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WFP to resume food aid to N. Korea« Thread Started on May 11

Daily newsbrief journal for May 2006, also see http://www.usdemocrats.com/brief for a global 100-page perpetual brief and follow twitter @usdemocrats


WFP to resume food aid to N. Korea« Thread Started on May 11

Postby admin » Fri Jan 27, 2012 8:33 am

WFP to resume food aid to N. Korea« Thread Started on May 11, 2006, 12:30am » --------------------------------------------------------------------------------WFP to resume food aid to N. KoreaThursday, May 11, 2006 Posted: 0339 GMT (1139 HKT) The WFP wants to ensure food aid gets to those most in need.read source: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiap ... tmlBEIJING, China (AP) -- The World Food Program has reached agreement with North Korea to resume food aid to the hunger-stricken country after a six-month suspension, but the operation will be smaller than it was before, the U.N. agency said Thursday.The WFP will feed 1.9 million of the "most needy" people in the North, Tony Banbury, the agency's Asia regional director, said at a news conference in Beijing, China. That is down from the 6.5 million people the agency was feeding in past years.The WFP suspended aid in December after the North asked it to switch focus to economic development. The agency argued that the change was too abrupt and would leave millions hungry.The new agreement was signed Wednesday in Pyongyang, Banbury said."We would have liked to see a bigger operation, but that was not possible at this time," he said.Banbury did not give a date for food distribution to resume, but he said the agency was already making preparations.North Korea has relied on foreign donations to feed its people since disclosing in the mid-1990s that its state-run farm system had collapsed after decades of mismanagement and the loss of Soviet subsidies. Famine is believed to have killed 2 million people.But the secretive Stalinist regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il restricted activities of aid agencies and pressed them to reduce the size of their foreign staffs in the country.Under the new agreement, the WFP will be allowed 10 foreign staff members in North Korea and an office in the capital, Pyongyang, Banbury said. In the past, the agency had 32 foreigners in the country and five regional offices in addition to the capital.Banbury said the agency would supply food aid only in areas where it could monitor distribution in order to assure foreign donors that it was reaching its intended beneficiaries.The United States and other donors want to see that food is not diverted to the North's huge military or to reward ruling party supporters.Improved harvestsEfforts to avert starvation in the North have coincided with lengthy disarmament negotiations aimed at persuading Kim's government to give up nuclear development.Governments pushing for denuclearization include the United States, rival South Korea and Japan, which also are among the North's main food donors. They say they have kept aid decisions separate from the nuclear talks.The North says its harvests have improved enough in recent years that it should be able to feed itself with bilateral help from South Korea and China, the North's main ally and aid donor.The WFP has called the North's request to shift focus to the economy a sensible long-term move. But it also has warned that harvests are still small enough that without additional foreign aid, any shortfalls could lead to widespread hunger.Late last year, the North expelled the 12 private foreign aid groups working in the country after the European Union sponsored a United Nations resolution criticizing its human rights record.The WFP says it has spent about $1.7 billion over the past decade on aid to the North in the agency's biggest single aid project to date.
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