Rabbits to North Korea

North Korea appears to have begun a program to breed rabbits for food, using animals from Germany, as a step to alleviate its acute food shortage, according to NHK.

A German farmer says officials from the North Korean embassy in Berlin visited his rabbit farm in December to buy some male and female rabbits. The farmer also told NHK he arranged to ship the rabbits to North Korea by air.

During World War II my grandfather kept rabbits in Lund, Sweden as a source of meat for his family. I remember my father saying he liked the cute rabbits, and felt sorry when granpa had to kill them.

Not sure how NHK got this story, or what it is supposed to mean, except that North Koreans in crisis are trying to be creative about their food supply. However, a huge problem with rabbits is that they multiply a lot and if the get out in the wild, they will wreck havoc with the local ecosystem - in Australia rabbits are seen as environmental vandals. Marauding rabbits? No thanks.

Meanwhile, South Korea's Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung on Monday said his government will provide unconditional aid to North Korea "on a humanitarian basis." The conservative (thus very critical of the current administration in South Korea) newspaper Chosun Ilbo says this means the government will provide free aid to North Korea without taking into account Pyongyang's missile tests and nuclear test to make sure a second inter-Korean summit happens this year.