Following the many typhoons and very heavy rain in Eastern Asia, North Korea has lost at least 133 people and at least an additional 600,000 have been affected due to the terrible flooding. As North Korea is the poorest country in Asia, many charities have tried to raise money to help. Red Cross has been raising money to aid them, but say the international response has been disappointing. China has now committed to giving 20 million Yuan (one Yuan = 15 US cents, which adds up to about $3 million) as flood relief.
(This page has many articles on it. It's just the top couple paragraphs. :))
http://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/11/02/16/china-gives-20m-yuan-for-north-korea-flood-relief
This is a tough one. On the one hand, international aid can be a great thing to show North Koreans that we care in a situation like this. On the other hand, their government is probably hard to work with in distributing such aid and there's a point where it seems like maybe the best thing to do is let everything get as bad as possible there so that they'll start to change. It's kind of like whether to help an alcoholic or not--if you give them something, are you helping them survive long enough to make things better or are you enabling them to continue being an alcoholic when they might change if they hit rock bottom?
ReplyDeleteThat's true. You never know what the North Korean government would with money intended for humanitarian effort. Probably not use it for flood relief. Or if they do, they'd probably mainly use it in cities tourists come to.
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