By I don’t understand why the US negotiators even bother to threaten to stop sending food aid when everyone knows they have no intention of implementing the threat:
The United States says it will continue food aid to North Korea despite stalled nuclear disarmament talks.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack says that a U.S. team recently traveled to North Korea to assess how best to continue providing aid.
He said Tuesday the United States will soon send 21,000 metric tons of new food.
North Korea has relied on foreign assistance to feed its people since natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its economy in the middle of the 1990s.
Six-nation disarmament talks in Beijing earlier this month ended in a stalemate over the North’s refusal to put into writing any commitments on inspecting its past nuclear activities. [International Herald Tribune]
The food aid was not stopped due to stalled nuclear talks but because there was no way to monitor where the aid was going to in North Korea. So far I have read nothing that gives me any confidence that this problem has been rectified.
2:11 pm on December 24th, 2008 1
A friend of mine, and his work has some confidentiality issues so I won't say more, is in North Korea now, involved in some inspections and delivery of food aid. I don't know what he actually sees or what he can do, but he is there. I guess some attempts are being made in a kick-the-tires-on-the-new-car kind of way.
9:01 pm on December 24th, 2008 2
This is just more food for the North Korean elite and the North Korean army.
11:56 pm on December 24th, 2008 3
I wonder how many acres can now be devoted to poppy cultivation with this news.
11:17 am on December 25th, 2008 4
I suggest air dropping it over the most needy areas using fighter escorts. It would be gone before it hit the ground.