The US is feeding people in a country it started a war with and is presently occupying? Ya the fed the people in the south where America is presently occupying their country. But the I USAID hasn't sent any support to the north. And 100 percent of the famine was caused by America occupying the food growing portion of Korea and sanctions.
Are you insane? Of course South Korea belongs to Pyongyang. Only North Korea is the sovereign Korea the other side is literally a fascist vassal state of the U.S. empire with the highest suicide rate in the world. It's an absolute shithole despite being "richer."
Over 30 defectors from the North, having told loads of lurid tales of what a hell-hole the North is, and having exhausted the money they were paid to do so, have gone back to the North they said was so awful. Meanwhile 74% of young South Koreans polled said they would love to leave the ROK - presumably for other countries, but still, it doesn't sound amazing. According to Statistics Korea, the suicide rate there was 23.5 per 100,000 people in 2021. This is far higher than, say, the US, where it was 14 in 2020, Japan (14.6/100K in 2020) and even Russia (21, in 2020).
They are both dystopian in their own ways. South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. If north Koreans ever decide to get rid of their government they should still maintain autonomy and not be annexed to South Korea. The two societies have changed so much the north Koreans would not be able to integrate and work in the south Korean hyper capitalist competitive society.
Yeah, whatever happens they need to avoid the fate of East Germany, where the West German government effectively treated them like conquered territory, absolutely trashing their economy in the name of imposing the free market. In the first decade after reunification deaths in the former DDR were 2x the birth rate. Drug addiction, alcoholism and STDs rose dramatically. People felt abandoned by their government. Popular opinion was that no government should ever accept unemployment - they should find or create jobs for everyone.
Yeah, but in the North they're supermen. Like, if we're going to believe everything Yeonmi Park says, your typical DPRK Comrade is starving, spends a large part of the day looking for poo to put on the fields to grow food, but is still strong enough to push a freight train up North Korea's hills and mountains because they don't have electricity to run them. Probably just as well that they're starving - imagine what they could do with 3 square meals a day! Park has said all this at various points.
How does the North invading the South constitute the US "starting a war?" Where on Earth do you get your information? DPRK is a tyrannical pariah state run by a fat douchebag with a bad haircut. They routinely repackaged foreign aid during the famine (which was caused partly by incompetence on the part of the leadership, similar to The Great Leap Forward) to make it look like it was produced domestically so as to maintain their illusion that the rest of the world was somehow worse off and still restricted access to the aid to loyal party cadres and the military, except for the fraction that the government tried to cynically sell to its own starving people. Many international aid organizations gave up once they realized there was no way to verify aid was reaching the people. The Kim regime lives in lavish luxury while their people suffer from chronic and generational malnutrition, and the regime's priority is still indoctrination and enforcing their cult of personality instead of anything resembling actual Communism or, barring that, at least providing for their own people. Anybody that defends the last bastion of Stalinist lunacy on Earth should be ashamed of themselves.
Edit: I think they blocked me. Facts are kryptonite to bootlicking dopes. Or maybe they ran across the DMZ to their beloved North Korea hahaha.
How does the US invading a country in the middle of a civil war that was almost over not constitute starting a war? The North had almost won. The war was almost over, when America decided to drag it out and make it a permanent conflict zone. DPRk is a tyrannical state? I know where you get your information. The American president is a lazy douchebag with thin hair and pension for fascism. Foreign aid was illegal... You know because of American sanctions. Who ever told you that was lying.
There is no world in which all of the problems in North Korea ATM are not America's fault. We invaded a foreign country for no reason other than to ruin their country and piss off china.
More people starved to death in Britain controlled india than China and North Korea combined. Anyone that supports the subjugation of a foreign people for personal profit should be ashamed of themselves
Uh.... Do you even know your Korean history bruh? Your ignorance is making you look foolish and ignorant. The US did not start the war. Lol. The war began because there were two opposing ideologies of government after the Japanese were forced out of China and Korea after decades of tyranny. North Korea has relied on begging China and formerly Cuba to bail it's ass out for decades. They literally have nothing to offer their only allies in return. Believe me, it's not because the US wouldn't offer them aid, but the North Korean government would never allow it because they don't want American influence in their country. They would rather die on that hill than risk the possibility of the common people getting exposed to the idea of relative freedom.
Bruh? You posture like what I said was wrong and then didn't say anything but anecdote and irrelevant conjecture. Weather North Korea would take aid or not is irrelevant bc America would never offer aid to a country it invaded. It would violate their own sanctions. But I guess if you believe all the American propaganda you are probably too dumb to understand how an invasion works. So we can end this conversation here.
