Did anyone else know the UK gave North Korea £740,000 last year? WTF???

OP

MODS, Could someone please move this to News and Current Affairs for me? Thanks.

Reply 2

getfunky!

Original post by markova21

MODS, Could someone please move this to News and Current Affairs for me? Thanks.

Done

Reply 3

Trapz99

That's pretty awful. We shouldn't be sending a single penny to hostile nations.

Reply 4

gjd800

The thing with aid money is that it is a great tool for 'soft' warfare. Exactly how useful in terms of NK, I'm not convinced, but in general, it has a militaristic use rather than a genuinely humanitarian one. Just a means by which to blackmail misbehaving administrations.

Reply 5

username2637499

18

Original post by markova21

Just read this on Leave.EU's Facebook page. Apparently the Department for International Development gave Aid agencies in North Korea the money to help people who were starving. This is just obscene, i'm sorry. It's not our problem if N.Korea's people are starving. That raving lunatic in charge would think nothing of wiping our country off the face of the earth if he had his way. How long is the British Government going to continue giving taxpayers money away to countries around the world, while their own citizens are doing without?

couldn't have put it better

Reply 6

OP

Look, I understand the UK Govt giving aid to former British Empire countries, to make amends for sins of the past and all that. I think they have had enough by now to be honest and we've paid our "debt" for being "Nasty Imperialists" etc, but that's a different argument. Do we really have to blackmail every dodgy regime and country out there to stop them invading us or attacking us or whatever their reason? I know it wasn't a vast amount of money but this is just insane.

Reply 7

gjd800

The argument can be made that it is a worthwhile expenditure to exerts some influence over rogue or otherwise off-kilter regimes but I'm not going to bother doing it. How effective/useful you think this sort of thing is generally depends on how you see the world, I find.

Reply 8

Meany Pie

5

That is a story from 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532009/Britains-aid-millions-help-corrupt-regimes-world-revealed-Camerons-target-finally-hit.html

Reply 9

OP

Original post by Meany Pie

That is a story from 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532009/Britains-aid-millions-help-corrupt-regimes-world-revealed-Camerons-target-finally-hit.html

Thanks for the link. I knew it was some time ago. Thought it was last year though. I only found out about it as it was on the Leave.EU's page on Facebook, and their founder or leading financial backer or someone was commenting on it. I was just gobsmacked, to be honest.

Reply 10

the bear

ridiculous... it is like giving Hitler handouts while he was running Auschwitz. the N Korea camps are just as appalling as the German ones.

Reply 11

L i b

19

Original post by markova21

This is just obscene, i'm sorry. It's not our problem if N.Korea's people are starving.

Yes, it is. It is everyone's problem if our fellow human beings are starving.

Original post by Trapz99

That's pretty awful. We shouldn't be sending a single penny to hostile nations.

We're not, we're distributing aid to starving people who happen to live within the world's biggest open-air prison camp.

Original post by gjd800

The argument can be made that it is a worthwhile expenditure to exerts some influence over rogue or otherwise off-kilter regimes but I'm not going to bother doing it. How effective/useful you think this sort of thing is generally depends on how you see the world, I find.

I'm not sure the North Korean dictatorship gives a toss whether its people starve or not. That does not mean that other nations shouldn't. International development funding may have a soft-power role in our relations with other countries, but in this case I'd see it purely in humanitarian terms.

Original post by the bear

ridiculous... it is like giving Hitler handouts while he was running Auschwitz. the N Korea camps are just as appalling as the German ones.

No, it's like the International Committee of the Red Cross trying to access and provide aid to those detained in German concentration camps. Which they did.

Reply 12

gjd800

Original post by L i b

Yes, it is. It is everyone's problem if our fellow human beings are starving.

We're not, we're distributing aid to starving people who happen to live within the world's biggest open-air prison camp.

I'm not sure the North Korean dictatorship gives a toss whether its people starve or not. That does not mean that other nations shouldn't. International development funding may have a soft-power role in our relations with other countries, but in this case I'd see it purely in humanitarian terms.

No, it's like the International Committee of the Red Cross trying to access and provide aid to those detained in German concentration camps. Which they did.

I don't disagree with your overarching point and the principle guiding it. I did also say I was making a wider point and I'm not sure to what degree NK would or could be swayed by this. Nevertheless, I am resolute in my belief that soft power is generally the primary motivation of this govt.

Reply 13

pieceoftoast

7

the money isn't going to the N.Korean government, it's going to impoverished human beings who are living under a terrible, corrupt regime. they need all the help and compassion they can get.

Reply 14

OP

Well if the money IS going directly to help impoverished people that's different. However it would sit better with me if the country [i.e. the Government] were also genuinely impoverished too. They might well be, but if they have money for missiles they can't be doing that badly. It's the same with us giving aid to India. They have their own space programme, for God's sake. Why don't they spend that money on helping their own people out of poverty instead of trying to be something they're not? If a country is genuinely in need then that is entirely different. Genuinely poor countries do not have missiles and send rockets into space.

Reply 15

SHallowvale

14

Original post by markova21

Well if the money IS going directly to help impoverished people that's different. However it would sit better with me if the country [i.e. the Government] were also genuinely impoverished too. They might well be, but if they have money for missiles they can't be doing that badly. It's the same with us giving aid to India. They have their own space programme, for God's sake. Why don't they spend that money on helping their own people out of poverty instead of trying to be something they're not? If a country is genuinely in need then that is entirely different. Genuinely poor countries do not have missiles and send rockets into space.

It is not the fault of impoverished people that their goverment is either too incompetent or unwilling to help them.

If a child were being neglected our instinct would be to help the child, not just :innocent:

off the parents and say ''sort yourself out!''.

Reply 16

pieceoftoast

7

Original post by Mathemagicien

And so the regime, rather than having to worry about its citizens growing discontent with it, can instead not give a damn about feeding their own citizens - because we do that for them - and instead funnel money towards better weapons with which to threaten its neighbours. We are propping up their regime.

oh please, they wouldn't give a damn about feeding their poorest citizens (the ones the aid money is helping) anyway. I'm not saying its an ideal situation by any means, obviously it isn't and I do understand where you are coming from on this, but at the end of the day those people are just as deserving of a decent life as anyone else and i'm not going to say that we should stop providing much-needed help for those families just because their dictator is a POS man-child

Reply 17

Quady

Original post by markova21

Just read this on Leave.EU's Facebook page. Apparently the Department for International Development gave Aid agencies in North Korea the money to help people who were starving. This is just obscene, i'm sorry. It's not our problem if N.Korea's people are starving. That raving lunatic in charge would think nothing of wiping our country off the face of the earth if he had his way. How long is the British Government going to continue giving taxpayers money away to countries around the world, while their own citizens are doing without?

Snowflake Remoaners like you need to get with the programme.

We the British people can send money to whoever we like because we are an INDEPENDENT NATION - and we won't have you and your euroloving freinds stop us.

Our money, our democracy. Thats why we voted to leave.

Reply 18

Quady