Oct 4 2011 Special Report: Crisis grips North Korean rice bowl Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Trade pacts clear first hurdle on way to approval Wed, Oct 5 2011 Obama and Republicans cooperate to move trade pacts Mon, Oct 3 2011 Philippines mops up after two typhoons in a week Sun, Oct 2 2011 Pro-Assad crowd stones U.S. envoy's convoy in Syria Thu, Sep 29 2011 Seven dead after Typhoon Nesat pounds Philippines Tue, Sep 27 2011 Analysis & Opinion Can Confucius save America’s middle class? Making money off free content, Boomerang edition Related Topics World » United Nations » AlertNet » Related Video Children pay for North Korea food crisis 3:32am EDT Winter worsens North Korea food crisis 1 of 30. Pak Su Dong, manager of the Soksa-Ri cooperative farm in the area hit by recent floods and typhoons shows damage to agricultural products in the South Hwanghae province September 29, 2011. Credit: Reuters/Damir Sagolj By Tim Large Thu Oct 6, 2011 4:00pm EDT HAEJU, North Korea, Oct 6 (AlertNet) - In a pediatric hospital in North Korea's most productive farming province, children lay two to a bed. All showed signs of severe malnutrition: skin infections, patchy hair, listless apathy. "Their mothers have to bring them here on bicycles," said duty doctor Jang Kum Son in the Yellow Sea port city of Haeju. "We used to have an ambulance but it's completely broken down. One mother travelled 72 kilometers (45 miles). By the time they get here, it's often too late." It's also getting late for North Korea to get the massive amount of food aid it claims to need before the harsh winter sets in. The country's dysfunctional food-distribution system, rising global commodities prices and sanctions imposed over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs had contributed to what appears to be a hunger crisis in the North, even before devastating summer floods and typhoons compounded the emergency. The regime's appeals for massive food aid have gone mostly unanswered by a skeptical international community. Only 30 percent of a United Nations food aid target for North Korea has been met so far. The United States and South Korea, the two biggest donors before sanctions, have said they won't resume aid until they are satisfied the military-led communist regime won't divert the aid for its own uses and progress is made on disarmament talks. South Korea also says the North is exaggerating the severity of its food crisis. Visiting scholars, tourists and charity workers have sent out conflicting views about it. The U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), for instance, said last month after visiting the North that "the damage was not so significant." Another U.N. body, the World Food Programme, which has a regular presence in the North, warned in March of growing hunger. The sharp divergence of views is one reason why the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator will visit this month to assess the situation. North Korea's Economy and Trade Information Center, part of the foreign trade ministry, invited Alertnet to see the extent of the crisis on a rare reporting trip to its rice bowl in South Hwanghae province in the southwest. Alertnet (www.trust.org/alertnet/), a humanitarian news service run by the Thomson Reuters Foundation which covers crises worldwide, saw evidence of alarming malnutrition and damaged crops, but also signs of some promise for the coming rice harvest. Although tightly controlled by government officials, an Alertnet reporter and Reuters photographers and video journalists were able to conduct a week-long trip into the South Hwanghae region. The visit included rare access to collective farms, orphanages, hospitals, rural clinics, schools and nurseries. The regime's motive in granting the access appears to be to amplify its food-aid appeals. North Korean officials at first asked Alertnet to reach out to its subscriber base to mobilize help--and at one point asked the Thomson Reuters Foundation for a donation. Alertnet declined, saying all it could do is visit and report on the situation. The picture the regime presented in South Hwanghae was largely one of chronic hunger, dire healthcare, limited access to clean water and a collapsing food-rationing system, all under a command economy that has been in crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union 20 years ago threw North Korea into isolation. In one orphanage in Haeju, 28 children huddled together on the floor of a small clinic, singing "We have nothing to envy" -- an anthem to North Korea's longstanding policy of juche, or complete self-reliance, that has made this one of the most closed societies on earth. Measurements taken of each child's mid-upper arm with color-coded plastic bracelets -- a standard test for malnutrition -- showed 12 were in the orange or red danger zones, meaning some could die without proper treatment. Nutrition experts from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), who accompanied AlertNet, found similar results among children at other institutions. But they stressed their findings were not statistically representative. At an orphanage in Hwangju town, across the provincial border in North Hwanghae province, 11 of 12 children in the clinic were critically malnourished. They looked to be no more than three or four years old, but orphanage staff insisted they were eight, citing severe stunting due to malnutrition. "I've