World News Corner

By Meggin Forti
Collegian Reporter
October 18, 2006

U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte has confirmed that North Korea fired a nuclear test Oct. 9. While the first air sample from the site of the nuclear test contained no radioactive debris, the second air sample did.

Negroponte’s office issued a statement about the amount of radioactive debris which indicated that “the explosive yield was less than one kiloton,” which is fairly minute for a nuclear test.

Cautious measures were taken to prove that North Korea had indeed tested nuclear weapons. Sources said that a nuclear facility in Russia lies close to the North Korean border, and analysts first wanted to make sure the Russian site wasn’t the origin of the radioactive debris.

The nuclear tests issued by Pyongyang have caused strained international relations for North Korea, which will continue to impair the country socially and economically.

Millions of North Koreans are facing catastrophe because of a dramatic loss of food donations that has sustained the country’s population of 23 million for more than a decade.

Pyongyang’s series of nuclear tests are producing dwindling aid from China and a complete cessation of food supply assistance from South Korea. Both countries had been leading food donors to North Korea’s population, until last July when Pyongyang began nuclear testing.

Mike Huggins, a World Food Program (WFP) spokesman, reported that North Korea has decided not to accept much food from the WFP, “a decision that means about four million people fewer are being fed this year,” Huggins said.

After a five-day visit to North Korea last week, Huggins predicts very real hardship for North Korea.

“Some 37 percent of North Korea’s children are malnourished, and one-third of mothers are malnourished and anemic,” Huggins said.

North Korea hasn’t been self-sufficient in food production since the mid-1990s when its state-run farm system crumbled after the loss of Soviet subsidies. They asked the WFP last year to focus on aiding them in development assistance instead of food aid. So, while this shift in the service from the WFP may be beneficial in the long run, the present worry is that millions of North Koreans will go hungry this winter.

The WFP has fed about 6.5 million of North Korea’s people in the past, but this year will only be supplying 1.9 million people with food. A decrease in North Korea’s grain harvests has left more of the population without a food source.

However, the U.N. Security Council sanctions put into effect last Saturday after the nuclear test by Pyongyang. do not pertain to food aid for the people of North Korea.

fortim1@lasalle.edu