30 Jul 2008

U.N.: Millions Hungry in North Korea

With shriveled harvests and a cutback in imports, North Korea has slipped back into a serious food shortage that is causing millions of people to go hungry, the United Nations announced Wednesday.

The main U.N. aid agency in North Korea, the World Food Program, will resume emergency operations there in the next two weeks to help feed more than 5 million people over the next 15 months at a cost of $500 million, according to Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the agency's country director in Pyongyang.

"The situation is indeed very serious," de Margerie said at a news conference in Beijing.  washingtonpost.com