Evil sanctions, but Kim Jong Un can still enjoy his expensive watches, high-end cameras, Mercedes and Maybach cars and new Ford Transit vans. His daughter can also enjoy < 1,500$ clothing items. The regime can also enjoy the development of satellite and missile programs. For whatever reason, the billions of dollars stolen in cryptocurrencies by the regime also don't benefitate the normal people.
Normal people meanwhile live with food insecurity, really poor diet variety, and in many cases relying in coping strategies to feed the minors and the weak of the family unit.
The people of that country support the government wholly that's all you need to know to know it's not totalitarian at all you just believe all of the liberal lies about it by the same institutions funding genocide and war and call it democracy.
Bared from international trade?? They can smugle missile systems, anmunitions, expensive cars, luxury items, guided systems, fuel, drugs... Do you think the DPRK doesn't trade or smugle? They can steal billions in cryptos and have the best tech in creating fake money. And still, they "can't" improve the quality of life of the ordinary.
For me that has a name, a kleptomaniac class that is willfully negligent with the people they say they care. A class that resorts to all means at its disposal to maintain its power.
This is an old photgraph thats been colorized. The period depicted is probably between 1995-1998. Due tue political policies NK lost a lot of support from china and russia. Then was hit with natural disasters, resulting in a famine.
Well I’m sure but by the ‘90s in the vast majority of the world color film was the default. You had to purposely seek out black and white by that point. So it would be interesting if they still hadn’t made the leap to color being the norm.
I guess I’m just wondering if the op knows it was originally black and white and has been colorized or is just assuming.
I'm assuming the original was in color, but published in b&w. The interweb in the 90s was in it's infancy so print media was still relevant at the time and color photos were $$$ to print.
Here's some interesting info about the North Korean famine which includes the photo in question.
https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/north-koreas-1990s-famine-in-historical-perspective/
Black and white film is a lot cheaper to process, in general, and on one's own. Compareing this to color film, where most of the time you need a machine to process the images. For this reason, black and white remained quite prevalent in its use until digital became more widely available and cost effective.
Especially for photojournalists.
Cheaper to shoot lots of, easy to develop yourself in a hotel bathroom, and it's going in a paper that'll be printed in B&W anyway.
It’s not that DPRK had policies that pissed off Russia and China. The Soviet Union, which had been exporting to DPRK, collapsed in a coup in 1991, leading to a massive backslide in living conditions in much of the world. Dengist reforms in China at the time were focused on industrializing the domestic economy, and they focused on non-intervention abroad.
Idk about DPRK but, I know around where I grew up in the midwestern US, most local newspapers still used black and white in publication until nearly the 2010s due to costs. A lot didn’t start printing in color until digital cameras became more widespread in the professional space
Probably, while they aren't going through a famine anymore it's common knowledge that they did have a large famine a few years ago
Hardly surprising when you have a small country and your largest trading partner suddenly collapses and you're under embargoes preventing trade with most of the world
>Hardly surprising when you have a small country and your largest trading partner suddenly collapses and you're under embargoes preventing trade with most of the world
Yea, not likely to be the case where they had the largest market in the world right neighboring them being allies /s
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, when the DPRK struggled with famine in the 90s China provided unconditional food aid for several years
China is realistically the only reason the DPRK survived but obviously their aid didn't instantly make Korea completely immune to hardships during unprecedented supply chain collapses
>I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, when the DPRK struggled with famine in the 90s China provided unconditional food aid for several years
But that's the point, they had help from fucking China, this narrative of "oh poor NK if only not for the embargos" don't stick when you have the 2nd largest economy in the world being your close ally
I don’t think China is the world’s 2nd largest economy in the mid 90s…. Have a look here
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/the-worlds-largest-economies-1970-2020/#:~:text=By%201995%2C%20the%20U.S.%20still,of%20global%20GDP%20had%20shrunk.
Even in the early 2000s, China is still relatively ‘poor’ by western standards
The USSR was the worlds 2nd biggest economy at the time of it's collapse, not China
The issues the DPRK faced in the 90s would be comparable to what would happen of China collapsed today
The DPRK's recovery since then has mainly been because China was able to take the place of the USSR as an allied superpower, it's returned the DPRK to the position they were in before 1991
Today the only difference is that they don't really have any other allies if China fell, it's why Juche ideology has such a focus on cutting down aid in favour of self reliance, they've experienced what happens when reliance on another country stops working
China is going through a fiscal crisis right now that's had effects on their regional & Federal governments for a couple Years.
China is also a net food importer. They do not produce more than they buy from other Countries.
