$378 Million in Aid to N. Korea Urged

The U.N. World Food Program appealed for $378 million in emergency aid to avert famine in North Korea, saying food stocks in the disaster-hit country could run out as soon as April. The WFP said it needed 657,972 metric tons of food to distribute to 7.5 million North Koreans, up sharply from the 4.7 million people it helped last year. The isolated Stalinist country has a population of 23.2 million. Hunger and malnutrition have become widespread in North Korea since floods devastated large swaths of farmland in 1995 and 1996. The floods were followed last year by a severe drought that slashed the grain harvest.