So you think that “estimated” 300 million dollars would fix their economy while their trade is being blocked? The reason these dictators have the freedom to waste money on weapons and have the authority to be “supreme ruler”, is because they have an outside enemy trying to suffocate the country.

And while that “supreme ruler” can live in luxury his entire life, the only ones being hurt by the embargo are the people.

The development cost of Taepodong as quoted in the beginning of the article sounds more or less believable, as the West typically spends 10 times as much to develop a launcher, as a rule of thumb.

There has been several reports from North Korea with information about how people barely get to eat once a day while at the same time, if you join their army, they promise you three meals a day. This is the main reason why North Korea have the four largest Army in the world.

So, its clear most of their resources are destined to Military support, including those of International donation.

Now, their famine began in 1995. That`s 14 years of people starving to death but under the same period, North Korea has gone from 6 to 4 in the world army ranking, while at the same time accumulating a record list of complaint about productions of weapons, including biological and nuclear.

Even the article above clearly says:

“Insiders close to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak say the launch itself cost around 300 million dollars, enough to break the famine sweeping much of the nation for a year.”

We know there is something really wrong there, no reason to point the obvious but I feel they have been taking advantage of whatever help they can get from any other country to deal with their problems when they clearly has the resources to tackle the problem themselves.

Wow, that sounds like an excellent way to make the problem worse from two sides. It makes the situation worse for starving North Koreans by denying them aid, and it convinces the North Korean government that military spending should be a higher priority.

I might sound heartless here but I wonder why We (as we, the rest of the world) support North Korea with food and medicine supplies? Yes, I understand innocent civilians must not be punished or accounted for the bad decisions their leaders has taken but in North Korea`s case, we all know most of the donations (food, medicine, supplies) are destined to the Military and government class while the common citizen is left to starve anyways.

On top, they have enough money to spend in weapons but they can`t help their own starving people. I wonder if this happen because they know International donations will take care of that while they (government) keep their attention in develop weapons.

Once again, I might sound heartless but I say, cut every support they get, including international donations.