UN: $60 Million Needed To Prevent 6.3 Million North Koreans From Starving

BEIJING — The U.N. food agency urged donors Tuesday to separate politics from humanitarian aid as it appealed for $60 million to help impoverished North Korea avert its worst food crisis since the 1990s.

The World Food Program said it needed the funds urgently for an emergency program to feed 6.3 million North Koreans.

The WFP needs a total of $503 million to fund the 15-month operation _ but requires $60 million immediately to run the program until the end of the year, the agency's Asia director, Tony Banbury, told reporters in Beijing.

"We need the checks flowing to the banks today," Banbury said. "We sure hope that donors, as many have in the past, will look at this operation from a purely humanitarian point of view."

Political issues surfaced again last week when North Korea said it had stopped disabling its nuclear reactor and threatened to restore its plutonium-producing facility. The move jeopardizes a six-nation agreement requiring Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons programs in return for energy aid and political concessions.

South Korea has said it will not tie the food issue to the North's nuclear disarmament, but a Seoul official said last week that South Korean public opinion is a consideration in deciding whether to accept the WFP's request for contributions.

On Tuesday, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said Seoul is still considering the appeal.

Banbury said the WFP's latest assessment, conducted over three weeks, showed that more than half of the households in the country were surviving on two meals a day, with very limited consumption of meat. Many people were relying on relatives to supply food or scavenging for wild foods.

Flooding, poor harvests, and a drop in imports and food aid have caused North Korea's worst food crisis since the late 1990s and have put millions at risk, the agency says.

Communist North Korea has relied on foreign assistance to feed its 23 million people since the mid-1990s, when its economy was hit by natural disasters coupled with the loss of the regime's Soviet benefactor. As many as 2 million people are believed to have died of famine, exacerbated by a centrally controlled agriculture sector saddled with outdated farming methods.

The U.S. has pledged 400,000 tons of food to this operation together with 100,000 tons for a separate operation implemented by U.S. non-governmental organizations, Banbury said.

Comments

[steamboat]

UN needs to spend $60 Million to keep NKoreans from starving to death....Hey, Robert Scheer, thats your communism for you.

[SpinDown08]

It would be nice to see both candidates come together in a bipartisan act of goodwill to humanity and each donate matching funds to the cause. It certainly would make for better relations with N. Korea to see time taken out of mudslinging and controversy to address a human tragedy.

[Hirnlego]

What North Korea needs is a system change.

[ramal]

The U.S. should parachute in bags of rice only if each one contains several pistols, bullets and hand grenades. There comes a time when (and I can think of no better impetus than starvation) for a people to throw off the chains of a corrupt and failed regime.

[DavidMG]

Perhaps Gates, Buffet and other billionares (and mega millionaires) could write checks. If I had billions I sure would. What a thing to be able to do - save millions from starving.

[RightWingMarine]

Why is feeding N Koreans a responsibility of the US taxpayer or anyone other than N Koreans?

To reach into one's own pocket and use that money to help another person is a laudable and commendable thing. To reach into someone else's pocket and use that money to help another person is simply theft. When the government reaches into your pocket to take money to help someone else it is government sponsored theft.

[UnbiasView]

Times are tough, time to start asking countries not named the USA.

[sandiegoconservative]

The UN should help in important situations such as this. But I wish they would just be honest and say "U.S.A., can you please cough up the bulk of the aid? Everyone knows you provide almost all the help".

[Big0725]

From what I've heard, I'm pretty sure the Chinese right there across the river could cough up the money.

[HallStyle]

They don't want to become what we have become. The WORLD HUMANITARIAN POLICE. They want to keep there money in there pockets to build there own economy and military. They don't give a dam about North Korea or anyone else. They are CAPITALIST! There government may be Communist, but there Economy is capitalist.

[TimmySlagle]

Score one more failure for Communism.

How many more Marxist nations will Capitalists have to bail out, before people realize that the funny little German with the shaggy beard, was wrong?

[lauraatthewheel]

Nukes, but no food...
How far humanity has fallen.

[AdultFilmLegend]

North Korea knows exactly what to do so solve the problem. One phone call can end it.

[poomplet]

Meanwhile, Haitians are still eating dirt pies.

I guess the UN only cares about helping starving people in bigger countries and/or those that have nuclear weapons.

[CountryBeforeParty]

I would have to say that the ones with nuclear weapons, and an unstable dictator, takes precedence.

Still, they can do both

[Kitster]

I didn't know the UN was in the business of preventing North Koreans.