06-19-2021, 09:58 PM
*** 20-Jun-21 World View -- North Korea in crisis, facing 'tense' food shortage and surging food prices
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** North Korea in crisis, facing 'tense' food shortage and surging food prices
****
![[Image: g210619b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g210619b.jpg)
Kim Jong-un last week announcing the 'tense' food shortage (Reuters)
North Korean dictator last week said that "The people's food situation
is now getting tense," referring to scarcity of food and sharply
rising food prices He added that the "agricultural sector failed to
fulfil its grain production plan" in 2020.
A massive shortage of food has led to a dramatic rise in prices of
basic food commodities. A kilogram of bananas costs $45. The price
of a kilogram of rice was $0.77 in April, $0.90 in May, and $0.96 in
June.
North Korea is subject to both UN and US sanctions, but normally North
Korea's agricultural sector can produce enough food, and receive
supplements from China and Russia. However, this failed to be enough
during 2020 for three reasons:
The food shortage has not surprisingly led to violence in some areas.
According to reports, construction workers building houses in the
capital city Pyongyang, North Korea’s largest city with a population
of about 3 million, are poorly fed, and are committing robberies and
murders to steal food in the neighborhoods where the houses are being
built.
****
**** Kim Jong-un 'solemnly vows' to overcome difficulties
****
At the conclusion of a Central Committee meeting on Friday, Kim
"solemnly swore that the Party will surely break through head-on the
difficulties lying in the way of the revolution" and remain loyal to
the revolutionary idea to the end regardless of the "severer
difficulties it may be confronted with in the future," according to
KCNA, the (North) Korean Central News Agency.
It's not clear how the North Koreans plan to do that, but there have
already been some missteps.
North Korea's state-run food stores normally sell just basic foods
like unprocessed corn and rice, but due to shortages are now selling
some processed foods like sugar, seasonings, flour and cooking oil.
However, stocks of those foods are extremely low as well.
A different concern was raised by a recent special "intensive
inspection of the storage maintenance status of combat reserve
supplies" for the armed forces. The inspection revealed shortages of
reserve supplies, and evidence of corruption, since the written
records do not match the actual supplies. According to an RFA report:
<QUOTE>"The main focus of this inspection is on supplies like
wartime fuel, food, combat suites and medicine. All units
typically lack fuel, food and medicine so they often secretly dip
into their reserves."<END QUOTE>
Managers responsible for the combat reserve supplies may now fact
punishment:
<QUOTE>"In addition to the punishment of those who are found
at fault in the military-wide intensive inspection, the project to
distribute combat reserve materials according to demand will also
be under review.
All units have been specifically asked whether they comply with
the directive that requires them to create combat reserve supplies
by contributing five percent of the daily supplies guaranteed by
the state and of military supplies they themselves
produce."<END QUOTE>
Obviously, this has implications for the ability of North Korea's army
to attack South Korea, when Kim Jong-un decides to do so.
****
**** The Denuclearization Delusion
****
We haven't heard much from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un since
those exciting gone-by days of yesteryear prior to the Wuhan
Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, when he was meeting regularly with
Donald Trump, and the two were expressing their love for one another,
in their father-son relationship. In particular, there haven't been
any new tests of nuclear weapons or long-range ballistic missiles in a
long time. There were some short-range missile tests in March of this
year, but they didn't generate much excitement.
President Joe Biden has not announced a North Korea policy, except for
"consulting with our allies and partners" and "some form of diplomacy
... conditioned upon the end result of denuclearization," as he said
after the North Korean missile test in March.
At that time, I wrote a lengthy article comparing the strategies of
Donald Trump and Joe Biden. (See "28-Mar-21 World View -- North Korea's ballistic missiles stoke the Denuclearization Delusion"
)
The point of the article was the same as in the articles about North
Korea that I've been writing for years -- that it makes absolutely no
difference what strategy is used by Trump and Biden. North Korea is
going to continue developing and manufacturing nuclear weapons and
long-range ballistic missiles, and one day will use them, probably on
Japan and the US. The idea of North Korea denuclearization is
completely delusionary, even though the "Denuclearization Delusion"
persists in the dream world of Pollyannaish fantasy.
In fact, Biden's special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, was
in South Korea on Saturday to discuss the stalled denuclearization
talks. Kim Jong-un ordered his government to prepare for both
dialogue and confrontation with the United States. Kim is demanding
that the US lift its sanctions on North Korea.
