North Korea Rejects Food Aid From America

[efq]

North Korea is refusing to accept food aid from America despite facing chronic shortages, US officials have announced.




North Korean school children eat fortified biscuits provided by the UN


The decision by Pyongyang comes amid growing tensions over a planned missile test by the North and a joint military exercise by the South and the United States.
The North says the exercises are preparations for invasion.
And early next month, Pyongyang plans to launch a long-range rocket it insists is for communications purposes but the US says is to test a weapon able to reach its territory.
The US State Department's Robert Wood confirmed that North Korea has told Washington it does not want to receive any additional food assistance.
But he said the US would continue to work with non-governmental groups in the country "to ensure that food that is already in North Korea is distributed to the intended recipients."



North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il



North Korea has had to rely on international aid to feed its population of 23 million since famine struck in the 1990s.
The secretive and impoverished state is deeply uncomfortable with foreign aid workers heading deep into its countryside, seeing them as potential spies or troublemakers.
It has long sought to have the aid brought to central points and do the distribution itself.


The US and the UN World Food Programme want full control over distribution to make sure the food reaches the most vulnerable and is not, as some suspect, diverted to the military.
A deal agreed in 2007 saw North Korea agree to disable its main nuclear complex in return for one million tonnes of fuel oil and other concessions.
As part of another agreement between the US and Pyongyang in May last year, 169,000 tonnes of food were delivered to North Korea.
Pyongyang has not made any official comment on the reasons for rejecting future aid.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wor...itary_Exercise

[-:Undertaker:-]

There could very well be war within days, if you've been following North Korea you'd know their planning to launch a satelitte and have said that anyone who shoots it down will face instant war.

[kk.]

Even if they declared war, it would be over pretty fast i think. A lot of countries are against what theyre doing so... thats why lol

[-:Undertaker:-]

Heres a pretty likely scenario;

North Korea invades South Korea for shooting down the missile, United States and Japan join in on the side of South Korea, thus the whole of NATO now becomes involved. Peoples Republic of China warns that if Pyronyang is taken China will have to react - then you have a stand off between NATO nuclear powers and China.

It could all easily become reality, just depends on how China reacts.

[Twist]

R.I.P - miserable *******s.
Also I don't think that there will be a war.

[-:Undertaker:-]

All depends on if the missile is shot down. Japan has already offered to do it.

[scottish]

I don't think china will take on NATO tbh.

[-:Undertaker:-]

If NATO/the west near China's border it could well spell WW3, after all it nearly happend in the Korean War when China was a much weaker nation.