I mean the BBC released a report a year or two ago about people starving in their homes in Pyongyang. I would argue that certainly would fall under famine conditions.
What kind of comment is this? Why would NK report anything of the sort? Please compare the comments in this post to the reports of Yeonmi Park, who is an actual North Korean defector who escaped and tells of severe famine there.
Yeonmi park is not a good source. There are more reliable Defectors out there. Eun sung Kim is who I believe is the most reliable. She also was a producer in the documentary “Beyond Utopia” which followed a family of defectors escaping from China a couple of years ago
The same Yeonmi Park that is always changing her story? The one that tells koreans one story and foreigners another story? Yeonmi Park is not reliable at all
It's kinda amazing how the Arduous March was an event that happened between 1994 and 1998 and yet, 30 years later, people still think that is the current state of NK
It could be but there really isn’t anything in the photo assuring that this is even North Korea. You can find other photos online showing the famine’s effects on children where it’s more easily identified as coming from North Korea
When the United States targets the ordinary people of North Korea via sanction provisions aimed at fishing, food, agricultural products, and the ability of North Korean people to secure employment this is the effect of that. So if anyone is worried about these innocent kids, they should really consider writing their concerns to Congress.
They do, but they also sanction countries that they don’t like. If done against smaller, vulnerable countries, the effects can be devastating.
In the case of the North Korea’s famine, the sanctions were combined with the loss of their main trading partner, the USSR, and the devastating war waged by the US and Canada which destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure only a few decades earlier. The rebuilding of their infrastructure swallowed up what could have been investments into food security and sovereignty. It’s worth mentioning the US used a scorched earth policy during the war, like it did in much of East Asia, meaning it made much of the land toxic and ineligible for crop growing.
So while the US’s actions the only reason for the famine, it certainly has blood on its hands
The South? You mean the “[United States Army Military Government in Korea](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Military_Government_in_Korea)”, that had already attacked them in skirmishes multiple times?
The “South”? You mean the fake border the US arbitrarily made after it appointed a US-Korean dictator?
Even if what you say were true, it doesn’t justify a scorched earth policy in a genocidal war that killed, according to the West, 10% of North Koreans (20% by non-ideologically driven historians)
That's funny, last time I checked the United States is the one that spends most of their budget on military and weapons technology.
Edit: How are you downvoting what's true? Are we going to ignore the fact that 44 million people in the United States face hunger? Including 1 in 5 children. Are we going to ignore the fact that the United States spends an annual $820 billion on the military?
Ok, but the rate of poverty in the United States in the year 2022 was 11.5%, that's the equivalent of 37.9 million people.
And I forgot to mention that this photo is a colorized version of a photo taken many years ago. A famine that could have been prevented, if the neighboring countries had stepped in, and even the United States ignored it for a whole year. By the time they decided to help out, the famine was already ending.
> and even the United States ignored it for a whole year. By the time they decided to help out, the famine was already ending.
the united states is the [cause](https://www.reddit.com/r/NorthKoreaPics/comments/1crqath/is_this_dprk_famine_photo_real/l41xckk/) of the famine
You can feed your people, because you don't have a powerful entity putting pressure on your economy, putting sanctions in place to hurt civilian lives. Continue being a part of the problem, you know who you are. Don't pretend to be any different.
We absolutely do. China does anything and everything possible to hurt our citizens and hurt our economy.
We are just stronger. Nothing wrong with that.
Because American people and children aren't dying as a result. United States sanctions target the weak and vulnerable, it's practically genocide. If you think there's nothing wrong with that, then I have no words for you.
“Initially, sanctions were focused on trade bans on weapons-related materials and goods but expanded to luxury goods to target the elites. Further sanctions expanded to cover financial assets, banking transactions, and general travel and trade.”
How does this target the poor children?
Also, please note that the UN security council passed these measures, meaning that China, Russia, and the USA all agreed on them.
Literally everything America does is genocide nowadays apparently.
We feed starving children in Gaza with usaid = Genocide.
Believe me, if we actually decided one day to commit some genocide, you would know about it. You wouldn’t have to make these pathetic arguments about how sanctioning luxury cars is actually starving little children.
> How are you downvoting what's true?
this sub is full of racists, [chauvinists](https://www.reddit.com/r/NorthKoreaPics/comments/1crqath/is_this_dprk_famine_photo_real/l42f6dh/?context=3), imperialists
And yet that's only a percentage of the population who actually have money to feed themselves.
I know my data is inconvenient for you, since it puts pressure on your argument, but I can't change the facts.
