The UN humanitarian chief urged the world Monday to reduce “terrible levels” of malnutrition in North Korea, but also told Pyongyang to release more information to allay scepticism about its food needs.

Valerie Amos said her five-day visit to the North last week was prompted by concern that “six million people urgently need food aid and the outside world is not giving enough”.

She told a press conference after meetings in South Korea that official government rations had been cut from 400 to 200 grams (14 to 7 ounces) per person per day.

People were surviving on maize, rice if they were lucky, and cabbage, she added.

“This has led to terrible levels of malnutrition, particularly among children,” Amos said, adding that in northern regions almost one in two children are chronically malnourished.

Donations to United Nations programmes have dwindled because of international irritation at the impoverished North’s missile and nuclear push.

A $73 million UN appeal for the country has only been 34 percent funded this year.

Some South Korean officials are sceptical that the North needs special help this year, saying they suspect it wants to stockpile food for a major political anniversary in 2012.

Amos said she could understand the general scepticism and had stressed to the North’s officials that data collection and information was crucial to give an overall national picture of needs.

She said she had made it clear to the officials that there “was a great deal of scepticism. They know that from me and I think they know that more generally too.”

Amos, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said annual food production has been about one million tonnes short of needs in recent years.

Even though this year’s harvest may be about the same or slightly better than in 2010, the situation was worsening year by year, she said.

A nurse at a children’s hospital in Hamhung had told her the number of malnourished children being admitted had risen 50 percent since last year.

Amos said aid should never be tied to a country’s political situation.

“The most vulnerable people (in the North) are victims of a situation over which they have no control,” she said.

“They are suffering through no fault of their own. We cannot turn our backs on them, especially at this moment of extreme need.” — AFP

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang — who is tipped to take over the premiership next year — will visit both North and South Korea next week, it was announced Wednesday.

Li, whose country is Pyongyang’s closest ally and major economic partner, will visit the North from October 23-25, the North Korean official news agency reported.

The South’s foreign ministry said separately that the vice-premier would arrive in Seoul on October 26 for a two-day visit focusing on bilateral relations, Korean peninsula issues and strengthening international cooperation.

China is South Korea’s biggest trade partner and relations were upgraded to a “strategic cooperative partnership” in 2008.

China is pressing to restart stalled six-nation talks on the North’s nuclear disarmament which it has hosted since 2003. The forum also groups the two Koreas, Russia, the United States and Japan.

South Korea, supported by the US and Japan, says the North must take steps to show it is serious about scrapping its atomic arsenal before the six-nation talks can resume.

Li is expected to take over as premier from Wen Jiabao as part of a leadership transition during a meeting of the National People’s Congress next March. — AFP

UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos was headed for China ahead of a visit to North Korea, stricken by a new food crisis, as the UN presses Pyongyang to give aid agencies more freedom.

Amos will have talks with government officials in China this week, before going on next Monday to meet ministers in the isolated North where the UN estimates that a third of children aged under five are malnourished.

North Korea puts severe restrictions on the movement of foreigners, however, and the United Nations became so frustrated that it would only send aid to areas where it could get access.

“Those living in counties which remain off limits to humanitarian agencies, therefore, do not receive assistance,” UN leader Ban Ki-moon said in a report last month on human rights in the North.

Ban again pressed for more cooperation when he met North Korea’s vice-foreign minister, Pak Gil-yon, in New York last month.

Many governments have raised concerns that food aid could be diverted to the North’s 1.1 million strong army.

Kim Jong-il’s government has allowed more access this year, however, as the food crisis has worsened and daily rations have been further cut, aid groups say.

Amos’ spokeswoman, Amanda Pitt, said restrictions had become much “easier” across most of the country and the World Food Programme can now carry out “random” visits with 24 hours notice to check how aid is used.

UN agencies are now allowed to employ Korean-speaking international staff for the first time, she added.

