North Korean Economy Watch

Nicholas Eberstadt offers some stark economic data on the DPRK.  According to his article:

While it is true that the DPRK suffered a severe economic shock from the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, this unexpected economic dislocation did not automatically presage log-term economic failure, much less famine. The counterexample of Vietnam–another socialist Asian economy heavily dependent on Soviet subsidies in the late 1980s–proves as much. According to the World Bank, Vietnam’s per capita income rose by over 150% between 1990 and 2007, and its per nominal per capita exports (in US dollars) rose by a factor of over 7 times during those same years, whereas North Korea’s nominal per capita exports slumped by over 25% between 1990 and 2007.

Further, it is of course true that the US–and in more recent years, Japan and South Korea–have imposed a plethora of economic sanctions on North Korea (America alone has over 30 such legal and administrative strictures in force today). But these penalties cannot explain North Korea’s miserable economic performance with the rest of the OECD countries, most of which are in principle open to commerce with the DPRK.

Let’s exclude Japan, South Korea, and America from OECD trade for the moment. Between 1980 and 2007, the import market for these other OECD countries expanded in nominal US dollars from just over $1 trillion to nearly $7 trillion–but according to the UN COMTRADE database, North Korea’s exports to those same countries collapsed: plummeting from $330 million to $177 million. When one takes inflation and population growth into account, this means the DPRK’s per capita exports to the rest of the OECD fell by almost 80% over those 27 years–and since these same export markets were growing all the while, North Korea’s share was twelve times smaller in 2007 than it had been in 1980.

What then is the problem? Closer inspection strongly suggests that North Korea’s long-term economic failure is directly related to the policies and practices embraced and championed by the Pyongyang government. North Korea’s current “own style of socialism” [or Urisik Sahoejuui] is a grotesquely deformed mutation of the initial DPRK command planning system, from which it fatefully and increasingly devolved over time.

North Korea is still in principle a planned Soviet-type economy: but for almost two decades it has in reality been engaged in “planning without facts”, and even in “planning without plans” (in the memorable phrase of Japanese economist Kimura Mitsuhiko). In and of itself, this would be enough to consign the North Korean economy to trouble. But to make matters worse, North Korean leadership has insisted on saddling the economy with a monstrous military burden under its campaign of “military-first politics” [Songun Chongchi]. Further, in contradistinction to virtually all other contemporary economies, North Korean trade policy for almost two generations has systematically throttled the import of productive and relatively inexpensive foreign machinery and equipment, thereby guaranteeing that the national economy would be saddled with a low-productivity, high-cost industrial infrastructure of its own making.

Add to this North Korea’s unrelenting war against its own consumers (no other modern economy has ever seen such a low ratio of consumer spending to national income, even at the height of Maoism or Stalinism) and Pyongyang’s stubborn, longstanding policy of “reverse comparative advantage” via a juche food policy that attempts to devote no more funds to overseas cereal purchases than foreigners pay for North Korean agricultural products in a country where cropland is scarce and growing seasons are short, and one begins to see how North Korean leadership engineered the country’s remarkable Great Leap Backward–and eventually, even a famine.

There is, to be sure, a grim logic to the DPRK’s destructive policies: for the same strategy that has ruined the country’s economy has also served to sustain its peculiar political system and ruling elite. In fact, given Pyongyang’s narrowly racialist ideology, its now-improbable but continuing quest for absolute mastery of the entire Korean peninsula and its undisguised fear that “ideological and cultural infiltration” will subvert the DPRK’s political order, the policies that the North Korean government pursues today may be regarded as careful, deliberate and faithful representations of the state’s overarching priorities.

Unfortunately, Pyongyang’s official policies and practices just happen to make the North Korean economy incapable of anything like genuine self-reliance, juche slogans notwithstanding, So DPRK state survival depends upon successfully generating a steady stream of subventions and concessional transfers from abroad.

Even so: the North Korean economy is so dysfunctional that it a positive net flow of foreign subsidies is not always enough to prevent calamity. After all: the Great North Korean Famine of the 1990s took place when the country (to judge by the import and export figures of its international trading partners) was receiving hundreds of millions of US dollars a year more in merchandise for abroad than it was shipping out. Quite obviously, that surplus was too small to overcome the grave built-in defects of the modern North Korean economy, or to forestall mass hunger.

So to continue its very existence, the North Korean system must commit itself to a permanent, predatory hunt for life-giving foreign funds: monies that it extracts from abroad by stratagems of military extortion, humanitarian hostage-negotiations (for the external feeding of its own population), and what might be called “guerilla commerce” (i.e., duping credulous foreigners who think there is money to be made from the DPRK by any but the country’s own elite).

North Korea, incidentally, seems to make it a point of honor not to repay its foreign creditors–and although “imperialist” banks and businesses from the West have learned this fact to their sorrow in abortive attempts to do commerce with Pyongyang, this is a bad habit that goes back to the early years of the Cold War, when the DPRK’s routinely reneged on loans from its “socialist comrades” in Beijing and Moscow.

North Korea has honed impressive skills in separating foreign governments from their own money. According to the US Congressional Research Service (CRS), for example, the USA transferred for than $1 billion in humanitarian, economic and security assistance to North Korea between 1995 and 2009: this despite a supposed “hostile US policy”. By the CRS’ reckoning, North Korea obtained over $4 billion from South Korea over those same years–and those were only the officially acknowledged payments by Seoul.

But China’s aid to North Korea puts all these Western subsidies in the shade. Beijing is almost completely opaque about its economic relations with Pyongyang–yet Chinese trade statistics suggest that North Korea has enjoyed a net resource transfer from China of over $9 billion since 1995, and the annual transfers look to have jumped markedly after 2004 (although China has never offered any sort of public explanation for why it would have increased its economic assistance to Pyongyang so significantly in recent years).

Earlier this year, North Korea announced a new “Ten Year State Strategy Plan for Economic Development” designed to lift the DPRK into the ranks of “the advanced countries by 2020″. Although the details of the plan have not yet been revealed, we can be sure it has enormous investment requirements–running into the tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars. It is also a safe bet that Kim Jong Il’s visit to China in May 2011 was a sort of fundraising tour aimed at securing some of the many billions of dollars envisioned by this ambitious plan.

