North Korean facade of self-sufficiency can't hide signs of hunger
Professor Stephan Haggard Quoted in Los Angeles Times
11/03/2008
Barbara Demick, Staff Writer,
Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Nampo, North Korea -- Along the sides of the road, people comb through the grass looking for edible weeds. In the center of town, a boy about 9 years old wears a tattered army jacket hanging below his knees. He has no shoes.
Sprawled on the lawn outside a bathhouse, poorly dressed people lie on the grass, either with no better place to go or no energy to do so at 10 a.m. on a weekday.
Despite efforts to keep North Korea's extreme poverty out of view, a glance around the countryside shows a population in distress. At the root of the problem is a chronic food shortage, the result of inflation, strained relations with neighboring countries and flooding in previous years.
Click here to read the full story.