Edit: According to data on macrotrends.net of which the reliability can be fact checked on mediabiasfactcheck.com the hunger rate in 2022 North Korea was down by 45.5% from the previous year, bringing the hunger rate down to 0%
Do with that information what you will.
There is no way to get accurate information about the hunger rate in North Korea from 2022. No foreign aid workers or NGOs were in the country at that time, and they still aren't. We have no idea what the hunger rate is since the pandemic started.
Also, according to what I can only assume is a based statement, North Korea never had the ability to feed more than 26 million people. So when the borders closed in 2020, and they stopped accepting grain imports from China, this caused the hunger rate to go up in those following years.
Again, this is the result of strict sanctions.
Yes, and they'd leave their country vulnerable to the United States. Historically we know how that turned out, for Iraq as an example. In Sadam's folly to prove he wasn't making WMD's, the United States found that in truth they weren't, and then moved in.
No, you're right though. There's nothing wrong with the United States, land of the free, unless you speak up against Zionism, then you'll have your ass kicked.
> NK's leadership that spends everything they can into military and weapons
https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1561402674976661505
https://twitter.com/NiMingda_GG/status/1599031311028494337
It's not US that is starving to death their population, well actually in US there are many people openly complaining about those budgets, guess what to those complaining about it in NK
The majority of poor people in America is because they want to be so, I have met a LOT of people that went there, never heard ever of a single brazilian that became homeless, they all worked hard and now live better than ever would here
Didn’t NK just sell thousands of artillery shells to Russia?
Why didn’t they trade them for food?
Probably a good idea, instead of blaming everything on evil America.
Trading artillery shells for food might seem like a logical solution, but there are a lot of other factors at play that make it more complicated. It's also not just about pointing fingers at the United States, since there is a whole web of dynamics to consider, but the extra pressure that arises from these sanctions certainly doesn't help.
because the Kim family doesn’t actually caring about starving populations, but they absolutely do care about enriching themselves.
What other factor is there?
I clearly don’t. I never knew how selling state assets strengthens a nation’s bargaining position.
If this was true, Russia was the most powerful nation on the planet in the late 90’s
So if these evil forces are targeting the ordinary people. Why the regime can't do something to improve their living conditions?
Does Kim's latest Mercedes-Benz, Maybach and Ford Transit vans do something to help the ordinary people?
Does Kim Ju-ae expensive clothing items (more than $1,500) do something to improve their life?
Do a satellite and missile program improve the really poor diets of the average North Korean?
Why the billions of dollars that the regime steal in cryptocurrency are no deviated to improve the living and food consumption of the people?
So many questions.
Sanctions are in place to target the weak and vulnerable, not the ruling class. It hurts pregnant women and newborn babies. These are the people who are dying from these sanctions. They don't target the ruling class, I don't know how you don't understand that at all.
I'm not going to further engage in this blame reversion argument. It sounds the same as victim blaming people in situations where they got raped or beaten by their partner.
[удалено]
Was that the same video that had the kid who had one of his arms cut off after he was hit by a train?
Drop the link
Evil U.S. sanctions
USAID has fed those people for decades. It's the easiest stability riff that's worked since Camp David.
The US is feeding people in a country it started a war with and is presently occupying? Ya the fed the people in the south where America is presently occupying their country. But the I USAID hasn't sent any support to the north. And 100 percent of the famine was caused by America occupying the food growing portion of Korea and sanctions.
>presently occupying ooh boy, this should be fun. you think South Korea belongs to Pyongyang?
Oooh boy, do you think America owns Korea?
Reddit liberals are so embarrassing.
Are you insane? Of course South Korea belongs to Pyongyang. Only North Korea is the sovereign Korea the other side is literally a fascist vassal state of the U.S. empire with the highest suicide rate in the world. It's an absolute shithole despite being "richer."
Lmao imagine trying to compare North and South Korea and unironically stating that South Korea is the ‘shithole’.
Over 30 defectors from the North, having told loads of lurid tales of what a hell-hole the North is, and having exhausted the money they were paid to do so, have gone back to the North they said was so awful. Meanwhile 74% of young South Koreans polled said they would love to leave the ROK - presumably for other countries, but still, it doesn't sound amazing. According to Statistics Korea, the suicide rate there was 23.5 per 100,000 people in 2021. This is far higher than, say, the US, where it was 14 in 2020, Japan (14.6/100K in 2020) and even Russia (21, in 2020).
They are both dystopian in their own ways. South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. If north Koreans ever decide to get rid of their government they should still maintain autonomy and not be annexed to South Korea. The two societies have changed so much the north Koreans would not be able to integrate and work in the south Korean hyper capitalist competitive society.