After Kim Jong Il’s return from China, Pyongyang unveiled a new “joint economic zone” with China on two border islands in the Yalu rive–a projectr meant to underscore a new direction for the North Korean economy, and to jumpstart the new development campaign. But haven’t we seen this movie before? Ever since Kim Jong Il’s highly publicized visit to China in the early 1980s, there has been recurrent foreign speculation that would “inevitably” have to embrace economic reform. Yet all North Korean efforts at “opening” and “reform” to date have been confused and half-hearted, and every one of these initiatives has ultimately ended in failure.

Will this latest plan mark a decisive break from decades of ever more wayward North Korean economic policy? Some in China clearly believe that the DPRK can be gradually coaxed onto a path of pragmatic economic policymaking. To judge by Beijing’s swelling economic subsidies for North Korea, Chinese leadership may be banking on as much. The results of any such wagers, however, remain to be seen.

In China and other socialist countries, big changes in economic policy have typically followed, and depended upon, big changes in national leadership–but Pyongyang appears absolutely intent upon carrying the Kim family’s dynastic rule into its third generation. North Korean policymakers may genuinely want the DPRK to be what they call a “prosperous and powerful state” [Kangsong Taeguk]–but at the same time they have been totally unwilling to risk the sorts of steps that could actually generate such prosperity. Until this contradiction is resolved, North Korea is most likely to remain the black hole in the Northeast Asian economy.

Read the full story here:
What Is Wrong with the North Korean Economy
American Enterprise Institute
2011-7-1

According to the AFP:

North Korea has drastically cut public food handouts as it heads towards a new hunger crisis with people again eating grass to survive, one of the most experienced aid workers in the isolated nation said.

Food rations have been cut to as low as 150 grammes (5.3 ounces) a day per person in some parts of the country as foreign donations collapse and higher international prices make imports more expensive, said Katharina Zellweger, head of a Swiss government aid office in Pyongyang.

…

Food supplies to the estimated population of 23 million people have been controlled through a public distribution system for decades.

“It works sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t work,” the head of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation office in Pyongyang told a group of UN correspondents.

“The lowest I heard was 150 grammes per person per day, and I even heard that in Pyongyang the rations are cut to 200 grammes per person per day.”

Diplomats say the rations have been halved over the past 18 months. One hundred grammes of rice produces about 250-350 calories a day, experts said.

Zellweger said she had seen “a lot more malnourished children” on recent travels around the country.

“You see more people out in the fields and on the hillsides digging roots, cutting grass or herbs. So there are signs that there is going to be a crisis.”

At the same time the Daily NK reports:

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the market price of potatoes in North Korea has risen substantially in recent weeks, with farms unable to supply the jangmadang because drought and a lack of fertilizer have had a detrimental effect on this year’s spring harvest.

One farmer from North Hamkyung Province revealed his concerns in a phone interview with The Daily NK on the 26th, saying, “This year, potatoes have not done well because of the drought and fertilizer situation, so I have nothing to sell in the market. I am worried about what we are going to do until the corn comes in August.”

Spring potatoes harvested in early June are a decisive food for North Korean farmers. They receive their share of the autumn harvest in December, but once the People’s Army has received its share and various debts have been repaid, they only get enough food for three or four months. After this, potatoes are an important staple to see them through until corn can be harvested in July and August.

However, after deducting cost incurred in bringing together seeds, fertilizer, agricultural chemicals, farm machinery, irrigation equipment and fuel, a farmer receives distribution depending upon his individual work points, decided according to his/her working hours. Since deductions are high, the share for farmers is low, sources say.

The price of potatoes has even risen sharply in Yangkang Province, the center of North Korean potato production. According to Yangkang Province sources, potatoes there are currently selling for between 900 and 1,000 won/kg, double the price of last year.

Fortunately, the high price of potatoes has not had any influence on rice prices. According to one source, “Rice is being sold steadily, and the price is stable not rising.” In the market in Hyesan, rice is now on sale for between 1,900 and 2,100 won/kg, not much more than it was before the spring shortages began.

Finally, new video footage smuggled out of the DPRK suggested that food supplies are particularly tight in distant towns, even for soldiers:

“Everybody is weak,” says one young North Korean soldier. “Within my troop of 100 comrades, half of them are malnourished,” he said.

The DPRK has requested food aid this year, but donors have been reluctant to meet their demands for a number of reasons.  See related stories here.

According to the Chirstian Science Monitor:

A central question is whether North Korea needs emergency shipments as called for by the World Food Program. Yes, Ms. Park acknowledges, “The problem this year is changed by flood and winter cold,” but the widespread view here is that North Korea basically has enough food.

It’s believed that North Korea wants to stockpile food for celebrations planned next year to mark the 100-year anniversary of the birth of the late Kim Il-sung, the long-reigning “Great Leader” who died in 1994 after passing on power to his son, current leader Kim Jong-il.

“There’s a need, but we don’t know how great it is,” says a knowledgeable western observer. “My hunch is it’s less about a shortage of food and more about unequal distribution. You can buy rice in the markets if you have the means.”

…

South Korean leaders appeared relieved when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently made it clear that the US did not believe North Korea had addressed “serious concerns about monitoring” food distribution. The US still wants to know what happened to 20,000 tons of rice that’s strongly believed to have gone to North Korean soldiers when a US food aid program was suspended two years ago.

And on June 30, Yonhap reported:

North Korea imported more than 50,000 tons of grains from its key ally China in May, an expert said Thursday, amid chronic food shortages in the North.

The North purchased 50,328 tons of corn, flour and rice in May, up 31.5 percent compared to the same period last year, said Kwon Tae-jin, a North Korea expert at the Korea Rural Economic Institute.

The North also imported 114,300 tons of fertilizer from China in the first five months, a rise of 39 percent compared to the same period last year, Kwon said, citing figures from Seoul’s Korea International Trade Association.

China is the North’s last remaining ally, key economic benefactor and diplomatic supporter.

According to the Daily NK:

For the ten years from 1995 to 2004, churches in South Korea sent a total of 270 billion South Korean won in aid to North Korea’s Chosun Christians Federation to fund projects including the building of an orphanage.

This money represented fully 77% of all private donations sent to North Korea in the same period. However, the truth is that nobody knows how the money has been spent, or by whom.

Such religiously motivated support for the Chosun Christians Federation results in not only problems for other missionary work, but also prolongs the suffering of the people, according to Yoo Suk Ryul, the director of Cornerstone Church, an active missionary group working along the North Korean-Chinese border. He has just released a new book, ‘The Collapse of the Kim Jong Il Regime and North Korean Missionary Work.’

