NORTH KOREA

-- Famine and
mass starvation are looming
large over the nation's 22
million inhabitants. Nearly
2.1 million children and half
a million pregnant women
across the country are at risk
of malnutrition. Food supply for coal miners and others doing heavy work has
been cut into half. Medical
services across the nation are "very fragile" according to
the World Health Organization. Floods last year worsened the crisis after five years of declining food production.

The country's grain
requirement for 1996 stands
at six million tonnes, but
only 4.8,million is expected
to be available, including
foreign food aid. A joint
report by the World Food
Programme (WFP) and Food
and Agriculture Organization says that geographical
conditions of North Korea
are such that it had relied
heavily on intensive use of
chemicals and electric power
to produce crops. But the
closure of usual channels of
aid from China and Russia,
and the country's poor credit rating abroad, have
brought it to the brink of
famine. The WFP is struggling
to find donors to continue its
aid programme.