never seen stunting like this before, not ever -- not even in Ethiopia," said Delphine Chedorge, deputy program manager of emergencies for MSF France. In the orphanage's kitchen, the only food for the 736 children was maize and a thin soup made of onion and radish leaves. Cooks said they had no oil, sugar or protein -- vital ingredients for adequate nutrition. "They've had to reduce the minimum height limit for the army by 2 cm," a Western aid worker in Pyongyang said, speaking of stunting. North Koreans on average live 11 years less than South Koreans due mainly to malnutrition, according to U.N. health indicators. FAMINE FEARS AGAIN? In March, the World Food Programme (WFP) estimated that 6 million North Koreans needed food aid and a third of children were chronically malnourished or stunted. By contrast, the United Nations says 4 million people face a food crisis in Somalia. The WFP's appeal inevitably raised the specter of the mid-1990s, when years of mismanaged farm policy and natural disasters resulted in famine that some estimates said killed as many as a million people. Nobody is saying this year is anything like that -- and South Korea has said it suspects Pyongyang of exaggerating the crisis. North Korea has relied on food aid since the mid-1990s. Critics say Pyongyang spends most of what little hard currency it earns maintaining a million-strong army and developing nuclear weapons and missiles instead of feeding its millions of malnourished people. A savage winter that froze seeds in the ground hit early crops even before this summer's floods. In South Hwanghae, the governing People's Committee said, the cold wiped out 65 percent of the province's barley, winter wheat and potato crops, which are sown in autumn and harvested in spring. Between late June and early August, torrential rains, successive floods and two typhoons inundated southwestern and central provinces. Hardest hit were the plains of South Hwanghae, whose sprawling, collective farms are essential food providers in a mountainous nation where only a fifth of land is arable and the climate is harsh. Typically, the province generates about a third of the country's total cereal supply, pumping wheat, maize and rice into the Public Distribution System, on which two-thirds of the population relies. Last year, 16 of South Hwanghae's 22 counties produced a surplus, providing precious calories for people elsewhere, especially in towns and cities where chances to fish, forage and keep household gardens are limited. The summer storms destroyed 80 percent of the province's early maize harvest, the People's Committee said. Those figures were impossible to verify. AlertNet saw fields buried under mud and sand washed down from higher ground, as well as broken concrete bridges and collapsed school buildings and medical centers. "The harvest is lost, and we'll just have to turn the ground over," said a senior official with the provincial Flood Damage Rehabilitation Committee. "We don't have any tractors so we'll do it by hand." At Soa-Ri collective farm, which was hit three times by floods, about 100 families were living under Red Cross tarpaulins amid the buckled ruins of bungalow-style homes. An enormous tree lay prone in the muck, snapped at its base by the force of flash floods, whose power and frequency have intensified in recent years due to rampant deforestation in a country where many still need firewood for cooking. WELLS CONTAMINATED Jong Song Hui, 40, recalled how she was sleeping when her house started caving in, its mud bricks turned to mush by days of heavy rain. Woken by the crashing of timbers, she grabbed her two children and got out just in time. "The only things I could save were the portraits of the Great Leaders," she said. She was referring to pictures of North Korea's founding father, Kim Il-Sung, and his now ruling son, Kim Jong-il, which adorn many walls in one of the world's most enduring personality cults. The elder Kim remains posthumously the formal head of state, proclaimed "eternal president" four years after his 1994 death. The rains also destroyed Soa-Ri's clinic, which serves 4,790 people on the collective farm. "Living conditions are terrible," said the clinic's doctor, standing outside a dilapidated building that functioned as a substitute clinic. "The water supply is heavily contaminated -- wells are polluted. So people are suffering diarrhea and digestive disorders. Also, it's getting colder, so people are getting pneumonia and bronchitis." In Haeju, 40 percent of the city's 276,000 people were still without water due to damage to the mains system, forcing residents to trek 4 kilometers into the mountains to lug water from fresh streams, municipal officials said. Teams of students and factory workers were digging to find the broken concrete pipes connecting Haeju with a reservoir almost 7 kilometers away. All the pipes would have to be replaced. SOLDIERS GUARD CORNFIELDS The U.N.'s top humanitarian official, Valerie Amos, will visit the country for the first time later this month to assess the country's food needs and how aid can be monitored to ensure it does go to those who need it most. Experts have presented conflicting views about North Korea's harvests. Last week, Hiroyuki Konuma, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's regional representative in Asia, said crop damage from the summer's extreme weather was "not so significant" after finishing a three-day