In it, Yoo writes, “The Chosun Federation first came to our attention as an association affiliated to the United Front Department of the Chosun Workers’ Party so, to that extent, funds from missionary organizations are obviously propping up the Kim Jong Il regime.”

…

“The rebuilding of the church should not be done through an organization affiliated to the Kim Jong Il regime or the Chosun Workers’ Party,” Yoo therefore asserts. Rather, he believes assistance should be rendered to underground churches, to begin the spread of the gospel from the bottom up.

In addition, “To date, Chinese-Koreans and our defector brethren have received training in China, and through this indirect method have entered North Korea to establish underground churches.” However, “North Korea’s situation both at home and abroad is change rapidly now, so missionaries need to turn to a strategy that is more direct.”

Additionally, he goes on, “The Bible, radio, TV and DVDs should continue to be sent by balloon, along with all other methods of advancing the spread of the gospel,” and explained, “This is a strategy to force Pyongyang’s fall through the gospel.”

Yoo has invested much time and effort into persuading Korean churches to end their existing missionary work in North Korea, and follow a new path. “Missionary work in North Korea is not something that can be accomplished with a strategy of passion alone,” he writes, “This missionary strategy does not grasp the essence of the North Korean system; it is a house of cards.”

Read the full story here:
New Religious Strategy Is Needed
Daily NK
Cho Jong Ik
2011-6-22

UPDATE 1 (2011-5-3): The Korea Herald offers some more information on the mission:

The World Food Program will increase its personnel residing in North Korea to tighten monitoring of the distribution of donated food, a U.S.-funded radio station reported Tuesday.

The plan comes as the U.N. agency prepares to launch an emergency operation to help feed 3.5 million starving North Koreans by providing 310,000 tons of food within the next year.

The WFP plans to keep 59 agents in the North, an increase from the previous 10. Up to 60 percent of these agents will be tasked with checking whether the food goes to ordinary people rather than the military in the impoverished state, according to the Voice of America.

Pyongyang’s reclusive Kim Jong-il regime has often refused to let outsiders monitor its food distribution process, triggering suspicions that most of the outside aid is being used to feed its army and political elite.

Apparently getting more desperate for outside assistance, the North has agreed to let the WFP agents monitor its food situations in some 400 regions every month, the U.N. body said.

South Korea and the U.S., which remain lukewarm toward resuming full-scale food aid to Pyongyang, suspect that the Kim regime may be stockpiling rice to prepare for potential war or to release on the 100th anniversary of its late founder Kim Il-sung next year.

While the WFP has been calling on the international community to donate 434,000 tons of food to feed starving North Koreans, the two traditional allies also question the accuracy of the assessment made based on Pyongyang’s own statistics on its harvest and rationing.

Among the newly dispatched agents, 12 can speak fluent Korean, the U.S. radio station said, quoting WFP officials.

A total of seven offices, including one in the capital Pyongyang, will open during the emergency operation period, with food being distributed in eight provinces and 109 districts in the North, it added.

In a recent statement, the WFP had stressed that the aid operation in the authoritarian single-party state “will include the highest standards of monitoring and control to ensure that food gets to where it is needed.”

ORIGINAL POST (2011-5-1): According to the UN press release:

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today announced plans to introduce emergency operations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to feed an estimated 3.5 million people in desperate need after crop losses and a particularly bitter winter.

Women and children will be the focus of the one-year WFP operation, which follows an assessment by several aid agencies of food security inside the DPRK, according to a press release issued by the agency. The operation is expected to cost just over $200 million.

UNICEF has launched a $20 million appeal to fund assistance programmes in the five DPRK provinces with the highest rates of malnutrition and in other counties with similar problems.

Although WFP said overall rates of acute malnutrition have not yet reached crisis levels, it warned that the situation could deteriorate rapidly if there is any further reduction in the food intake of those in need.

Many families have already resorted to cutting out the size or number of meals each day, and Government-supplied rations provide only about half of a person’s daily food needs.

“We face a critical window to get supplies into the country and reach the millions who are already hungry,” said Amir Abdulla, WFP’s Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer.

“Our primary concern is for those who are most vulnerable to shocks in the food supply – children, mothers, the elderly and large families.”

WFP spokesperson Emilia Casella told reporters in Geneva that the assessment found that the severe winter this year had damaged a large proportion of the seed potato stocks needed to plant the next crop.

The vegetable harvest late last year was also down 44 per cent on the expected volume, she said.

Under the operation WFP will provide cereals and the ingredients for the local production of such foods as corn-soy milk, rice-milk blend and high-nutrient biscuits through a public distribution system.

International staff working for the agency will make more than 400 visits each month to provincial markets and distribution points during the operation, and will only have to give 24 hours’ notice to local authorities.

The operation will continue through the harvest expected in October, with specialized nutritious products expected to be distributed then. WFP aims to procure food from neighbouring countries so that it can be distributed as fast as possible.

“WFP has worked in the DPRK for 15 years and we will be drawing on all that experience and expertise to ensure this operation provides vital, timely food and nutrition to those who cannot support themselves through these difficult months,” Mr. Abdulla noted.

UNICEF’s assistance programme will tackle behavioural and structural issues, such as hygiene, infant feeding practices, water and sanitation, as well as direct nutritional needs, agency spokesperson Marixie Mercado said.

Its operation will target more than 400,000 young children and an estimated 165,000 pregnant or lactating women, regarded as among the most vulnerable groups in the current crisis.

Ms. Mercado said the programme will also aim to help children living permanently in institutions as they do not have extended families from which to draw support.

A survey carried out in 2009 found that 32 per cent of DPRK children were stunted, with even higher rates in some rural areas.

Additionally, Greta Van Susteren (Fox News) has announced that she is returning to the DPRK soon.  She always travels with Samaritan’s Purse, so they will probably be launching a program in the DPRK as well. (SMALL UPDATE: Samaritan’s Purse announced they are launching a program)  Wouln’t it be nice if they got get to see Jun, the American detained in the DPRK–reportedly for clandestine evangelism.

The South Korean and US governments have hesitated in providing food aid this spring but they seem to be allowing limited private aid.

There is some debate as to how severe the food shortage is and what should/could be done about it.  Articles from all sides of the debate are cataloged here.

UPDATE 3: The JoongAng Daily (2/12/2011) reports on comments made by Robert King:

King explained that in the past, the U.S. had agreed to give North Korea 500,000 tons in food aid, but was only able to give 170,000 tons as North Korea refused the rest and ordered foreigners who had entered North Korea to deliver the aid to leave.

