The Guardian: U.N. calls for food aid for starving North Koreans despite sanctions
“The head of the U.N. World Food Programme has called for the White House and other western donors to put children’s lives before politics and fund a major injection of aid to North Korea despite the failure of Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un. David Beasley, a former Republican governor of South Carolina who backed Trump’s campaign for the U.S. presidency, said he had heard concerns that responding to an appeal from Pyongyang would prop up the Kim regime. But in an interview with the Guardian, the World Food Programme’s executive director said, ‘as we speak,’ teams of experts were canvassing the North Korean countryside to provide the donors with evidence of the scale of the crisis. … An estimated 11 million people — 40% of the population — are already undernourished, with one in five children stunted due to chronic malnutrition. … Beasley added: ‘The concerns have been about not helping the regime. We make the case: don’t let innocent children suffer because of politics’…” (Boffey, 4/3).