Search Results for: typhoid

May 1, 2010

The Head of the World Health Organization Bears May Day Greetings from Pyongyang! (Update: No Signs of Obesity There!)

It could have been worse, I suppose, had I awakened this morning to the clatter of panzerkampfwagens rolling through the D.C. suburbs blaring the Horst Wessel Lied from loudspeakers. But if the prospect of the U.N. as Government of Earth horrifies you any less, get a load of what Margaret Chan, the head of the World Health Organization, holds up as the very model of a peachy health care system: UN health agency chief Margaret Chan said on Friday after...

Categories "United" Nations/Fiskings/Useful Idiocy
October 7, 2009

The Health Care Crisis (in North Korea)

Open Radio reports new outbreaks of diseases — including malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, and hepatitis — throughout North Korea, save Pyongyang. Meanwhile, in a country that somehow manages to to raise hard currency for the regime, ordinary people can’t afford basic pharmaceuticals like penicillin and aspirin. As a result, a black market has arisen to supply those basic needs. Unfortunately, the makers often add toxic impurities to the drugs. Sure, you say, just import them from Canada. Unfortunately, the Inner Party...

Categories Inside NK
January 26, 2008

Jane’s: N. Korean Regime Near Collapse

[Update: Digg it here] [Update 2: A reader points out that Reuben F. Johnson is the source of both the Weekly Standard and Jane’s stories. I admit that I’m not familiar with Johnson’s work, but when a story comes with specifics, it’s more persuasive than when it comes without.] Kim Jong-Il’s regime could collapse within six months, bringing chaos to North Korea, observers and intelligence sources in Asia have told Jane’s. [. . . .] I know, I know: saying...

Categories Uncategorized
December 10, 2007

Drug-Resistant TB Hits N. Korea

I’ve previously explained my conflicted feelings about the Eugene Bell Foundation, but I would rate their reporting about the spread of disease inside North Korea as fairly reliable. A friend (thank you) passed along an e-mail message/ press release meant to recruit support for an EBF trip to North Korea. It contained this alarming news: [C]ountermeasures are urgently needed for the recent increase of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) patients in North Korea. After years of visiting and providing TB medicines...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Inside NK
March 24, 2007

Anju Links for 3/24: Another Stolen Life, More Measles in N. Korea, Cowardly Capital, and the Diplomacy of Blame

*   Doina Bumbea, artist, 1950-1997.    From this photo, it’s  almost as if she could foresee the tragedy of her own  life. The circumstantial proof seems strong, though  not conclusive, that the  North Koreans lured  Doina from  Bucharest  to Japan and kidnapped her for the use of U.S. Army deserter James Dresnok,  who by all accounts is an utterly comtemptible person.  But  Doina’s family, which didn’t know what happened to her for all these years, seems convinced.  And there’s...

Categories Abductions/Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/WMD
January 16, 2007

Pandemic Strikes Chongjin, North Korea’s Fourth-Largest City

Previous posts on the spreading pandemic here, beginning last October.  Yonhap, quoting unnamed sources and the NGO Good Friends, tells us that things have gotten worse, and that the largest city in North Korea’s northeast faces outbreaks of several deadly diseases: Four infectious diseases have stricken a North Korean city on the east coast, affecting up to 4,000 people, a source claimed Monday. “Chongjin is overrun by scarlet fever, typhoid, typhus and paratyphoid. About 3,000 to 4,000 are suffering from...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Inside NK