****
**** Happy Juneteenth, everyone!
****
Saturday was the new federal holiday, Juneteenth, celebrating the day
June 19, 1865, when the Republicans, who had won the Civil War and
emancipated the slaves under Abraham Lincoln, officially completed the
emancipation by forcing the Democrats, who had finally surrendered
after losing the Civil War, to really give up their slaves and set
them free.
I can't help but think that this is an odd holiday for the Democrats
to be celebrating, since it's a day of their total humiliation and
surrender. Following the emancipation, the bitterly angry Democrats
formed the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and spent the next century lynching
black boys and raping black girls with impunity.
This angers continues to today. Joe Biden grew up at the time when
the KKK was active, and his friend and mentor Robert Byrd held the
title "Exalted Cyclops." Biden and Byrd may have participated in some
lynchings or rapes, or if not were certainly aware of them and
approved of them. Biden was a racist and White Supremacist his entire
life, and was quite public abut it until Barack Obama nominated him to
be vice president. But with the recent release of Hunter Biden's
texts, which were laced with highly racist epithets, we know that
racism and White Supremacy are deeply embedded in the Biden family.
Maxine Waters, who has often appeared to be totally unhinged, must
have suffered some kind of trauma in the past. My guess is that
either she was raped as a young girl by a White Democrat in the KKK,
or if not, at the least she must have known many young black girls who
were raped. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who also seems to be
unhinged, was born too late to be raped by a KKK member, but
undoubtedly knew many black women who had been raped in years past.
Frankly, I don't blame Waters or Lightfoot for acting as they do,
given the trauma they must have suffered decades ago, surrounded by
black girls and women who had been raped by White Democrats.
Lori Lightfoot's Chicago is a good example of how the Democrats are
causing massacres of blacks today, just as though the KKK were as
active as before. Lightfoot and other Democrat politicians have
adopted a set of racist policies that specifically target black
communities, making them unsafe and punishing successful black
businesses. These policies include the following: destroying the
black family, defunding police, not arresting violent criminals,
letting violent criminals out of jail, keeping the police from making
gun checks, forbidding community policing, and allowing huge amounts
of fentynal and meth into the country through the southern border. Of
course whites also suffer from these policies, but not nearly as much
as blacks do. These policies all target blacks and have the specific
purpose of making black neighborhoods unsafe and poor. These are all
White Supremacist policies, and any Democrat who follows them is, by
definition, a White Supremacist.
The results speak for themselves: Hundreds of blacks are killed each
week through mass shootings on the streets of Chicago and other
Democrat-run cities, where the above racist policies are in force.
These have the same purpose as the 1921 Tulsa massacre of a century
ago. It's as if the KKK were still as active as ever in the mass
slaughter of blacks.
So now we come to the new Juneteenth federal holiday, which celebrates
the Democrat Party's loss of their black slaves, and also commemorates
the Democrat Party's launching of the KKK. I find it bewildering that
the Democrats allowed this holiday to be celebrated, and I can't help
but wonder if this is actually the beginning of a social war by the
blacks against their white masters.
Sources:
Sources:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, Kim Jong-un,
Wuhan Coronavirus, Covid-19, Donald Trump, Joe Biden,
Juneteenth, Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation,
Ku Klux Klan, KKK, Robert Byrd, Maxine Waters,
Lori Lightfoot, Chicago
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- North Korea in crisis, facing 'tense' food shortage and surging food prices
- Kim Jong-un 'solemnly vows' to overcome difficulties
- The Denuclearization Delusion
- Happy Juneteenth, everyone!
****
**** North Korea in crisis, facing 'tense' food shortage and surging food prices
****
Kim Jong-un last week announcing the 'tense' food shortage (Reuters)
North Korean dictator last week said that "The people's food situation
is now getting tense," referring to scarcity of food and sharply
rising food prices He added that the "agricultural sector failed to
fulfil its grain production plan" in 2020.
A massive shortage of food has led to a dramatic rise in prices of
basic food commodities. A kilogram of bananas costs $45. The price
of a kilogram of rice was $0.77 in April, $0.90 in May, and $0.96 in
June.
North Korea is subject to both UN and US sanctions, but normally North
Korea's agricultural sector can produce enough food, and receive
supplements from China and Russia. However, this failed to be enough
during 2020 for three reasons:
- The US and UN sanctions continued.
- North Korea, which has been claiming that thre are no cases of
Covid in the country, closed their borders with China and Russia to
prevent the spread of Covid. However, there have been reports of
widespread Covid in some parts of the country, especially near the
border with China. Normally, North Korea depends on China for food,
fertilizers and fuel, but most of that trade was cut off.
