UN officials and aid workers say that millions of North Koreans will face famine and starvation during the country’s winter if the international community cuts off humanitarian food aid in retaliation for their government’s nuclear test. Before the recent test explosion the people of North Korea face a food crisis after a long-term decline in foreign food aid and summer floods that killed hundreds and washed away fields of rice and wheat. Aid communities fear that a cut in aid could lead to a repeat of the famine of the late 1990s when up to three million are estimated to have starved to death.

Does no-one realise that N Korea’s mad despot leader, Kim Jong Il simply does not care what happens to the people of N Korea? Sanctions are not an effective way to curb the mad and despotic powers of a crazed megalomaniac.