Falling aid could spell disaster for North Korea - Red Cross

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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8022348&type=worldNews

BEIJING (Reuters) - Political tensions and government controls in North Korea are jeopardising international relief efforts, putting the communist state at risk of a humanitarian disaster, the Red Cross said on Tuesday.

More than one million people have died of famine in isolated North Korea since the mid-1990s and the country relies on outside aid for medicine and food supplies to feed about a quarter of its 22.5 million population.

"If our programmes are compromised, the result will be a large loss of life and a large increase in illness and disease in the DPRK," John Sparrow, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Beijing, said on Tuesday after a five-day trip to North Korea.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.

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