- Several unexpectedly large typhoons last year caused
flooding.
The food shortage has not surprisingly led to violence in some areas.
According to reports, construction workers building houses in the
capital city Pyongyang, North Korea’s largest city with a population
of about 3 million, are poorly fed, and are committing robberies and
murders to steal food in the neighborhoods where the houses are being
built.
****
**** Kim Jong-un 'solemnly vows' to overcome difficulties
****
At the conclusion of a Central Committee meeting on Friday, Kim
"solemnly swore that the Party will surely break through head-on the
difficulties lying in the way of the revolution" and remain loyal to
the revolutionary idea to the end regardless of the "severer
difficulties it may be confronted with in the future," according to
KCNA, the (North) Korean Central News Agency.
It's not clear how the North Koreans plan to do that, but there have
already been some missteps.
North Korea's state-run food stores normally sell just basic foods
like unprocessed corn and rice, but due to shortages are now selling
some processed foods like sugar, seasonings, flour and cooking oil.
However, stocks of those foods are extremely low as well.
A different concern was raised by a recent special "intensive
inspection of the storage maintenance status of combat reserve
supplies" for the armed forces. The inspection revealed shortages of
reserve supplies, and evidence of corruption, since the written
records do not match the actual supplies. According to an RFA report:
<QUOTE>"The main focus of this inspection is on supplies like
wartime fuel, food, combat suites and medicine. All units
typically lack fuel, food and medicine so they often secretly dip
into their reserves."<END QUOTE>
Managers responsible for the combat reserve supplies may now fact
punishment:
<QUOTE>"In addition to the punishment of those who are found
at fault in the military-wide intensive inspection, the project to
distribute combat reserve materials according to demand will also
be under review.
All units have been specifically asked whether they comply with
the directive that requires them to create combat reserve supplies
by contributing five percent of the daily supplies guaranteed by
the state and of military supplies they themselves
produce."<END QUOTE>
Obviously, this has implications for the ability of North Korea's army
to attack South Korea, when Kim Jong-un decides to do so.
****
**** The Denuclearization Delusion
****
We haven't heard much from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un since
those exciting gone-by days of yesteryear prior to the Wuhan
Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, when he was meeting regularly with
Donald Trump, and the two were expressing their love for one another,
in their father-son relationship. In particular, there haven't been
any new tests of nuclear weapons or long-range ballistic missiles in a
long time. There were some short-range missile tests in March of this
year, but they didn't generate much excitement.
President Joe Biden has not announced a North Korea policy, except for
"consulting with our allies and partners" and "some form of diplomacy
... conditioned upon the end result of denuclearization," as he said
after the North Korean missile test in March.
At that time, I wrote a lengthy article comparing the strategies of
Donald Trump and Joe Biden. (See "28-Mar-21 World View -- North Korea's ballistic missiles stoke the Denuclearization Delusion"
)
The point of the article was the same as in the articles about North
Korea that I've been writing for years -- that it makes absolutely no
difference what strategy is used by Trump and Biden. North Korea is
going to continue developing and manufacturing nuclear weapons and
long-range ballistic missiles, and one day will use them, probably on
Japan and the US. The idea of North Korea denuclearization is
completely delusionary, even though the "Denuclearization Delusion"
persists in the dream world of Pollyannaish fantasy.
In fact, Biden's special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim, was
in South Korea on Saturday to discuss the stalled denuclearization
talks. Kim Jong-un ordered his government to prepare for both
dialogue and confrontation with the United States. Kim is demanding
that the US lift its sanctions on North Korea.
****
**** Happy Juneteenth, everyone!
****
Saturday was the new federal holiday, Juneteenth, celebrating the day
June 19, 1865, when the Republicans, who had won the Civil War and
emancipated the slaves under Abraham Lincoln, officially completed the
emancipation by forcing the Democrats, who had finally surrendered
after losing the Civil War, to really give up their slaves and set
them free.
I can't help but think that this is an odd holiday for the Democrats
to be celebrating, since it's a day of their total humiliation and
surrender. Following the emancipation, the bitterly angry Democrats
formed the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and spent the next century lynching
black boys and raping black girls with impunity.
