North Korean Famine Research Paper

However, due to poor soil and lots of floods, farming is a hard job to do in North Korea and because of this fact, many of the nation’s people live in poverty because of the focus on having a lot of agricultural workers, but the Kim family continues to maintain their power but Kim Jong Un maintains his power differently than his grandfather and that is why he is able to keep his power.

North Korea’s economy is very different then the United States’ economy. Even though one dollar in American money doesn’t seem much to us Americans, it is worth nine-hundred dollars in their currency. North Korea’s main sources of income are military products, machine building, electrical power, chemicals, mining, metallurgy, textiles, food processing and tourism. North Korea’s overall condition of the economy is not good.

North Korea is a country that is ruled by a dictator and has a communist government. A communist government rules all the land and gives the same amount of money and supplies to all the people in the country. “Daily Necessities were obtained from the Public Distribution System (PDS)” (95,Hassig). The PDS shut down in 1995 because foreign aid was cut off expect for Pyongyang, the capital city. In rural areas, a lot of the children were born as “no-count” meaning that when they were born they weren’t counted as part of the existing society and didn’t have supplies given to them. North Korea was once a unified country with South Korea until September 9, 1948 when it became a separate country. From 1910 to 1945 Japan had ruled

In North Korea, the government strictly controls the economy. The economy is driven by its major natural resources, agricultural, and industrial products. Natural resources, such as minerals, graphite, and coal, are found, but not abundantly. Agricultural products that are production are grains, rice, and beans. Industrial products include weapons and steel. North Korea has little

The North Korean single payer system works when the majority of citizens are healthy, and can pay enough to outweigh the cost of the ill. This however, changed in 1995 during the great famine. A period of severe flooding and droughts caused the agricultural system to buckle. Food production became very limited, and a great famine plagued the nation for several years. A joint report by the European Union, United Nations Children’s Fund, and World Food Program conducted a survey in 1998 and found that “15.6 percent of children in North Korea were acutely malnourished, and 62.3 percent were stunted, a sign of chronic malnutrition.” (Shin, S. S., & Choi, R. Y., 2013). An estimated 600,000 and 2,500,000 people died as a result of the famine in the 1990s. (Owen-Davies, J., 2001) During this time the healthcare system was in complete disarray. Numerous more citizens were ill and

North Koreas government uses its power to control information and restrict independent thought and freedom. The BBC News mentions, “North Koreas economic hardships or famines are not reported to the domestic audience” (North Korea’s Tightly Controlled Media). This shows how the government in North Korea uses their power to keep the inhabitants of the country blind to issues that would cause worry amongst them. The BBC News author later on mentions that rather than inform its citizens on real life issues occurring, they are informed of technological advances developed by their leaders’ revolutionary thinking. By doing this the North Korean government keeps the people blind and ignorant to complicated

The leading cause of this famine was pure economic mismanagement. This is because North Korea has long valued and prioritized the funding of their army and nuclear program, even over the well-being of their own citizens. During the famine nearly 10% of the children in the entire country died, and around 2.5% of infants died. What may even be worse is that North Korea’s Public Security Ministry exaggerated death statistics to secure additional food aid. Such unethical behavior by a government organization is unacceptable.

The government controls what social media can say, write, and show. The citizens are not allowed to leave North Korea. Patrols are constantly monitoring the borders, so escape is nearly impossible. Hunger is a constant issue, since the nation’s leaders refuse to acknowledge this problem by requesting aid from other countries. Juche, a political belief that is responsible for most of North Korea’s decisions, posits that the dependence on any other nation must be avoided and is the lowest form of weakness (Lawrence).

North Korea has been receiving financial support from the United Nations as well as food supplies. Many people would claim that North Korea has an ongoing famine due to the floods they would continuously experience throughout the years, damaging the soil. Others would argue and say that the famine happened because North Korea is a communist country and the military is purposefully starving their people. Regardless of these arguments, the fact still remains, the people of North Korea are dying rapidly due to malnutrition. The only solution feasible to this problem would be to send agricultural scientists over to North Korea and help restore the damaged soil, so that it may grow healthy crops once again.

Estimates made by the world food program of the United Nations claimed that 6 million out of the total population of 25 million North Koreans are malnourished and face hunger. The resulting consequences are horrific. Witnesses from different areas in the country have reported acts of cannibalism.

Famine is the one of the biggest problems in the world. More than 800 million people are suffering from hunger. The people of North Korea suffer from hunger on the level of the notorious Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia famines. They just suffer in silence behind the world media. There are several facts about the North Korea famine. One of the main factors for the North Korea famine is political problems: The North Korean government ignores s people’s everyday lives and only does things for preparing war. Moreover, the North Korean government, North Korea dose not like allow relief agencies to personally deliver the grain

Environmental problems - climate disruption and global famine - is another bad consequence of utilization of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are not just powerful enough to destroy human beings, they are also potent enough to terminate the Earth. To confirm this, the article “Nuclear Famine” states that a regional nuclear war with 100 Hiroshima-sized weapons involved would devastate the global climate and agricultural production, which may push two billion people’s lives in danger. (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 2013) Also, Michael J. Mills, Owen B. Toon, Julia Lee- Taylor, and Alan Robock acknowledge another evidence to confirm this. A war with 100 nuclear weapons may increase UV radiation by 80 percent because

Back in Washington, President Clinton’s administration concluded that North Korea was reviving their nuclear missile program and demanded access to the suspected facilities being built. Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, granted access to multiple locations to U.S. officials for inspection of facilities in exchange for financial aid and food (Hathaway & Tama 724). North Korea’s negotiation for aid from the U.S. does not come as a surprise for the simple fact that citizens living under the supreme leadership of Kim Jong-un live in absolute poverty. Although the state-run government experiences hardship by trying to provide an adequate supply of food for citizens; the government spends a huge sum of money to maintain a large military force.

Certain scholars believe that poor decision making had driven North Korea to have suffered more than what they should have pertaining to the famine situation. North Korea is held responsible for the famine situation due to their failure on enforcing the right actions to dampen the damages by the natural forces. The deliberated policy decisions on the refusal to undertake remedial action has made certain parts of the famine to have been more severe than it should be.

This has to be taken in the context of the considerable global recession that has been in play since 2008, the results from which North Korea was largely shielded due to its insularity. In general terms, the North Korean economy is still far poorer than most other Asian nations.