10,000 Choco Pies Float into North Korea
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 4th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
10,000 Choco Pies Float into North Korea
On Wednesday, hundreds of South Korean activists and North Korean defectors blew up balloons containing thousands of Choco Pies and flew them over the border between the countries. The snacks were banned by North Korea last month as a corrupting capitalist influence. They were selling for three to four times market price in the country and 40,000 to 50,000 were exchanged daily in bartering. “North Koreans don’t have a lot of options as consumers,” Sokeel Park, a director at Liberty in North Korea, told The Guardian.
70% See Immigrant Children as Refugees
Robert B. Jones, The Atlantic: The rhetoric from political leaders about unaccompanied children arriving in the U.S. from Central America has been sharp and, with certain notable exceptions, largely predictable across party lines. But even amid some serious and growing concerns about immigration, Americans are taking a position marked more by compassionate pragmatism than ideology. A new Public Religion Research Institute poll finds that approximately seven in 10 (69 percent) Americans see the unaccompanied children from Central America as refugees rather than illegal immigrants. Similarly, 70 percent say these children should receive support and shelter while a process is underway to resolve their cases; only about one in four Americans say they should be immediately deported back to their home countries.