The envoy also said that it has not yet been decided whether the U.S. will grant food aid to the North and that three prerequisites must be fulfilled if it does.

The three conditions, he explained, are whether a real demand for food truly exists in North Korea, whether the North’s need for food is on the same level as other countries in need of aid, and whether monitoring of the aid will be securely guaranteed. Only when these three prerequisites are met can the U.S. grant aid, King said.

UPDATE 2: According to the JoongAng Daily (2/9/2011) the North Koreans have made an official request for food aid to the US government:

North Korean deputy ambassador to the UN, Han Sang-ryol, requested U.S. food aid last month through Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, a diplomatic source told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday.

Local analysts suspect that King, who is currently in Seoul, informed the South Korean government of the request and is discussing a joint response to it.

“Ambassador Han met King in New York on Jan. 14 and requested large-scale U.S. food aid for the North,” said the diplomatic source in Washington.

It is the first time in years that a behind-the-scenes diplomatic discussion between Pyongyang and Washington on aid has come to the surface. U.S. food aid to the North has been suspended since March 2009 after the Kim Jong-il regime rejected a U.S. proposal to increase the number of Korean-speaking food-distribution monitors to make sure aid was getting to the public.

Han told King that the North was willing to enhance international monitoring of food aid “as much as the U.S. wants,” the source said.

King, who came to Seoul on Sunday, started meetings with Seoul officials yesterday, including Wi Sung-lac, the top envoy on North Korean nuclear issues. At a brief media conference after the meeting with Wi, King did not elaborate on the purpose of his visit or his discussion with the South Korean envoy, saying only it was “very good, very serious and a very thoughtful discussion.”

When asked whether food assistance to the North was on the agenda, King said they “talked about a lot of issues.”

“[It is] extremely important for the U.S., as we pursue our policies toward North Korea, to coordinate with the government of South Korea,” King said. “We have a close working relationship, we are able to work together well on issues, we share our analysis, we share our ideas in terms of making progress.”

The official United States stance, as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said earlier this month, is that it does not have a plan to resume food aid to the North for now.

“The U.S. does not think the North has met conditions to get U.S. food aid,” the source said.

And even if Washington decides to resume aid, it will take time because of congressional procedures, the source said. But some analysts see the possibility of change, citing some opinions in the U.S. State Department in favor of engaging the North with aid to sway its attitude on other issues, including denuclearization.

UPDATE 1: According to the Donga Ilbo (2/6/2011):

The U.S.-based Radio Free Asia says the U.S. government and nongovernmental organizations are discussing the resumption of food aid to North Korea.

Quoting diplomatic sources in the U.S., the broadcaster said Washington has not decided to resume food aid to Pyongyang but is having many talks and discussions on the issue.

Voice of America said Friday that the World Food Program and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, both of which are under U.S. influence, also plan an additional survey of the North`s food situation for about a month from Feb. 10.

In an interview, Dr. Kisan Gunjal of the food organization said he will survey the North’s food security and crop situations from Feb. 10 to March 12 at Pyongyang’s official invitation.

In a phone interview with The Dong-A Ilbo, an official at a South Korean aid group said, “The U.S. has asked South Korean non-governmental organizations about North Korea’s crop and food supply situations in 2011 since the North’s artillery provocation on Yeonpyeong Island in November.”

Washington, however, remains officially cautious. U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told a news briefing Monday that the U.S. government has no immediate plans to provide humanitarian aid to the North.

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Donga Ilbo (1/31/2011) the US and DPRK are talking food aid once more:

The U.S. and North Korea have begun their third round of food diplomacy, with Washington considering resuming food aid to Pyongyang.

The U.S. has halted food aid to the North twice since its first provision in 1996 after blaming Pyongyang for diverting the aid.

The North has always asked for food aid first since North Korean leader Kim Jong Il confronted a series of crises in the early 1990s, when the former Soviet Union and China stopped economic assistance to the Stalinist country.

His father and the North`s founder Kim Il Sung died in 1994. When the North was devastated by floods and other natural disasters nationwide, Kim Jong Il ordered state cadres to beg the U.S. for help.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry then formed a committee for flood damage and went hat in hand to Washington. The Clinton administration provided 19,500 tons of food through the World Food Program in 1996, expecting the North to implement the 1994 Agreed Framework and be docile in talks for the repatriation of remains of American soldiers killed in action in the Korean War.

Washington increased its food aid from 177,000 tons in 1997 to 695,000 tons in 1999. In 2000, a joint communiqué between the North and the U.S. was signed.

North Korea, however, diverted the food aid in ignoring U.S. and international principles for humanitarian aid.

As public opinion in the U.S. worsened over the assistance, the George W. Bush administration slashed the aid volume from 350,000 tons in 2001 to 40,000 tons in 2003. The U.S. Congress demanded greater transparency in the distribution of the food aid in 2004, when it passed the North Korean Human Rights Act.

Rejecting the demand, Pyongyang expelled World Food Program staff in 2005. Washington opted not to provide food aid to Pyongyang in 2006.

Flexing its muscles in November 2006 by conducting its first nuclear test, North Korea again requested U.S. aid in 2008. The Bush administration, which was nearing the end of its term, chose to sit at the negotiating table with the North and offered 500,000 tons of food aid through the World Food Program.

The North received 169,000 tons of food by expanding the areas where food distribution is monitored and agreeing to allow more Korean-speaking monitoring personnel.

In early 2009, Pyongyang decided to test the newly inaugurated Obama administration by launching a long-range rocket and preparing for a second nuclear test. In March that year, the North expelled humanitarian aid groups, saying it would not be able to keep its promise of distribution transparency.

In fall last year, North Korea unveiled its uranium enrichment program and showed its centrifuges to the U.S. in a virtual threat to conduct its third nuclear test with uranium bombs if Washington failed to provide food.

What the U.S. will eventually do is attracting interest since South Korea is opposed to aid to the North.

Read the full stories below:
Pyongyang asks U.S. to restore food aid: source
JoongAng Daily
Kim Jung-wook, Moon Gwang-lip
2/9/2011

US, N. Korea begin 3rd round of food diplomacy
Donga Ilbo
1/31/2011

Radio Free Asia: US, NGOs discussing food aid to NK
Donga Ilbo
2/6/2011

According to Yonhap:

South Korea has spent only 5.6 percent of its funds earmarked for promoting humanitarian and economic ties with North Korea this year, the unification ministry said Sunday, as inter-Korean relations tumbled to their worst in decades.

