Germany Offers Food Aid to North Korea

Germany has made a 500,000-euro ($620,000) food aid donation to help stave off famine in North Korea, Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said. "The North Korean people are threatened by a famine similar to the one it suffered in 1990," Wieczorek-Zeul said, explaining the donation would back up efforts by the UN's World Food Program (WFP). The minister said Germany was making the donation after the North Korean government had been forced to reduce daily rice rations to 40 percent of what international standards consider as minimum recommended calorie needs. The WFP believes around 35 percent of North Korea's population of 23.7 million face serious health risks through undernourishment and that 57 percent of the population there do not get enough to eat.