Good Friends: Suspected Avian Flu Epidemic in North Korea

Here’s Good Friends Newsletter 143: good-friends-143.pdf

A lot of people are getting sick and dying in the northeast due to a mysterious illness. The North Koreans seem to think that they have an outbreak of avian flu on their hands. If that’s true, we can thank His Porcine Majesty for a global health crisis that governments worldwide have dreaded and braced for. Among the places where dead birds were found, and where one child died, is Camp 16.

Bird-flu Virus Emergency in North Hamgyung province
Break-out of Bird-flu in Jungpyung County, South Hamgyong Province
Hand”“Foot-Mouth Disease in Jangjin County, South Hamgyong
A Gun Fire on Dandong-Sinuiju Food Smuggling Ship
South Hwanghae, Can’t Celebrate the Founding Day of Boy Scouts
School President, “Can’t Hold Any Sports Games While Watching Neighbors Starve”
Thieves of Unripe Potatoes Increase
In Pyongsung, Armed Robbers Are At Large
In Shinyang County, Movement to Pick Herbs
“Since Reforms, Even Dogs Are Eating White Rice in China”
100~150 Thousand won For Taking Out One’s Child from Farming Mobilization
Forced Investigation on Suspicion of Trying To Cross the Border into South Korea
Arrest of Counterfeit Note Maker

There ought to be plenty of dark irony for us when the North Koreans decide on a fitting punishment for someone who was counterfeiting their currency.

Good Friends Newsletter 144 is here: good-friends-144.doc

To simply state that there was a U.N. “inspection” of food aid needs understates matters. Good Friends is really describing a pre-planned manipulation of that inspection, not unlike what we’ve seen in the Great Famine. I wonder if it was the hungry ones or the well-fed ones who were told to say indoors.

The newsletter also reports that there have been famine deaths in parts of Pyongyang. Industries and work projects with food stockpiles are being forced to release them, while those without are being idled. The newletter also carries more grisly reports of deaths from starvation and “grass poisoning” in South Hwanghae, where conditions are worst. Here’s Good Friends’s summary:

Widespread Food Shortage Halts Construction in Mirubul Plain, Goksan County
Baechun County, Considerable Increase in People Dying of Starvation
People Waiting to Starve to Death in Ryongyon county, South Hwanghae Province
Students Mobilized for Farming at Kangwon Province Fainted from Hunger
65% of the Residents in Seungho District of Pyongyang Survive on Porridge
Dukhyun Mine in Uiju County of North Pyongan Province Lost in Despair
Grass Porridge Poisoning Makes it Unable to Recognise Faces of the Deceased
Two People Found Dead under Ohbong Bridge in Hoeryong City
Eunduk County: “Grass Porridge Made Us Nearly Starved To Death”
Yanghwa-ri Farm, Shinpo Urgently Released 3 MT of Corn to Mobilize Farmers
2.8 Vinalon United Enterprise Urgently Released Rice
UN Food Organization Inspected North Pyongan Province
In Pyongyang, Some People Trade in the Alleyways
In Kangsuh County, Many Students Are Sleeping in their Classes
[Opinion] Urgent Call for Responses on the Famine in North Korea

Newletter 145 is here: good-friends-145.doc

The regime, now denying people their survival strategies of last resort, is threatening public execution for prostitution. Banditry is also said to be on the rise in North Hwanghae. It is also trying to close every avenue of physical, emotional, and spiritual escape: kids without a future who are turning to meth; anxious adults who are turning to Shamanistic superstitions; and fishermen who might turn their boats south.