“We know there is a severe food security situation and we need to know how we can improve international support and that is what Valerie Amos will be assessing,” said the spokeswoman.

The United Nations has launched a $73 million appeal for North Korea, but it has only been 34% funded this year.

Humanitarian support to North Korea has fallen to a tenth of what it was a decade ago and the country “is now one of the world?s most chronic under funded humanitarian emergencies,” according to Hiroyuki Konuma, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Asia representative.

Diplomats say food aid to the North has become a political weapon on top of the “aid fatigue” accentuated by the international financial crisis. South Korea has severely restricted aid attacks on a South Korean warship and an island in 2010 and 2011.

Amos will hold talks with the government ministers in Pyongyang on October 18, her office said. The list of ministers she will meet has not yet been finalized.

She will leave the North on October 21 to go back to Beijing and then South Korea for talks with government officials and private aid groups.

South Korea’s Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik, who is in charge of relations with the North, said last week that he did not think the North’s crisis is “very serious”.

The UN World Food Programme said last month that one-third of North Korean children under five are chronically malnourished. — AFP

The son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has cemented his status as leader-in-waiting through frequent field trips with his ailing father, the South’s unification ministry said Monday.

Kim Jong-Un has accompanied his father 100 times, or on two-thirds, of his trademark “field guidance” trips, since he was confirmed as leader-in-waiting a year ago, the ministry said in a report.

Jong-Un, believed to be in his late 20s, was made a general and given senior communist party posts on September 28 last year.

Since then all of the son’s public appearances have been alongside his father, the ministry said.

The 69-year-old leader, who took over after his own father and founding president Kim Il-Sung died in 1994, has apparently speeded up plans for a second eventual dynastic succession since suffering a stroke in August 2008.

It remains unclear when the son will be formally named as successor but the ministry said the son was already actively involved in state affairs. — AFP

A South Korean has been jailed for a foiled attempt to defect to North Korea, a court official said, in an unusual reversal of the prevailing trend.

The man in his 50s, surnamed Oh, visited the North’s consulate in the northeastern China city of Shenyang last October to seek asylum, saying he wanted to campaign for unification of the peninsula, according to a court record.

North Korean diplomats turned Oh back and urged him to campaign at home.

He then travelled in China’s border areas considering ways to sneak into the North before returning home, where he was arrested.

Seoul’s Western District Court last week sentenced him to a year in jail for breaching the National Security Act, which bans unauthorised contacts with the North.

“He had been a vocal admirer of North Korea, posting numerous online articles idolising the country and its leaders, which probably put him on an intelligence watch list,” a court spokesman told AFP.

According to the court record, the former college caretaker had held a grudge against society after being fined by a Seoul court for beating colleagues in 2007.

More than 21,700 North Koreans have fled the other way and arrived in South Korea since the 1950-1953 war.

But in October 2009 a South Korean pig farmer apparently fleeing arrest for assault cut his way through a barbed-wire border fence and defected to North Korea. — AFP

North Korea’s prime minister has left for China, according to Pyongyang’s official news agency, just weeks after leader Kim Jong-Il made his latest trip to the North’s closest ally.

Prime Minister Choe Yong-Rim left on Monday to pay “an official goodwill visit” at the invitation of his counterpart Wen Jiabao, the agency said without giving further details.

Choe, who formerly headed the Pyongyang branch of the ruling communist party, took over as premier in June 2010. He is said to be close to Kim Jong-Un, son and heir apparent of the leader.

Choe visited northeast China in November last year and reportedly toured electronics and pharmaceutical companies.

Leader Kim returned home last month from his fourth visit in 16 months to China, the North’s sole major ally and top trade partner.

Economic ties with China have grown increasingly important since South Korea froze most contacts with its neighbour.

Last week the nuclear envoys of the two Koreas held a second round of talks designed to pave the way for a resumption of six-nation negotiations on the North’s nuclear programme. — AFP