Just bad weather

Not surprisingly, the "Democratic People's Republic" of North Korea came in dead last among 157 nations when the Heritage Foundation released its 2008 Index of Economic Freedom.

The hermit, Stalinist regime is run by the psychopath Kim Jong Il. The nation's people have little contact with the outside world. "Business freedom, investment freedom, trade freedom, financial freedom, freedom from corruption and labor freedom are nonexistent," reports the Heritage Foundation.

Might any of this have to do with the fact that many of the country's 22.5 million people live in abject poverty on the verge of starvation?

You wouldn't know it from some news accounts.

On Monday, McClatchy Newspapers moved a dispatch from Beijing -- Western reporters are rarely allowed in North Korea -- warning that food shortages are rampant throughout the country and "some of its citizens might already be starving to death."

In response, the United States is resuming food aid to North Korea. Calls for South Korea to do the same are growing.

Then we learn that the government-controlled North Korean press blames the problem "on factors such as unseasonably cold spring weather." And "experts" say the country is in a bind "for several reasons, including flooding that ravaged the western coastal plains nine months ago, chronic fertilizer shortages and steadily falling harvests."

Miraculously, just below the 38th parallel, prosperous South Korea -- with its "high levels of business freedom, investment freedom and property rights" -- remains free of famine and mass starvation.

Must just be the weather.