经济学人下载:朝鲜的饥荒,让他们吃玉米皮

With murky data, and diplomats and foreign-aid staff restricted in where they may travel, not everyone agrees with the WFP’s assessment. Certainly, estimating North Korea’s food needs has long been a politicised business. A member of South Korea’s ruling Grand National Party, Yoon Sang-hyun, says that the North is hoarding 1m tonnes of rice, playing up a shortfall in order to get aid on the cheap. Some say Mr Kim wants the aid in order to announce a bumper harvest in 2012. That year is the 100th anniversary of North Korea’s founder, Mr Kim’s father, Kim Il Sung. Something approaching paradise has long been promised to North Koreans for 2012.

考虑到数据模糊不清，加之对外交官和外国援助人员可能访问之地加以限制，并非每个人都与世界粮食计划署的评估意见一致。当然，长期以来，评估朝鲜的粮食需求一直是带有严肃政治性的事情。韩国执政的大国家党成员尹尚铉（Yoon Sang-hyun）称，朝鲜囤积有100万吨大米，夸大短缺是为了廉价获取援助。一些人则认为，金正日需要这些援助，为的是好在2012年宣布丰收。2012年是朝鲜建立者金正日父亲金日成100周年诞辰。朝鲜一直承诺在2012年会出现一种接近天堂般的生活。

The South’s unification minister, Hyun In-taek, also suspects North Korea of exaggerating its troubles for political gain. Certainly, he says, starvation has begun to overshadow other topics that the South would rather discuss, namely denuclearisation and the North’s refusal to apologise for last year’s shelling of Yeonpyeong island and the presumed sinking in March 2010 of a naval corvette. This is apparently a view shared by Daily NK, an activist network and news source which says that the price of rice in the black market has actually fallen by around half in recent months.

韩国统一部部长玄在泽（Hyun In-taek）也怀疑朝鲜夸大困难为的是寻求政治利益。他说，毫无疑问，饥荒问题使韩国可能会讨论的其它议题黯然失色，这些议题即朝鲜的无核化以及朝鲜拒绝为去年向延坪岛发射炮弹及2010年3月韩国海军护卫舰沉没一事道歉等。显然这也是与Daily NK共有的一个观点。Daily NK是一个激进分子网络，是“大米在黑市的价格在近几月实际下降了一半左右”的新闻来源。

Others, such as Good Friends, a South Korean Buddhist charity long working in the North, insist the situation is very bad—and that tuberculosis is on the rise owing to malnutrition. Rimjingang, a magazine with reporters secretly stationed in North Korea, says that in North Pyongan province by the Chinese border even the army is going hungry.

其它如长期在朝鲜工作的佛教慈善团体“好朋友”（Good Friends）则认为，情况相当糟糕，并且由于营养不良，肺结核感染正在增加。有记者秘密驻扎在朝鲜的杂志《Rimjingang》称，在与中国交接的平安省，甚至军队也发生饥荒。