This angers continues to today. Joe Biden grew up at the time when
the KKK was active, and his friend and mentor Robert Byrd held the
title "Exalted Cyclops." Biden and Byrd may have participated in some
lynchings or rapes, or if not were certainly aware of them and
approved of them. Biden was a racist and White Supremacist his entire
life, and was quite public abut it until Barack Obama nominated him to
be vice president. But with the recent release of Hunter Biden's
texts, which were laced with highly racist epithets, we know that
racism and White Supremacy are deeply embedded in the Biden family.
Maxine Waters, who has often appeared to be totally unhinged, must
have suffered some kind of trauma in the past. My guess is that
either she was raped as a young girl by a White Democrat in the KKK,
or if not, at the least she must have known many young black girls who
were raped. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who also seems to be
unhinged, was born too late to be raped by a KKK member, but
undoubtedly knew many black women who had been raped in years past.
Frankly, I don't blame Waters or Lightfoot for acting as they do,
given the trauma they must have suffered decades ago, surrounded by
black girls and women who had been raped by White Democrats.
Lori Lightfoot's Chicago is a good example of how the Democrats are
causing massacres of blacks today, just as though the KKK were as
active as before. Lightfoot and other Democrat politicians have
adopted a set of racist policies that specifically target black
communities, making them unsafe and punishing successful black
businesses. These policies include the following: destroying the
black family, defunding police, not arresting violent criminals,
letting violent criminals out of jail, keeping the police from making
gun checks, forbidding community policing, and allowing huge amounts
of fentynal and meth into the country through the southern border. Of
course whites also suffer from these policies, but not nearly as much
as blacks do. These policies all target blacks and have the specific
purpose of making black neighborhoods unsafe and poor. These are all
White Supremacist policies, and any Democrat who follows them is, by
definition, a White Supremacist.
The results speak for themselves: Hundreds of blacks are killed each
week through mass shootings on the streets of Chicago and other
Democrat-run cities, where the above racist policies are in force.
These have the same purpose as the 1921 Tulsa massacre of a century
ago. It's as if the KKK were still as active as ever in the mass
slaughter of blacks.
So now we come to the new Juneteenth federal holiday, which celebrates
the Democrat Party's loss of their black slaves, and also commemorates
the Democrat Party's launching of the KKK. I find it bewildering that
the Democrats allowed this holiday to be celebrated, and I can't help
but wonder if this is actually the beginning of a social war by the
blacks against their white masters.
Sources:
- North Korea's food situation is 'tense,' Kim Jong Un says (CNBC, 17-Jun-2021)
- Citizens Anxious as Food Prices Fluctuate in North Korea (RFA, 14-Jun-2021)
- Hungry North Korean Construction Workers in Pyongyang Rob and Murder Citizens to Buy Food (RFA, 12-May-2021)
- Some of North Korea’s state-run food stores are selling processed foods in addition to rice and corn (Daily NK, 17-Jun-2021)
- Kim Jong-un admits North Korea facing a 'tense' food shortage (BBC, 17-Jun-2021)
- North Korea food crisis: A kg of bananas at Rs 3,336, Black Tea at Rs 5,167; Kim Jong-un calls situation 'tense' (CNBC-India, 19-Jun-2021)
- North Korean leader swears to overcome economic hardships (AP, 18-Jun-2021)
- Bad News: North Korea Is Suffering from Rapidly Rising Food Prices (National Interest, 18-Jun-2021)
- Special North Korean Military Investigation Reveals Combat Reserve Supply Shortages (RFA, 18-Jun-2021)
- (LEAD) N.K. leader vows to overcome difficulties as he concludes key party meeting: state media (Yonhap, Seoul, 19-Jun-2021)
- 5 wounded in Chicago shooting hours after mass shooting kills 4 (NBC News, 16-Jun-2021)
- A new celebration: Juneteenth comes to Stone Mountain (ReporterNewspapers, 7-Jun-2021)
- 1921 Tulsa Massacre / The Attack on Greenwood (Tulsa History)
Sources:
- North Korea's ballistic missiles stoke the Denuclearization Delusion (28-Mar-2021)
- US envoy visits S. Korea to prepare for North Korea 12/31 threat (15-Dec-2019)
- North Korea plays hardball to get sanctions lifted (12-Nov-2018)
- China, Russia demand that that some North Korea sanctions be lifted (29-Sep-2018)
- NY Times publishes a generational analysis of South Korea (30-Jan-2018)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, Kim Jong-un,
Wuhan Coronavirus, Covid-19, Donald Trump, Joe Biden,
Juneteenth, Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation,
Ku Klux Klan, KKK, Robert Byrd, Maxine Waters,
Lori Lightfoot, Chicago
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