As of the end of November, the ministry said it had endorsed spending worth some 62.6 billion won (US$54.4 million) from its South-North Cooperation Fund, or 5.6 percent of the total allocated for this year.

Just over half the sum, or about 32.8 billion won, went toward financing loans for inter-Korean trade and economic cooperation, while another 27.8 billion won was spent on improving exchanges among families separated across the border and other humanitarian projects.

The low spending rate apparently reflects the ban on cross-border exchanges following the deadly March sinking of a South Korean warship, blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack, and escalated tensions on the peninsula since the North’s artillery attack on a southern island last month.

The fund’s implementation rate ranged from 37 to 92.5 percent between 2000 and 2007, but nosedived after President Lee Myung-bak took power in 2008 with a hard-line policy on the North. That year, the rate stood at 18.1 percent before dropping further to 8.6 percent in 2009.

Read the full story here:
S. Korea spends 5.6 pct of inter-Korean cooperation fund
Yonhap
12/26/2010

Forgotten People:  The Koreans of the Sakhalin Island in 1945-1991
Download here (PDF)
Andrei Lankov
December 2010

North Korea: Migration Patterns and Prospects
Download here (PDF)
Courtland Robinson, Center for Refugee and Disaster Response, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
August, 2010

North Korea’s 2009 Nuclear Test: Containment, Monitoring, Implications
Download here (PDF)
Jonathan Medalia, Congressional Research Service
November 24, 2010

North Korea: US Relations, Nuclear Diplomacy, and Internal Situation
Download here (PDF)
Emma Chanlett-Avery, Congressional Research Service
Mi Ae-Taylor, Congressional Research Service
November 10, 2010

‘Mostly Propaganda in Nature:’ Kim Il Sung, the Juche Ideology, and the Second Korean War
Download here (PDF)
Wilson Center NKIDP
Mitchell Lerner

Drug Trafficking from North Korea: Implications for Chinese Policy
Read here at the Brookings Institution web page
Yong-an Zhang, Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies
December 3, 2010

Additional DPRK-focused CRS reports can be found here.

The Wilson Center’s previous NKIDP Working Papers found here.

I also have many papers and publications on my DPRK Economic Statistics Page.

According to the Korea Times:

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported Wednesday that North Korea is the 11th largest recipient of its emergency funds in the world, and third in Asia.

Pyongyang received $13.4 million or 3.6 percent of the $372 million that the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) allocated from January through September.

CERF, established in 2006, is a U.N. fund created to aid regions threatened by starvation and natural disasters.

Pakistan, which suffered catastrophic floods in August, received 40 million, the largest allocation in CERF’s history, followed by Haiti, Niger and Congo.

Sri Lanka, which received $13.8 million, placed second among Asian recipient countries.

North Korea ranks 173 among 177 countries on the human development index, according to the Human Development Report 2007/2008, published by the U.N.

The U.N. estimates that five out of 1,000 children in the North die before they reach the age of five.

Experts say some 23 percent of North Korean children under five were malnourished between 2000 and 2007 and 32 percent of the population in the Stalinist regime was undernourished between 2003 and 2005.

Josette Sheeran, head of the World Food Program (WFP), claims that the U.N.’s flagship agency is falling short of funds to feed hungry people in the impoverished and reclusive nation.

The WFP received $106.2 million, the largest amount among aid agencies, from CERF in 2010, followed by UNICEF, which received 86.1 million.

The WFP claims that it can only help a quarter of the 2.5 million North Korean children suffering from malnourishment due to a shortage of funds.

The WFP helps feed some 670,000 people, mainly children in the communist North.

Read the full story here:
NK is 11th largest receiver of UN CERF cash
Korea Times
Lee Tae-hoon
11/3/2010

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Executive Summary
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the largest humanitarian organization in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) for many years, thanks to its close collaboration with the DPRK Red Cross to assist to the most vulnerable in the country. In the coming years, the DPRK Red Cross, with support from IFRC, plans to strengthen its programmes based on existing needs and available funding, with a strong emphasis on long-term development.

Despite the DPRK government’s focus on improving people’s livelihoods through investments both in industry and agriculture, the humanitarian situation is fragile, while the political situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula remain tense. Key challenges include:

• ongoing economic difficulties(food, energy, drug supply, water, etc)

• disasters (flood damage in most areas)

• initial problems following monetary Reform

• worsening north-south relations

The challenging humanitarian situation demands the full support from the DPRK Red Cross and IFRC. The DPRK Red Cross, with,support of the IFRC, will continue to support the most vulnerable groups, ensuring access to essential drugs and basic health care, to prevent malnutrition and a further deterioration in the overall health situation. The disaster management and health programmes aim to help prevent further loss of life during disasters and health emergencies, promote community resilience and understanding of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement.

Read the full report here (PDF)

UPDATE 18 (11/08/2010): South Korean aid will finally be delivered to the DPRK on 11/09.  Here is more from the PRC’s People’s Daily:

Some of South Korea’s first government-financed rice aid in almost three years will be delivered to the flood-hit Democratic People’s Republic of Korea ( DPRK) starting Tuesday, the unification ministry said Monday.

Some of the 5,000 tons of rice currently in the Chinese city of Dandong will be sent to the northwestern DPRK city of Sinuiju, a city reeling from heavy rains in August, and the delivery will be completed by the end of next week, according to the ministry.

Three million cups of instant noodles, also part of the flood aid, have already been sent to Sinuiju, while some of the pledged one million tons of cement will reach the city later in the day, the ministry said.

As he took office in 2008, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak cut a free flow of rice aid to Pyongyang, which once amounted to 300,000 to 400,000 tons each year. A hard-liner toward Pyongyang, he also ended a decade of rapprochement under his liberal predecessors by linking aid to dismantlement of the DPRK’s nuclear programs.

UPDATE 17 (1o/29/2010): Here and here are photos of the aid arriving in China. 

UPDATE 16: According to the Korea Times, the shipment was delayed due to weather.

UPDATE 15: First aid shipment to go today (10/25).  According to Yonhap:

A shipment of rice was to depart a South Korean port en route to North Korea Monday, which will mark Seoul’s first government-financed rice aid to the communist nation in more than two and a half years.

A cargo ship carrying 5,000 tons of rice was scheduled to depart the port city of Gunsan for the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong on the border with North Korea. Another ship was also set to head from the port of Incheon to the Chinese city, carrying 3 million packs of instant noodles.

