Agency pleads for aid as North Korea faces food crisis

THE World Food Programme issued an emergency appeal for aid for North Korea yesterday, saying the agency's supplies have nearly run out and it is cutting off food to almost all the 6.5 million people it feeds there.

WFP will be able to feed only about 100,000 North Koreans mostly women and children over the next two months, said Masood Hyder, the UN agency's representative in the North.

"A food crisis is on us at the wrong time," Mr Hyder said.