North Korea clamps down on mobile phones to stop news of food crisis

[Coventina]

Source: The Times Online

North Korea is clamping down on mobile phones and long distance telephone calls to prevent the spread of news about a worsening food crisis, according to the United Nations investigator on human rights for the isolated communist country.

In a report to the UN General Assembly, Vitit Muntarbhorn, a Thai law professor who has never been allowed to visit North Korea, said that its government is using public executions as a means of intimidating the population, and using spies to infiltrate and expose religious communities.

His report came two days after the World Food Programme said that two thirds of North Koreans do not have enough to eat, in the country’s worst crisis since as many as three million people died of famine a decade ago.

“Sadly, even though the harvest was getting better, we have had devastating floods in 2006 and 2007,” Mr Muntarbhorn said in New York. “Over the past year we have had very worrying information of a very chronic food shortage.”



Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5005161.ece

[Turbineguy]

1. That's a great idea!

I'm surprised the Bush administration didn't think of that here.

Crisis? What crisis?

[Hestia]

2. There is a horrible History Int'l documentary called "The Orphans of North Korea"

which shows the orphans begging people for food, but since they don't have enough themselves, they do not feed the children. The children are on the ground picking up any crumb. Also, NK takes the food that has been donated to the people and sells it in the market place. (or maybe the documentary was on Discovery Times channel)

[Raster]

3. Hunger is what keeps Kim Jong Il in power. The massive red army, which is fanatically loyal to Kim,

receives the lion's share of food in North Korea. The NK Military is ALWAYS fed first. They stand between Kim and a starving populace.

[ohio2007]

4. So much for the Domino's pizza delivery theory