I took a look at the Liberation article that Elizabeth posted (at http://www.liberation.fr/quotidien/semaine/20000419mera.html). There is a photo of "l'entrée du métro de Pyongyang" on the webpage. What you see in the photo is the very opposite of "squalor" -- a number of neatly dressed North Koreans, none of whom looks like starving. Due to floods & and then droughts, *food shortages have been real*, but I suspect the Western mass media's reports on North Korean famines have been exaggerated. The Liberation reporter claims: "Dans les parcs et les banlieues, des silhouettes de femmes emmitouflées, et parfois de gamins, grattent la terre pour y trouver des racines qui pourraient les nourrir." If such sights were so common, one would think that the imperial media would regale us with photos of emaciated women and children in rags scraping the earth in search of edible roots. What pleasure would such photos give to imperial minds!
The U.S. government has collected the following stats:
North Korea:
Land use: arable land: 14% permanent crops: 2% permanent pastures: 0% forests and woodland: 61% other: 23% (1993 est.)
Infant mortality rate: 25.52 deaths/1,000 live births (1999 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 70.07 years male: 67.41 years female: 72.86 years (1999 est.)
India:
Land use: arable land: 56% permanent crops: 1% permanent pastures: 4% forests and woodland: 23% other: 16% (1993 est.)
Infant mortality rate: 60.81 deaths/1,000 live births (1999 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 63.4 years male: 62.54 years female: 64.29 years (1999 est.)
Indonesia:
Land use: arable land: 10% permanent crops: 7% permanent pastures: 7% forests and woodland: 62% other: 14% (1993 est.)
Infant mortality rate: 57.3 deaths/1,000 live births (1999 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 62.92 years male: 60.67 years female: 65.29 years (1999 est.)
Turkey:
Land use: arable land: 32% permanent crops: 4% permanent pastures: 16% forests and woodland: 26% other: 22% (1993 est.)
Infant mortality rate: 35.81 deaths/1,000 live births (1999 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 73.29 years male: 70.81 years female: 75.88 years (1999 est.)
Thailand:
Land use: arable land: 34% permanent crops: 6% permanent pastures: 2% forests and woodland: 26% other: 32% (1993 est.)
Infant mortality rate: 29.54 deaths/1,000 live births (1999 est.)
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 69.21 years male: 65.58 years female: 73.01 years (1999 est.)
For more info, check The World Factbook 1999 at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html. (Keep in mind that, for the sake of comparison, I didn't even pick the most impoverished capitalist countries like Haiti and that the CIA has no bias for underestimating the North Korean infant mortality rate & overestimating the infant mortality rates in India, Indonesia, Turkey, etc.)
Yoshie