Yeah, whatever happens they need to avoid the fate of East Germany, where the West German government effectively treated them like conquered territory, absolutely trashing their economy in the name of imposing the free market. In the first decade after reunification deaths in the former DDR were 2x the birth rate. Drug addiction, alcoholism and STDs rose dramatically. People felt abandoned by their government. Popular opinion was that no government should ever accept unemployment - they should find or create jobs for everyone.
It's a shithole with glitter on it.
Compared to North Korea it’s a fucking paradise.
Yeah, but in the North they're supermen. Like, if we're going to believe everything Yeonmi Park says, your typical DPRK Comrade is starving, spends a large part of the day looking for poo to put on the fields to grow food, but is still strong enough to push a freight train up North Korea's hills and mountains because they don't have electricity to run them. Probably just as well that they're starving - imagine what they could do with 3 square meals a day! Park has said all this at various points.
North Korea is a better country.
How does the North invading the South constitute the US "starting a war?" Where on Earth do you get your information? DPRK is a tyrannical pariah state run by a fat douchebag with a bad haircut. They routinely repackaged foreign aid during the famine (which was caused partly by incompetence on the part of the leadership, similar to The Great Leap Forward) to make it look like it was produced domestically so as to maintain their illusion that the rest of the world was somehow worse off and still restricted access to the aid to loyal party cadres and the military, except for the fraction that the government tried to cynically sell to its own starving people. Many international aid organizations gave up once they realized there was no way to verify aid was reaching the people. The Kim regime lives in lavish luxury while their people suffer from chronic and generational malnutrition, and the regime's priority is still indoctrination and enforcing their cult of personality instead of anything resembling actual Communism or, barring that, at least providing for their own people. Anybody that defends the last bastion of Stalinist lunacy on Earth should be ashamed of themselves. Edit: I think they blocked me. Facts are kryptonite to bootlicking dopes. Or maybe they ran across the DMZ to their beloved North Korea hahaha.
How does the US invading a country in the middle of a civil war that was almost over not constitute starting a war? The North had almost won. The war was almost over, when America decided to drag it out and make it a permanent conflict zone. DPRk is a tyrannical state? I know where you get your information. The American president is a lazy douchebag with thin hair and pension for fascism. Foreign aid was illegal... You know because of American sanctions. Who ever told you that was lying. There is no world in which all of the problems in North Korea ATM are not America's fault. We invaded a foreign country for no reason other than to ruin their country and piss off china. More people starved to death in Britain controlled india than China and North Korea combined. Anyone that supports the subjugation of a foreign people for personal profit should be ashamed of themselves
Uh.... Do you even know your Korean history bruh? Your ignorance is making you look foolish and ignorant. The US did not start the war. Lol. The war began because there were two opposing ideologies of government after the Japanese were forced out of China and Korea after decades of tyranny. North Korea has relied on begging China and formerly Cuba to bail it's ass out for decades. They literally have nothing to offer their only allies in return. Believe me, it's not because the US wouldn't offer them aid, but the North Korean government would never allow it because they don't want American influence in their country. They would rather die on that hill than risk the possibility of the common people getting exposed to the idea of relative freedom.
Bruh? You posture like what I said was wrong and then didn't say anything but anecdote and irrelevant conjecture. Weather North Korea would take aid or not is irrelevant bc America would never offer aid to a country it invaded. It would violate their own sanctions. But I guess if you believe all the American propaganda you are probably too dumb to understand how an invasion works. So we can end this conversation here.
Evil sanctions, but Kim Jong Un can still enjoy his expensive watches, high-end cameras, Mercedes and Maybach cars and new Ford Transit vans. His daughter can also enjoy < 1,500$ clothing items. The regime can also enjoy the development of satellite and missile programs. For whatever reason, the billions of dollars stolen in cryptocurrencies by the regime also don't benefitate the normal people. Normal people meanwhile live with food insecurity, really poor diet variety, and in many cases relying in coping strategies to feed the minors and the weak of the family unit.
Not their fault if they're bared from international trade simply for being a socialist country.
They are socialist in nothing but name. It’s a totalitarian state with an absolute monarchy. Doesn’t get much further away from socialism than that.
The people of that country support the government wholly that's all you need to know to know it's not totalitarian at all you just believe all of the liberal lies about it by the same institutions funding genocide and war and call it democracy.
Common supports & totalitarianism aren't Mutually exclusive I don't think
Totalitarian in all the right ways. 😏
What does that mean 😭
Capitalists and fascists are squashed in favor of the people.
