North Korea: U.S. aid arrives

American Shipper reports U.S. aid arrives in North Korea: 

U.S. aid group Samaritan’s Purse this weekend managed the airlift of much-needed goods to North Korea to help victims of catastrophic flooding.
Damage reportedly has been extensive in farm regions, with 148,000 acres of land washed away or inundated. Forecasts call for continued heavy rains in the coming weeks, exacerbating the problem.
A cargo plane, which departed from Charlotte, N.C., on Friday and arrived in Pyongyang Saturday evening, carried heavy-duty plastic for temporary shelters, as well as blankets, cooking kits, hygiene items, high-capacity water filters, shovels, jerry cans, supplemental food, and medical supplies.

Update a video from Samaitan's Purse:
I wonder how much word of the "love" spoken about by the Samaritan's Purse VP actually gets to the North Koreans receiving this aid. My guess is very little or none.

South Korean aid is due to arrive next week:

The South Korean government will send the first batch of flood aid to help the North on Sept. 15.

In an official letter sent through the South Korean Red Cross, Seoul said it will send 200,000 packets of baby food.

Unless Pyongyang shows strong opposition to the idea, these items will be delivered to flood-stricken areas in the North Korean provinces of Hwanghae and Kangwon gradually, once or twice a week until mid-October.

The total amount of aid is worth W5 billion which includes items such as biscuits, instant noodles, and rice-based baby food (US$1=W1,075).

In other North Korean news - North Korea Used Black Market to Acquire Nuke Technology, IAEA Says:

North Korea appears to have employed an illicit network to acquire material needed to establish a uranium enrichment facility at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded in a report issued on Friday (see GSN, Aug. 26).

The Vienna, Austria-based U.N. organization said the arrangement of machinery and other specifics noted by U.S. nuclear weapons experts during their October 2010 tour of the plant were "broadly consistent" with the blueprints marketed by a "clandestine supply network," the Associated Press reported.

The IAEA report appears to suggest that North Korea obtained assistance from the nuclear proliferation ring once operated by former chief Pakistani atomic scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, which also sold nuclear-weapon technology to Iran and Libya before it was disbanded in 2003.

The IAEA safeguards analysis was prepared ahead of next week’s meeting of the agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors. The document concludes North Korea established its uranium facility following the expulsion of U.N. inspectors in April 2009. Assuming no other clandestine network was involved, it would follow that Pyongyang purchased centrifuges from the Khan ring no later than 2003 and kept them a secret from investigators.

The Yongbyon plant holds some 2,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges, the IAEA report says. North Korean officials asserted to the visiting U.S. experts in 2011 the plant was only enriching nuclear material to the low levels required to fuel a civilian energy reactor. Bomb-grade uranium requires an enrichment level of around 90 percent.