The Red Cross aid, which is aimed at helping the North cope with the aftermath of floods, marks South Korea’s first government-funded provision of rice to the North since President Lee Myung-bak took office in early 2008 on a pledge to link aid to progress in efforts to end Pyongyang’s nuclear programs.

Seoul also plans to send a shipment of 10,000 tons of cement to the North later this week.

A total of 13.9 billion won (US$12.3 million) came from the government coffers to finance the flood aid.

Also Monday, three Red Cross officials prepared to fly to the Chinese city to receive the rice and instant noodles there and transport the relief supplies by truck to the flood-hit North Korean border city of Sinuiju, according to officials from the Red Cross and the Unification Ministry.

The cargo ships are expected to arrive in Dandong around Wednesday.

Rice will be delivered in five-kilogram packages, and each package is marked with “Donation from the Republic of Korea,” South Korea’s official name.

In August, South Korea first offered to provide relief aid to the North after devastating floods hit the communist nation. North Korea later asked for rice, heavy construction equipment and materials.

UPDATE 14: S. Korea to send rice aid to N. Korea next month.  Accrording to Yonhap:

South Korea’s Red Cross will begin the shipment of 5,000 tons of rice and other aid materials next month to North Korea, which has been battered by summer floods, officials here said Sunday.

It would mark South Korea’s first government-funded provision of rice to the hunger-stricken communist neighbor since the conservative president, Lee Myung-bak, took office in early 2008 on a pledge to link inter-Korean ties to Pyongyang’s denuclearization.

The South’s government plans to convene a committee on inter-Korean exchanges on Tuesday to approve the use of taxpayers’ money earmarked for projects to improve relations with the North, the officials said.

“(The government) will report to the National Assembly on Sept. 28 and the committee will approve the aid worth 8 billion won (US$6.9 million) from the South-North Cooperation Fund (on the same day),” a Unification Ministry official said.

The rice shipment will depart from the port of Incheon, west of Seoul, on Oct. 25 and it will be delivered to the North Korean city of Sinuiju bordering China via Dandong, an adjacent Chinese town, he added.

Other aid items to be sent to the North in stages include 10,000 tons of cement, three million packs of instant noodles and some medical goods.

South Korea has ruled out the shipment of construction equipment, which the North requested, taking into account the possibility of the equipment being used for military purposes.

Seoul’s rice aid, although officials here stressed it is purely a humanitarian move, has been seen as a possible sign of a thaw in chilled inter-Korean relations. Military tensions have risen sharply since the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which the South attributed to a North Korean torpedo attack.

South Korea suspended an annual shipment of 300,000-400,000 tons of rice to the North in 2008, citing little progress in efforts to end the North’s nuclear program.

UPDATE 13: Incheon Gov’t, Civic Group Sign MOU on NK Aid.  According to KBS:

The Incheon city government has signed a memorandum of understanding with a civic group to send 700 tons of corn to North Korean flood victims in Sinuiju.

The aid is worth 300 million won.

The city government and the Korean Sharing Movement obtained permission to provide the food aid from the Unification Ministry on September 14th.

The first shipment of corn will arrive late this month via an overland route linking the city of Dandong in China to the North Korean city of Sinuiju.

The remaining food aid will be delivered to North Korea by year’s end.

Previously, the Incheon city government announced a plan to send six shipments of milk and infant formula by December. The aid is valued at 100 million won.

The first shipment left Incheon port for North Korea on Saturday.

UPDATE 12: First shipment of aid has headed north.  According to the New York Times:

The nine trucks in the convoy carried 203 tons of rice that civic groups and opposition political parties in South Korea had donated for the victims of recent flooding in North Korea. The flooding is expected to worsen food shortages in the North, which even in a year of good harvests, cannot produce enough to feed its estimated population of 23 million people properly.

The shipment, coming just before the Korean harvest festival of Chuseok next week, also seemed to symbolize a newfound South Korean good will toward the North. It followed 530 tons of flour that a South Korean provincial government and civic groups sent on Thursday.

After President Lee Myung-bak came to power in Seoul in early 2008, South Korea had been reluctant to provide rice or any other major aid shipments to the North until its government in Pyongyang took significant steps to give up its nuclear weapons. The sinking of the warship, the Cheonan, further soured relations.

But in the past week, the South approved the civic groups’ donations, as well as a separate Red Cross plan to send 5,000 tons of rice. The approval followed conciliatory gestures by North Korea, including a plan to resume a Red Cross program of arranging temporary unions of families split by the 1950-53 Korean War.

The nine trucks in the convoy carried 203 tons of rice that civic groups and opposition political parties in South Korea had donated for the victims of recent flooding in North Korea. The flooding is expected to worsen food shortages in the North, which even in a year of good harvests, cannot produce enough to feed its estimated population of 23 million people properly.

The shipment, coming just before the Korean harvest festival of Chuseok next week, also seemed to symbolize a newfound South Korean good will toward the North. It followed 530 tons of flour that a South Korean provincial government and civic groups sent on Thursday.

After President Lee Myung-bak came to power in Seoul in early 2008, South Korea had been reluctant to provide rice or any other major aid shipments to the North until its government in Pyongyang took significant steps to give up its nuclear weapons. The sinking of the warship, the Cheonan, further soured relations.

But in the past week, the South approved the civic groups’ donations, as well as a separate Red Cross plan to send 5,000 tons of rice. The approval followed conciliatory gestures by North Korea, including a plan to resume a Red Cross program of arranging temporary unions of families split by the 1950-53 Korean War.

UPDATE 11: North Korea complains that it did not receive enough aid from South Korea.  According to UPI:

North Korea complained Sunday that a planned shipment of flood-relief aid from South Korea is much smaller than expected.

The state-controlled weekly Tongil Sinbo said the rice shipment the South Korean Red Cross said would feed 200,000 people for 50 days was not nearly adequate.

“After the lid was removed from the box of aid, there was only 5,000 tons of rice in it,” Tongil Sinbo said in a posting on the North’s official Web site.

The statement, which was monitored by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, said the shipment would not last “even for a day.”

The Red Cross aid package, which includes rice and cement, was consigned to Sinuiju, a town near the Chinese border in a region hit hard by rain and flooding last month.

The shipment had been seen by diplomatic analysts as an easing of tensions between the two Koreas, Yonhap said. North Korea relies heavily on donations of rice and other supplies to prop up its economy.

Also, see this Yonhap story.

