And For Dessert, A Mudslide Sundae (Now With Real Mud!)

The chronic famine in North Korea seems to have gotten worse:

FOUR million North Koreans will starve in the freezing northern winter because international aid donations have dried up amid rising suspicion over the isolated country's nuclear weapons activities.

A United Nations agency said yesterday its food supplies were all but exhausted and it would have to abandon four million people already on short rations.

. . .

UN North Korea representative Masood Hyder said in Beijing yesterday: "A food crisis is on us at the wrong time. We are scraping the bottom of the barrel."

. . .

Mr Hyder said the agency did not expect mass starvation deaths. But malnutrition and other health problems would surge among North Koreans whose daily aid rations of about 500g of food a person was already considered the bare minimum needed. In 2002, 42 per cent of North Korean children were found to be stunted.

I don't see what the problem is. I found a picture of this year's senior class meal at Kaesong High School:

When asked if he was enjoying himself, class salutatorian Kim Il-Suk (second from right) said "I haven't eaten this well since my junior class meal."