Food for North Korean women and children eaten by army

THE United States is receiving reports that United Nations’ food aid for desperately hungry North Korean women and children is being eaten by the military instead, a senior US official said yesterday.

Tony Hall, Rome-based US ambassador to the UN food agencies, said the United States was pushing to tighten monitoring of UN food aid distribution in North Korea.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP), the world's biggest food aid agency, said it was halting food aid to hundreds of thousands of North Koreans because of an unprecedented slump in donations.