UPDATE 10: The Ministry of Unificaion is opposed to large scale food assistance—drawing a distinction between flood relief and large-scale food aid.  According to KBS:

Unification Minister Hyun In-taek says he is opposed to large-scale food aid to North Korea.

He said large-scale food aid is separate from humanitarian aid, and that all aspects of inter-Korean policy and the sinking of the “Cheonan” naval vessel should be considered.

Hyun made the remarks at a budget committee meeting on Friday when a main opposition Democratic Party member urged the government to send 500-thousand tons of rice to North Korea.

Hyun said that South Korea had sent large amounts of food aid on multiple previous occasions for what was called humanitarian assistance, but it is doubtful whether the rice had been distributed to people in need.

Adding to political pressure against further donations, the Choson Ilbo reports that the North Korean military is warehousing quite a bit of rice:

In a party caucus at the National Assembly on Thursday, Grand National Party floor leader Kim Moo-sung said calls for humanitarian food aid for the North are “inappropriate” at a time when the North “has as much as 1 million tons of rice in storage in preparation for war. We have to take this into consideration.”

The figure apparently comes from a report by the National Intelligence Service for the ruling-party leadership.

South Korea worries about a rice surplus when it stores only about 1.49 million tons this year. If it is true that the North is really holding back 1 million tons of rice for the military, it could have a profound effect on the ongoing debate over whether to increase aid for the North.

UPDATE 9: The first aid shipment has arrived.  According to Arirang News:

The first round of civilian emergency aid since recent flooding in North Korea was delivered to the border town of Gaeseong on Thursday.

The transport of 530 tons of flour on two dozen large trucks by Gyeonggi Province and non-governmental groups is also the first aid package from the South after it enforced punitive measures on Pyeonyang in May, in response to its sinking of the warship Cheonan.

And five South Korean personnel were permitted to cross the border to transfer the goods.

Kim Moon-soo, Governor Gyeonggi Province: “Many South Koreans have been wanting to provide assistance and there’s been a delay but we’re finally sending aid today. There are factors other than intent to consider.”

The group had been waiting since July for the government to give the green light to supply food aid worth about 240-thousand US dollars… enough to feed some 30-thousand children and other vulnerable groups for a month.

It is estimated that some 28 million square meters of agricultural land was swamped by rainfall of up to 324 milimeters in Gaeseong.

Kim Deog-ryong, Co-chair, Korean Council for Reconciliation & Cooperation: “Following the first round of aid, we plan to send additional second and third rounds in October. We hope nongovernmental efforts will eventually lead to continuous government-level assistance.”

The resumption of aid delivery to the North on humanitarian grounds will likely be succeeded by a series of foodstuffs, such as rice and corn, being transported through the Dorasan Customs, Immigration and Quarantine office, on top of the South Korean Red Cross’ pledged shipments of rice, cement and other supplies.

On Friday, more civilian aid consisting of 203 tons of rice is scheduled to be delivered to the flood-ravaged Shinuiju region.

Choi You-sun (reporter) “The South Korean government is maintaining a firm stance concerning its set of stringent measures against North Korea. But officials here say there are more applicants wishing to send provisions forecasting that there will be a significant increase in the amount of nongovernmental aid to the impoverished North.

UPDATE 8: The Ministry of Unification seems to have approved the private aid donations mentioned in UPDATE 7.  According to the AFP:

South Korea’s government said Wednesday it has approved a plan by local groups to send flood relief aid to North Korea, amid growing signs of a thaw after months of tension on the peninsula.

The Unification Ministry said it approved Tuesday requests to send emergency supplies worth a total of 2.24 billion won (1.2 million dollars) including 203 tons of rice.

The aid for flood victims in Sinuiju and Kaesong also includes flour, bread, blankets and instant noodles, said spokesman Chun Hae-Sung, adding the first shipment of 400 tons of flour would be sent Thursday.

It was the second time this week that Seoul groups have announced help following floods that hit the city of Sinuiju on the China border and the town of Kaesong, just north of the inter-Korean frontier.

UPDATE 7: In addition to the aid offernd by the South Korean government (in the posts below),  private organizations in South Korea are offering flood assistance.  According to Yonhap:

The Korea Sharing Movement and the Join Together Society (JTS) plan to ship 400 tons of flour to the North Korean border city of Kaesong via an overland route on Thursday, an official said. The Gyeonggi provincial government helped fund the assistance.

Separately, the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, a coalition of pro-unification civic and social groups, also plans to send 130 tons of flour to the North on Thursday.

And in another Yonhap story:

An umbrella trade union said Wednesday it seeks to send about 100 tons of rice, possibly by land, to North Korea to help the flood-hit nation.

The Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), which claims up to 900,000 members across the country, said it is in talks with its North Korean counterpart to determine the exact delivery route and size of the aid.

UPDATE 6: The South Korean government is trying to figure out how to prevent aid from being diverted to the military.  According to the Choson Ilbo:

“Rice can be stored for a long time and is easy to divert to the military,” the official said. “But rice flour or noodles are harder to store for longer and are more likely to be given to the victims instead of being transported to military warehouses.”

The government offered the North 10,000 tons of corn following the reunion of separated families on the occasion of Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving last year reportedly because this was less likely to be used for military rations. North Korean defectors say they were rarely given any rice supplied by the South, while rice bags with the lettering of the South Korean Red Cross stamped on were seen in military facilities close to the heavily armed border.

During the famine in the late 1990s, the North received corn flour aid from the U.S which the authorities then distributed through ration stations, a defector recalls.

But processing over 100,000 tons of rice into flour and other products may not be realistic as it would cost a lot of time and money, a Unification Ministry official said.

UPDATE 5: According to the Donga Ilbo:

Yoo Chong-ha, head of the (South) Korean National Red Cross, said in a news conference Monday that the Red Cross will send 10 billion won (8.6 million U.S. dollars) worth of aid comprising 5,000 tons of rice, 10,000 tons of cement, three million packages of instant noodles, and medicine.

He also suggested a working-level meeting of Red Cross organizations from both sides in Kaesong Friday on Pyongyang’s proposal for reunions of separate inter-Korean families.

On the volume of rice aid, Yoo said, “Around 80,000 to 90,000 people in (the North Korean city of) Shinuiju are known to be displaced, and 5,000 tons of rice can feed 100,000 people for 100 days,” translating into 500 grams a day per person.

The South’s Red Cross said it set the amount given that international aid organizations allocate 300 to 500 grams per person when they send rice assistance to the North.

