[KS] FRANK_NK food aid

[Ruediger Frank]

Dear all,
I take the liberty to forward this link to a short opinion piece I wrote on the matter of food aid to North Korea:
http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110706000882
This is part of a series of contributions. A very interesting recent debate on the same topic can be found at Cankor:
http://vtncankor.wordpress.com/category/human-factor/food-aid/
As you see, opinions differ. In fact, the issue is tricky: help starving people at the price of propping up the regime? Bring down the regime at the price of massive famine deaths? In the end, it is a political decision. But it is one that affects human lifes, so that we as scholars and opinion-leaders have a huge responsibility here. The latest decision by the European Commission to resume food aid (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/world/asia/04union.html?_r=1) is a hopeful sign from my perspective. Not everybody looks at it that way, though.
I am grateful for any comments, including critical ones. 
All the best,
Rudiger

PS: As this list started out as an AKSE forum: At the membership meeting of the Association for Korean Studies in Europe in Moscow on June 19th, I have been elected as AKSE Secretary and given the task to organize the next AKSE conference in 2013 in Vienna. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.akse.uni-kiel.de/ which will be updated shortly. I will send out a message through this list as soon as the CFP is ready.

-- 
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Rudiger Frank
Chair of East Asian Economy and Society
Secretary, Association for Korean Studies in Europe
Deputy Head, Department of East Asian Studies
University of Vienna
Department of East Asian Studies
Spitalgasse 2 Hof 2.3
1090 Vienna
- Austria -

phone:  +43-1-4277 43871
fax:    +43-1-4277 43849
institutional website:   http://wirtschaft.ostasien.univie.ac.at
email: ruediger.frank at univie.ac.at
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