Heritage Foundation hosts panel of experts to explore US food aid

The Heritage Foundation is hosting a panel of experts to explore whether the US should provide Food Aid to North Korea. Official notice below:

North Korea has again appealed for food aid to alleviate the suffering of its people. Teams from the World Food Program and non-government organizations have chronicled the country’s abysmal nutritional deficits, particularly for children and the elderly. Pyongyang told visiting inspection teams that it is now willing to accept strict monitoring requirements to prevent further diversion of food aid to its military, but doubts remain.

North Korea: Hungering for Human Rights

Dr. Robert R. King

In honour of North Korea Freedom Week, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research hosted an expert panel on Wednesday, 27 April 2011, to discuss human rights in North Korea. The panel discussion included Ambassador Robert R. King, the Obama administration’s special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, who made a presentation on recent events in the DPRK, especially how these impact the US response to the request by DPRK authorities for food assistance.

The panel was moderated by Nicholas Eberstadt, a Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Other panelists were: Ken Isaacs, VP for Programs at the humanitarian agency Samaritan’s Purse; Robert M. Collins, retired political analyst with the Strategic Studies Institute of the United States Army War College; and Chuck Downs, Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

A video of this event can be viewed here.

The endurance of Korea’s endless stand-off

The imminent collapse of the DPRK regime has been predicted numerous times in the past 60 years, and repeatedly after the death of “great leader” Kim Il Sung in 1994. As far back as 1990, Nicholas Eberstadt wrote an op-ed entitled “The Coming Collapse of North Korea”, followed by a 1999 book entitled “The End of North Korea”, and an essay in December 2004 where he explains why his predictions had not yet come true. See “The Persistence of North Korea”.

Following Kim Jong Il’s stroke in the summer of 2008, the failures of various economic schemes, the UNSC-authorized sanctions and most recently the Cheonan incident, the question surrounding the imminent collapse of the North Korean regime hangs in the air again. Charles J. Hanley of the Associated Press gathers the opinions of a number of experts as to the endurance of Korea’s endless standoff. Read his article here.