Starving North Koreans eat "Giant Rabbits"

The Daily Telegraph reports: 'N Korean communists ate my giant rabbits'

A rabbit breeder who sold 12 of his animals to North Korea so the communist country could start its own breeding programme fears they have been eaten by officials.

Karl Szmolinsky sent the huge rabbits, which can grow as big as dogs and produce 15lb (7kg) of meat, to North Korea last year so they could be bred and used to ease desperate food shortages.

He thought they were being kept at a zoo in the capital Pyongyang and was planning to travel to the country after Easter to give advice on setting up a breeding facility.

But the 68-year-old says his trip has been cancelled and he suspects it may be because communist officials have eaten the rabbits, which he sold for a cut-price €80 (£54) each rather than the usual €200.

North Korea, which has exhibited similar bizarre behavior before, seems to have reached new lows of desperation. It is bad enough that communist party officials bleed their country dry to import luxury goods from Japan, China, Europe and the U.S. at their countrymen's expense. The North's downward spiral seems to be spinning to ever more fantastic depths. The question is - If a regime is willing to sacrifice its own citizens, whose corpses often lay decaying in the streets, while its elite party oligarchy get fat through extortion, bribery, thievery and the black market - does it not stand to reason they will stop at nothing to make money by any means... including illicit [nuclear] arms trade?