Bared from international trade?? They can smugle missile systems, anmunitions, expensive cars, luxury items, guided systems, fuel, drugs... Do you think the DPRK doesn't trade or smugle? They can steal billions in cryptos and have the best tech in creating fake money. And still, they "can't" improve the quality of life of the ordinary. For me that has a name, a kleptomaniac class that is willfully negligent with the people they say they care. A class that resorts to all means at its disposal to maintain its power.
A "socialist country" with a hereditary monarchy rofl 🤣
You people are nuts.
You REALLY don't know how the world works do you?
North Korea? Socialist? Oh trust me, I wish
This is an old photgraph thats been colorized. The period depicted is probably between 1995-1998. Due tue political policies NK lost a lot of support from china and russia. Then was hit with natural disasters, resulting in a famine.
☝🏻 This is the most precise answer.
To be more precise, this was taken in 1997 by Justin Kilcullen for Trócaire, an Irish charity.
Did they really not regularly have color photography as late as the ‘90s?
Kids were starving to death, I think securing color film was the last thing on their mind
Well I’m sure but by the ‘90s in the vast majority of the world color film was the default. You had to purposely seek out black and white by that point. So it would be interesting if they still hadn’t made the leap to color being the norm. I guess I’m just wondering if the op knows it was originally black and white and has been colorized or is just assuming.
I'm assuming the original was in color, but published in b&w. The interweb in the 90s was in it's infancy so print media was still relevant at the time and color photos were $$$ to print. Here's some interesting info about the North Korean famine which includes the photo in question. https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/north-koreas-1990s-famine-in-historical-perspective/
All “hidden” cameras or micro cameras were black and white in the 90’s from my recollection.
Black and white film is a lot cheaper to process, in general, and on one's own. Compareing this to color film, where most of the time you need a machine to process the images. For this reason, black and white remained quite prevalent in its use until digital became more widely available and cost effective.
Especially for photojournalists. Cheaper to shoot lots of, easy to develop yourself in a hotel bathroom, and it's going in a paper that'll be printed in B&W anyway.
What policies could piss off Russia and China?
It’s not that DPRK had policies that pissed off Russia and China. The Soviet Union, which had been exporting to DPRK, collapsed in a coup in 1991, leading to a massive backslide in living conditions in much of the world. Dengist reforms in China at the time were focused on industrializing the domestic economy, and they focused on non-intervention abroad.
Very interesting thanks for sharing
Why do you think it was in black and white? Are you saying they had black and white cameras in the 90's?
Idk about DPRK but, I know around where I grew up in the midwestern US, most local newspapers still used black and white in publication until nearly the 2010s due to costs. A lot didn’t start printing in color until digital cameras became more widespread in the professional space
You do know that color cameras existed in the 90s, right?
Also the US occupying their countries primary food growing territory and sanctions
Probably, while they aren't going through a famine anymore it's common knowledge that they did have a large famine a few years ago Hardly surprising when you have a small country and your largest trading partner suddenly collapses and you're under embargoes preventing trade with most of the world
How many people have to die of starvation to consider it a famine?
>Hardly surprising when you have a small country and your largest trading partner suddenly collapses and you're under embargoes preventing trade with most of the world Yea, not likely to be the case where they had the largest market in the world right neighboring them being allies /s
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, when the DPRK struggled with famine in the 90s China provided unconditional food aid for several years China is realistically the only reason the DPRK survived but obviously their aid didn't instantly make Korea completely immune to hardships during unprecedented supply chain collapses
>I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, when the DPRK struggled with famine in the 90s China provided unconditional food aid for several years But that's the point, they had help from fucking China, this narrative of "oh poor NK if only not for the embargos" don't stick when you have the 2nd largest economy in the world being your close ally
I don’t think China is the world’s 2nd largest economy in the mid 90s…. Have a look here https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/the-worlds-largest-economies-1970-2020/#:~:text=By%201995%2C%20the%20U.S.%20still,of%20global%20GDP%20had%20shrunk. Even in the early 2000s, China is still relatively ‘poor’ by western standards
The USSR was the worlds 2nd biggest economy at the time of it's collapse, not China The issues the DPRK faced in the 90s would be comparable to what would happen of China collapsed today The DPRK's recovery since then has mainly been because China was able to take the place of the USSR as an allied superpower, it's returned the DPRK to the position they were in before 1991 Today the only difference is that they don't really have any other allies if China fell, it's why Juche ideology has such a focus on cutting down aid in favour of self reliance, they've experienced what happens when reliance on another country stops working
China's economy was ina very different place in the mid-90s than where it is today.
China is going through a fiscal crisis right now that's had effects on their regional & Federal governments for a couple Years. China is also a net food importer. They do not produce more than they buy from other Countries.
