Currency chaos triggers starvation in N Korea

[bridgit]

'SEOUL: North Koreans are starving to death and unrest is growing due to a currency revaluation last year that crippled markets and led to the sacking of a senior official, reports said on Wednesday.

North Korea last year announced a revaluation of its currency where old notes of its won currency would be changed for new ones at a rate of 100 to one. The move was a further blow to the North’s wobbly economy, already hit by UN sanctions imposed after its nuclear test last year.

A top finance official has been sacked following the revaluation. Pak Nam-Ki, the communist party’s director for planning and finance, has been absent from public activities since January, a spokesman for South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said.'

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Currency-chaos-triggers-starvation-in-N-Korea/articleshow/5532756.cms