trip to North Korea. Ondine Ripka, a food security analyst with MSF France, said even minor natural disasters could have catastrophic consequences for vulnerable people. "We did witness some damage in the fields," she said. "But we shouldn't forget that people are already living on the edge, and it takes very little to push them over into malnutrition." Along pot-holed roads neatly planted with cosmos and asters, AlertNet saw acre after acre of brown, drooping cornstalks, suggesting some damage at least to South Hwanghae's maize crops. Pak Su Dong, manager of the Soksa-Ri farm, held up a withered cob and pulled back the husk, revealing just a few yellow kernels inside. "Since June, we had heavy rain for two months, so that's why the maize couldn't get enough nutrients to grow properly," he said. "We now expect to harvest only 15 percent of the maize output we had originally planned." Despite the sorry-looking crops, soldiers were guarding many cornfields against raiders, keeping watch from wooden shelters with straw roofs. FOOD AND NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY Next April marks the 100th birthday of "Eternal President" Kim Il-sung, and skeptics accuse North Korea of hoarding food for the centennial celebrations. South Korean officials say the North is stockpiling food ahead of a possible underground nuclear test, which would likely provoke another round of sanctions. In August, the United States offered $900,000 in flood assistance that consisted largely of supplies such as plastic sheeting and tents, saying it carried less risk of diversion. North Korea's closed society and fixation on weaponry have thrown up plenty of doubt over the years about its perennial food aid requests. Aid has often been intertwined with diplomacy over its nuclear and missile programs. North Korea said in August, in the midst of its food aid appeals, it was willing to resume regional disarmament talks at an early date without preconditions. North Korea in the past has won food aid pledges after resuming talks on its nuclear program, which have dragged on for much of the past decade. Pyongyang has conducted two nuclear tests, in October 2006 and May 2009, and is believed to have enough nuclear material for up to a dozen warheads. South Korea halted shipments of food and fertilizer in early 2008 at the outset of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's five-year term. He demanded progress on the disarmament talks before resuming aid. Russia, one of the six parties to the disarmament talks, expects them to resume soon, its foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday. IRRATIONAL RATIONING? Experts have noted that North Korea could better survive natural disasters if it adopted more market-based food policies. North Korea's Public Distribution System was the main source of food for most North Koreans until it broke down during the mid-1990s famine. Gradually, the regime allowed a limited form of commercial trading to develop. The majority of people began to rely on crude rural markets to survive. But in 2005, the state clamped down on the market system, reverting to the PDS, which can ensure food goes to soldiers, officials, party apparatchiks and priority workers but has again proved unable to meet most people's needs, North Korean experts said. That became evident again this year. North Korea's standard daily food ration is 700 grams of cereals per person per day. After the harsh winter it was reduced to 400 grams, then cut further to 150 grams in June, officials said. From July it was raised back to 200 grams, where it remains -- about a third of the government's minimum standard of 573 grams. Back in March, the World Food Programme predicted the PDS would run out of food by early summer. In fact, it didn't -- possibly because of the drastic reductions in rations. One of the tasks of the U.N. assessment mission this month is to figure out why. AlertNet was not permitted to visit the struggling rural markets where farmers are allowed to barter goods, although a few people were seen on the roadside selling potatoes, eggs, fruit and cigarettes. The October rice crop will soon be harvested here, and official expectations are muted. "We're only expecting about 45 percent of the rice crop to come through," said the senior official from the South Hwanghae People's Committee. However, a North Korean Red Cross official said he was optimistic about the rice harvest, as there had been plenty of sunshine since mid-August. All over the province, AlertNet saw lush-looking paddies with golden-green rows swaying in the breeze. Under a balmy autumn sun, some men, women and children were beginning to reap rice, working the rows with hand-held sickles. Visitors to the central parts of the country, including areas around Pyongyang, have also reported seeing crops in good condition. Red flags marked paddies ready for early harvest and enormous signs proclaimed: "Let's all help the farmers!" Some farmers used ox-drawn carts to transport produce. Not a single piece of farm machinery was seen during the trip. Many houses were surrounded by small kitchen gardens, with climbing beans and even melons growing onto roofs. Personal plots were crammed with cabbages, radishes and other vegetables. A woman whose house was destroyed by floods at the Soa-Ri collective farm showed the food stocks she kept in her tarpaulin tent: corn and a few green leaves. "I had about 15 square meters by my house that I was allowed to cultivate for myself, but everything was washed away," she said. "So now I have to dig wild grass." (AlertNet is a humanitarian news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation. Visit www.trust.org/alertnet) (Additional reporting by Jeremy Laurence; editing by Bill Tarrant) World United Nations AlertNet Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (1) Intriped wrote: Sad the this communist country can careless about it’s people. Oct 06, 2011 4:47pm EDT -- Report as abuse See All Comments » Add Your Comment Social Stream (What's this?) Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Back to top Reuters.com Business Markets World Politics Technology Opinion Money Pictures Videos Site Index Legal Bankruptcy Law California Legal New York Legal Securities Law Support & Contact Contact Us Advertise With Us Connect with Reuters Twitter Facebook LinkedIn RSS Podcast Newsletters Mobile About Privacy Policy Terms of Use Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance Our next generation legal research platform Our global tax workstation Thomsonreuters.com About Thomson Reuters Investor Relations Careers Contact Us Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

Other News on Friday, 7 October 2011
Special Report: Crisis grips North Korean rice bowl |
French left milks novelty of presidential primary |
Ouattara urges Ghana to arrest Ivorian suspects |
Police abuses rattle faith in Mexico's drug war |
Expert to resolve discovery disputes in AT&T case |
Sony near buying Ericsson out of phone venture: report |
Regulator unveils plan for universal broadband |
Oracle to pay $199.5 million to resolve false claims case |
Rambus asked about shredded records in Nvidia case |
Defense challenges Jackson crime scene investigation |
ESPN and Hank Williams Jr. part ways on MNF |
Steve Jobs biography pushed up for release |
Billy Bob Thornton's daughter gets 20 years prison |
Dirty Girl Juno Temple charms Hollywood |
Israel holds suspects in settler deaths, mosque fire |
Pakistan says Obama pressure on militants hurts Afghanistan |
Drought-stricken Pacific islands down to last few days of water |
Thirty-two bodies found in Mexican Gulf state |
Bahrain youth dies after clash with police |
Syrian army shoots dead man inside Lebanon |
Arab Spring and Africa high in Nobel peace prize talk |
Sony in talks to buy Ericsson out of phone venture: source |
Samsung says third-quarter to top consensus as phones boom |
Jobs authorized biography so his kids can know him |
Apple-Samsung tablet dispute Australia ruling seen next week |
Apple's lead over rivals could narrow without Jobs |
Jobs's design legacy: more than just a pretty phone |
Apple's board needs to step up to new era |
Apple design guru key in post-Jobs era |
Analysis: Apple's iPhone: still the hottest ticket around |
Film festival comes to Kabul on war anniversary |
Defense criticizes Jackson crime scene investigation |
Steve Jobs' agony and ecstasy to hit NY stage |
Jilted Tareq Salahi to auction wedding ring |
Nobel Peace Prize honors African, Arab women |
Libyan forces battle for Sirte, civilians flee |
Yani Tseng sets course record, leads Hana Bank championship with 65
Home ownership rate drops to 65.1 percent
Reimer halts 32 shots, Maple Leafs rout Habs on NHL's opening night
Kids' ER visits for brain injury on rise
Dalai Lama to join Tutu birthday celebration via videolink
Afghanistan war marks 10th year quietly
Rethinking contraception and infection risk
Syrian forces kill eight protesters: activists |
Dialing into disaster risk reduction
Deportations of Zimbabwean migrants set to resume
Carlo Biado baffles Dennis Orcollo, reaches 8-Ball competition final
Russia says it will indict suspect in reporter's murder |
Karzai says he let Afghans down on security |
Italy's Berlusconi dismisses calls to resign |
Turkey tells France to confront colonial past |
Israeli forces state to change Jewish classification |
Sprint outlines network upgrade plans, shares rise |
Analysis: Apple's iPhone is still the hottest ticket around |
Netflix strikes expanded agreement with AMC |
EU clears Microsoft's Skype acquisition |
Intellectual Ventures sues Motorola Mobility over patents |
Management Tip of the Day: Recover from social media blunders |
Total Recall: Schwarzenegger opens Austria museum |
Netflix strikes expanded agreement with AMC |
Oscar nominee Diane Cilento dies: report |
Ireland's Gabriel Byrne brainstorms art and economics |
Billy Bob Thornton's daughter gets 20 years prison |
Greece at new risk of being pushed off euro
Bodies of missing Tenn. mom, Jo Ann Bain, and daughter found
Female Breasts Are Bigger Than Ever
AMD Trinity Accelerated Processing Units Now in Volume Production
The Avengers (2012 film), made the second biggest opening- and single-day gross of all-time
AMD to Start Production of piledriver
Ivy Bridge Quad-Core, Four-Thread Desktop CPUs
Islamists Protest Lady Gaga's Concert in Indonesia
Japan Successfully Broadcasts an 8K Signal Over the Air
ECB boosts loans to 1 trillion Euro to stop credit crunch
Egypt : Mohammed Morsi won with 52 percent
What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up
AMD Launches AMD Embedded R-Series APU Platform
Fed Should not Ignore Emerging Market Crisis
Fed casts shadow over India, emerging markets
Why are Chinese tourists so rude? A few insights

USD EUR - 1 year graph	VPN on MacOSX	BlogMeter 1.01