The budget for buying the rice was 7.7 billion won (6.6 million dollars), or 1.54 million won (1,330 dollars) per ton based on the price of rice Seoul purchased in 2007.

Even if the South Korean government provides rice aid to the North, the combined amount will be around 10 billion won as the South’s Red Cross proposed to the North last month.

Excluded from the aid package was heavy equipment that the North requested. Most of the 10 billion won in aid will come from a South Korean government fund for inter-Korean cooperation.

UPDATE 4: And the picture becomes clearer.  According to the Guardian:

The $8.5m (£5.5m) package, to be funded by the government, is the south’s first aid shipment to its neighbour since the sinking of a warship in March reduced bilateral relations to their lowest point for years. Seoul says its vessel was sunk by a North Korean torpedo, a claim Pyongyang denies.

The countries may also resume reunions for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean war, which ended in an uneasy armistice but no peace treaty. The reunions were suspended after a South Korean woman was shot dead by a guard during a visit to the North Korean tourist resort of Mount Kumgang, in 2008.

UPDATE 3: Some specifics come out.  According to Yonhap:

S. Korea’s Red Cross announces 5,000 tons of rice aid for N. Korea’s flood victims

UPDATE 2: South Korean farmers demand ROK government send aid to DPRK to keep rice prices high.  According to the AFP:

Thousands of South Korean farmers rallied Friday, demanding the government stop a fall in rice prices by shipping surplus stocks in state silos to North Korea.

The farmers urged President Lee Myung-Bak to resume an annual shipment of 400,000 tonnes of rice to the North, which suffers severe food shortages. The shipment was suspended in 2008 as relations soured.

About 3,000 farmers took part in morning rallies in a dozen cities and counties, said the Korea Peasants’ League, which represents farmers, adding more were under way or planned in the afternoon.

“Resuming rice aid to North Korea is a short cut to stabilising rice prices and also improving inter-Korean ties,” league spokesman Kang Suk-Chan told AFP.

The government makes an annual purchase of rice from farmers to stabilise prices amid falling national demand, but is predicting a bumper harvest this year.

Unless some stocks are sold off, the agriculture ministry says the South’s strategic rice reserve will soon reach an all-time high of 1.49 million tons, twice the 720,000 tonnes considered necessary for emergencies.

Last week minister Yoo Jeong-Bok said the government would sell about 500,000 tons of the reserve this year to companies that make alcoholic beverages and processed food ingredients.

Farmers claimed the ministry’s move would fail to stop the fall in prices. They want the government to lift the 2008 ban and to purchase this year’s harvest at higher prices.

Subsidised farmers grow more rice than South Koreans want to eat. The country’s consumption of the staple fell in 2007 to its lowest level for decades as people ate more meat and vegetables.

Cross-border tensions this summer have run high over the sinking of a South Korean warship with the loss of 46 sailors. The North vehemently denies involvement but the South has cut off most cross-border trade.

Read the full story here:
S.Korea farmers demand rice shipment to N.Korea
AFP
9/10/2010

UPDATE 1: The DPRK accepts the ROK’s aid offer.  According to the BBC:

North Korea has responded to an offer from South Korea of emergency food and medical aid, saying it would prefer to receive rice and building materials.

The South Korean offer, worth more than $8m (£5m), was made last week after severe flooding in the North.

South Korea says it is considering the North’s request.

The aid would be the first large-scale shipment since South Korea blamed its impoverished northern neighbour for sinking one of its warships in March.

South Korea blames Pyongyang for sinking the Cheonan with a torpedo, killing 46 crew.

North Korea denies any role in the incident and has demanded its own investigation.

Food aid

North Korea’s Red Cross said it would prefer rice, cement and heavy construction equipment – items it said were necessary for flood recovery efforts, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry and Red Cross.

The South’s offer excluded rice – a staple which Seoul has stopped sending to Pyongyang amid strained relations.

North Korea has been hard hit by floods caused by heavy rains in July and August, especially in its northern areas bordering China.

This week a South Korean newspaper published pictures of people sleeping in tents and queuing for water in the city of Shinuiju.

They were taken by an undercover source who also reports rare public complaints that the North Korean leadership is not doing enough to help.

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North Korea accepts flood aid offer from South
BBC
9/7/2010

ORIGINAL POST: South Korea offers flood aid to the DPRK. According to the BBC:

South Korea has made its first offer of aid to North Korea since it accused Pyongyang of sinking one of its warships in March.

South Korea’s Red Cross has offered 10bn won ($8.3m, £5.3m) worth of flood aid to its impoverished neighbour.

The offer came hours after the United States imposed new sanctions on the North in response to the sinking.

South Korea blames North Korea for sinking the Cheonan on 26 March with a torpedo, killing 46 crew.

North Korea denies any role in the incident and has demanded its own investigation.

FOOD AID
North Korea has relied on food aid from China, South Korea and aid agencies to feed millions of its people since a famine in the 1990s resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

But the communist country has been hard hit by floods caused by heavy rains in July and August, especially in its northern areas, bordering China.

“The aid includes medical kits, emergency food and supplies,” a Unification Ministry official said, quoting the Red Cross message sent to North Korea.

The offer has yet to be accepted by the North.

Under President Lee Myung-bak, the South has stepped back from its earlier “sunshine” policy of unconditional aid and has linked the provision of aid to progress from the North on ending its nuclear programme.

A South Korean offer of about 10,000 tonnes of corn to North Korea in October 2009 was the first official aid to its hungry neighbour for almost two years.

The year before, the South had offered 50,000 tons of corn but the North rejected the shipment amid high tensions.

‘TOO EARLY’
The offer came after North Korea reportedly indicated it was ready to return to six-party talks over ending its nuclear ambitions.

Parts of North Korea have been badly affected by severe flooding Leader Kim Jong-il told the Chinese president that he wanted to see negotiations resumed during a visit to China last week, Chinese state media said.

The talks – which involve the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the US – have been stalled since December 2008 over Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear tests.

But South Korea is demanding an apology for the warship sinking before any return to the negotiations.

Japan also says the time is not right to resume talks.

On Tuesday its foreign minister, Katsuya Okada, told China’s visiting nuclear envoy, Wu Dawei, that it was still “too early” to think about a return to talks.

On Monday the US imposed additional sanctions on North Korea, targeting trade in arms, luxury goods and narcotics.

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South Korea offers aid to flooded North
BBC
8/31/2010