美国国家公共电台 NPR Why South Korea Is Sending $8 Million In Food Aid To North Korea

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

North Korea has had one of the worst harvests in a decade. Millions are not getting enough to eat. The biggest worry is families with young children. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Seoul that foreign donors¹ are trying to assess food needs before they send in aid. But nothing is easy when working in the most isolated² country in the world.

ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE³: The first challenge aid agencies face is this.

MARIO ZAPPACOSTA: To get information in North Korea is very difficult.

KUHN: That's Mario Zappacosta, a Rome-based economist⁴ with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

ZAPPACOZTA: So even to have information from 12 counties can be seen as a remarkable⁵ achievement.

KUHN: This spring, he and other UNFAO and World Food Programme experts fanned out across 12 counties in six of North Korea's nine provinces. They spoke⁶ with local farmers and officials. They visited grain stores and nursery schools. Zappacosta says he was struck by what North Koreans told him they were eating.

ZAPPACOZTA: Rice with limited quantities of maize⁷ and some vegetables during the period vegetables are available.

KUHN: In winter, many North Koreans don't really have any vegetables other than kimchi, a spicy⁸, fermented⁹ cabbage dish. They're not getting enough protein. Meat, eggs and fish are a rare treat often available only on holidays - or even enough calories.

ZAPPACOZTA: And in some areas where they just depend on potatoes, they just eat potato. There is a really poor and monotonous¹⁰ diet. This was really remarkable.

KUHN: The survey concluded that North Korea is facing its worst harvest in a decade. As a result, more than 10 million North Koreans or about 40% of the population face food shortages. That's not nearly as bad as the mid-1990s, when up to 3.5 million people starved to death. But the survey did find that the country will have a shortage of just over a million metric tons of food.

ZAPPACOZTA: We may be somehow wrong slightly up or down. But the order of magnitude - we're quite confident.

KUHN: The poor harvests are due, in part, to bad weather - record droughts in some places and flooding in others. And although international sanctions are aimed at the North's military not civilians¹¹, they make it hard to get machine parts and gas needed for efficient mechanized farming.

ZAPPACOZTA: With the reduced availability of fuel, we saw people using oxen but also doing by hand.

KUHN: Last week, South Korea approved $8 million in food and medicine for aid agencies to distribute in North Korea. South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul told reporters last week that the aid does not violate any sanctions. But Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein, co-editor of the blog NKEconwatch, says that $8 million worth of food is not going to make much difference. He argues that the food shortages are less about how much food is produced than about how it's distributed. And the distribution, he says, favors politically loyal elites¹² in Pyongyang.

BENJAMIN KATZEFF SILBERSTEIN: North Korea's food shortages really aren't about - they're not about external shocks from the weather or from sanctions. They're about a system. That's it.

KUHN: It's also about the government's spending priorities, Silberstein argues. Despite the food shortages, Pyongyang has enough money for vanity projects like beach and ski resorts and, of course, weapons systems.

KATZEFF SILBERSTEIN: Well, if you can manufacture nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, clearly, you can import enough food to make up for the shortfall in the harvest. There is no doubt about it.

KUHN: Silberstein notes that international donors have been giving North Korea food aid since the late 1990s. Aid groups don't want to let people starve, regardless of the North Korean government's choices. But as long as Pyongyang puts off necessary reforms to its system, he says, the shortages will continue.

Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Seoul.

1 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

5 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 maize   

n.玉米

参考例句：

• There's a field planted with maize behind the house.房子后面有一块玉米地。
• We can grow sorghum or maize on this plot.这块地可以种高粱或玉米。

8 spicy   

adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的

参考例句：

• The soup tasted mildly spicy.汤尝起来略有点辣。
• Very spicy food doesn't suit her stomach.太辣的东西她吃了胃不舒服。

9 fermented   

v.（使）发酵( ferment的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）激动；骚动；骚扰

参考例句：

• When wine is fermented, it gives off gas. 酒发酵时发出气泡。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His speeches fermented trouble among the workers. 他的演讲在工人中引起骚动。 来自辞典例句

10 monotonous   

adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的

参考例句：

• She thought life in the small town was monotonous.她觉得小镇上的生活单调而乏味。
• His articles are fixed in form and monotonous in content.他的文章千篇一律，一个调调儿。

11 civilians   

平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓

参考例句：

• the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
• At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后，至少有300名平民下落不明。

12 elites   

精华( elite的名词复数 )； 精锐； 上层集团； （统称）掌权人物

参考例句：

• The elites are by their nature a factor contributing to underdevelopment. 这些上层人物天生是助长欠发达的因素。
• Elites always detest gifted and nimble outsiders. 社会名流对天赋聪明、多才多艺的局外人一向嫌恶。