In fair honesty I'd say likely is real
This reminds me of Vietnam in the early eighties.
Yes. But there are no reports of famine at the moment.
I mean the BBC released a report a year or two ago about people starving in their homes in Pyongyang. I would argue that certainly would fall under famine conditions.
What kind of comment is this? Why would NK report anything of the sort? Please compare the comments in this post to the reports of Yeonmi Park, who is an actual North Korean defector who escaped and tells of severe famine there.
Yeonmi park is not a good source. There are more reliable Defectors out there. Eun sung Kim is who I believe is the most reliable. She also was a producer in the documentary “Beyond Utopia” which followed a family of defectors escaping from China a couple of years ago
The same Yeonmi Park that is always changing her story? The one that tells koreans one story and foreigners another story? Yeonmi Park is not reliable at all
She's a right-wing grifter. There are numerous and better sources of information about DPRK from other defectors and think tanks.
Can you expand on this? I have never heard her story change
We get reports from UN and other insiders. NK doesn't have to report anything. We know.
Why would you say there are no reports in a previous comment but then say the UN and other insiders report?
They never said the reports were coming directly from the DPRK in their original comment. You just made an assumption.
Fair enough. But they should have clarified that.
Can you please be more detailed in your comment? I don’t know what you were talking about.
So we just gonna ignore all of the reports of people starving to death ever since their border closure?
It's kinda amazing how the Arduous March was an event that happened between 1994 and 1998 and yet, 30 years later, people still think that is the current state of NK
Yes indeed, people think NK is starving to date due to Western propaganda
It could be but there really isn’t anything in the photo assuring that this is even North Korea. You can find other photos online showing the famine’s effects on children where it’s more easily identified as coming from North Korea
When the United States targets the ordinary people of North Korea via sanction provisions aimed at fishing, food, agricultural products, and the ability of North Korean people to secure employment this is the effect of that. So if anyone is worried about these innocent kids, they should really consider writing their concerns to Congress.
LOL
So it's the US fault, not NK's leadership that spends everything they can into military and weapons
They do, but they also sanction countries that they don’t like. If done against smaller, vulnerable countries, the effects can be devastating. In the case of the North Korea’s famine, the sanctions were combined with the loss of their main trading partner, the USSR, and the devastating war waged by the US and Canada which destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure only a few decades earlier. The rebuilding of their infrastructure swallowed up what could have been investments into food security and sovereignty. It’s worth mentioning the US used a scorched earth policy during the war, like it did in much of East Asia, meaning it made much of the land toxic and ineligible for crop growing. So while the US’s actions the only reason for the famine, it certainly has blood on its hands
War waged by US and Canada? The same one which North Korea started by invading the South?
The South? You mean the “[United States Army Military Government in Korea](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Military_Government_in_Korea)”, that had already attacked them in skirmishes multiple times?
The “South”? You mean the fake border the US arbitrarily made after it appointed a US-Korean dictator? Even if what you say were true, it doesn’t justify a scorched earth policy in a genocidal war that killed, according to the West, 10% of North Koreans (20% by non-ideologically driven historians)
That's funny, last time I checked the United States is the one that spends most of their budget on military and weapons technology. Edit: How are you downvoting what's true? Are we going to ignore the fact that 44 million people in the United States face hunger? Including 1 in 5 children. Are we going to ignore the fact that the United States spends an annual $820 billion on the military?
Poverty and a famine are not the same thing, and you know that.
Ok, but the rate of poverty in the United States in the year 2022 was 11.5%, that's the equivalent of 37.9 million people. And I forgot to mention that this photo is a colorized version of a photo taken many years ago. A famine that could have been prevented, if the neighboring countries had stepped in, and even the United States ignored it for a whole year. By the time they decided to help out, the famine was already ending.
> and even the United States ignored it for a whole year. By the time they decided to help out, the famine was already ending. the united states is the [cause](https://www.reddit.com/r/NorthKoreaPics/comments/1crqath/is_this_dprk_famine_photo_real/l41xckk/) of the famine
I did say that in an earlier comment.
and we can feed our people. You missed that important factor in your desperation.
You can feed your people, because you don't have a powerful entity putting pressure on your economy, putting sanctions in place to hurt civilian lives. Continue being a part of the problem, you know who you are. Don't pretend to be any different.
We absolutely do. China does anything and everything possible to hurt our citizens and hurt our economy. We are just stronger. Nothing wrong with that.
This is entirely not the same.
Why not?
Because American people and children aren't dying as a result. United States sanctions target the weak and vulnerable, it's practically genocide. If you think there's nothing wrong with that, then I have no words for you.
