Mick Hartley

A few links…

Further to my post on EU emergency food aid and luxury lifestyles, this from the LA Times:

The news reports detail such conspicuous consumption as imported top-shelf whiskey and designer brands such as Gucci, Armani and Rolex, not to mention Big Macs flown in daily from China.

As North Koreans are said to be facing debilitating food shortages, the government continues its shopping spree for the pampered elites of Pyongyang flouting international sanctions against the authoritarian regime, South Korean government officials say

North Korea's importing of luxury goods from China nearly doubled in the first five months of this year, compared with the same time period for 2010, according to a report by Beijing customs officials obtained by the South Korean Unification Ministry…..

Since reports of famine in the 1990s, North Korea has relied on global food aid to feed its population of 24 million. This year, the regime again requested food aid, citing reduced crop yields. Though the European Union plans to send $14.5 million in food aid, the United States and South Korea have been reticent to supply such aid.

Some scholars believe that North Korea has exaggerated its need for food, alleging that the aid is turned over to the military or stored for future use, such as a planned celebration next year to mark the anniversary of the regime.

"I do not believe these claims about mass starvation," said Andrei N. Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and the author of several books on North Korean history and politics.

He called the move by Pyongyang "a deliberate campaign to get free food, which will then be distributed to the privileged groups as government gifts. This will allow them to increase their legitimacy and win some popular support at the expense of the Western and South Korean taxpayers."

Andrei Lankov appears again, in the NYT, in a piece on the relentless, almost parodic invective from the official Korean Central News Agency, a rhetoric "of extreme and unflagging hyperbole":

Vitriolic oratory also is a staple of the North Korean education system, from grade school on,” said Sung-yoon Lee, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University near Boston. “The louder and more colorful your venom about the United States, the better a revolutionary and patriot you are.”

K.C.N.A.’s internal workings are still quite opaque, and many scholars said it was unclear whether the agency’s directors appreciate that their reports are sometimes laughable when rendered into English.

But the vitriol, according to Mr. Lankov, the historian, does serve a purpose by keeping the outside world wary and off-balance, especially the recurring threats of military strikes.

“Nobody takes it too seriously, but you can also awake to the sound of gunfire in the morning,” Mr. Lankov said. “It amplifies the message that North Korea wants to deliver — that the peninsula is unstable and on the brink of war.”

That uncertainty “sends investors packing” from South Korea, Mr. Lankov said. “And that’s exactly what the North Koreans want.”

And then there's this from the Onion. I think "heavy-handed" about sums it up, but if you're a fan…