Famine predicted in North Korea

Seoul-based human rights group, Good Friends, has released a video containing testimonies of highly influential North Koreans, in an effort to highlight the urgent need for desperately needed food aid to be flown into the country.

Group director Erica Kang has told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program evidence gathered from within North Korea points towards another possible famine as experienced in the 1990s. She says this famine killed as many as 3 million.

"Army officers in Pyongyang are actually deserting their army bases because they are so fed up with the malnutrition problem," she said.

The United Nation's World Food Program also believes the situation in North Korea has become serious. The program's Asia spokesperson Paul Risely says chronic food shortages have been exacerbated by the cessation of aid from regular donors.

[Excerpt from Radio Australia, Girish Sawlani reporting]