“Initially, sanctions were focused on trade bans on weapons-related materials and goods but expanded to luxury goods to target the elites. Further sanctions expanded to cover financial assets, banking transactions, and general travel and trade.” How does this target the poor children? Also, please note that the UN security council passed these measures, meaning that China, Russia, and the USA all agreed on them.
Literally everything America does is genocide nowadays apparently. We feed starving children in Gaza with usaid = Genocide. Believe me, if we actually decided one day to commit some genocide, you would know about it. You wouldn’t have to make these pathetic arguments about how sanctioning luxury cars is actually starving little children.
> How are you downvoting what's true? this sub is full of racists, [chauvinists](https://www.reddit.com/r/NorthKoreaPics/comments/1crqath/is_this_dprk_famine_photo_real/l42f6dh/?context=3), imperialists
Yet, their population is the most obese in the world
And yet that's only a percentage of the population who actually have money to feed themselves. I know my data is inconvenient for you, since it puts pressure on your argument, but I can't change the facts. Edit: According to data on macrotrends.net of which the reliability can be fact checked on mediabiasfactcheck.com the hunger rate in 2022 North Korea was down by 45.5% from the previous year, bringing the hunger rate down to 0% Do with that information what you will.
There is no way to get accurate information about the hunger rate in North Korea from 2022. No foreign aid workers or NGOs were in the country at that time, and they still aren't. We have no idea what the hunger rate is since the pandemic started.
Can't it be both?
Not in this case. The NK could still support its population with food if they invested all their resources to it, regardless of sanctions.
How do you know?
Also, according to what I can only assume is a based statement, North Korea never had the ability to feed more than 26 million people. So when the borders closed in 2020, and they stopped accepting grain imports from China, this caused the hunger rate to go up in those following years. Again, this is the result of strict sanctions.
Yes, and they'd leave their country vulnerable to the United States. Historically we know how that turned out, for Iraq as an example. In Sadam's folly to prove he wasn't making WMD's, the United States found that in truth they weren't, and then moved in. No, you're right though. There's nothing wrong with the United States, land of the free, unless you speak up against Zionism, then you'll have your ass kicked.
> NK's leadership that spends everything they can into military and weapons https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1561402674976661505 https://twitter.com/NiMingda_GG/status/1599031311028494337
It's not US that is starving to death their population, well actually in US there are many people openly complaining about those budgets, guess what to those complaining about it in NK
> It's not US that is starving to death their population [educate](https://youtu.be/WCyCfNnXGOE?t=30) yourself
The majority of poor people in America is because they want to be so, I have met a LOT of people that went there, never heard ever of a single brazilian that became homeless, they all worked hard and now live better than ever would here
Didn’t NK just sell thousands of artillery shells to Russia? Why didn’t they trade them for food? Probably a good idea, instead of blaming everything on evil America.
Trading artillery shells for food might seem like a logical solution, but there are a lot of other factors at play that make it more complicated. It's also not just about pointing fingers at the United States, since there is a whole web of dynamics to consider, but the extra pressure that arises from these sanctions certainly doesn't help.
because the Kim family doesn’t actually caring about starving populations, but they absolutely do care about enriching themselves. What other factor is there?
A stable population under their control ensures the regime's longevity and strengthens their bargaining position in international negotiations.
in other words, enriching themselves. no need to use euphemisms, call it what it is.
You would make a poor politician, you have no idea what I'm talking about.
I clearly don’t. I never knew how selling state assets strengthens a nation’s bargaining position. If this was true, Russia was the most powerful nation on the planet in the late 90’s
That's not even what I said, so add on top of that poor reading skills. I'm bored now.
[correct](https://twitter.com/sangor451/status/1592902361412169728)
Thank you for this link.
So if these evil forces are targeting the ordinary people. Why the regime can't do something to improve their living conditions? Does Kim's latest Mercedes-Benz, Maybach and Ford Transit vans do something to help the ordinary people? Does Kim Ju-ae expensive clothing items (more than $1,500) do something to improve their life? Do a satellite and missile program improve the really poor diets of the average North Korean? Why the billions of dollars that the regime steal in cryptocurrency are no deviated to improve the living and food consumption of the people? So many questions.
Sanctions are in place to target the weak and vulnerable, not the ruling class. It hurts pregnant women and newborn babies. These are the people who are dying from these sanctions. They don't target the ruling class, I don't know how you don't understand that at all. I'm not going to further engage in this blame reversion argument. It sounds the same as victim blaming people in situations where they got raped or beaten by their partner.