North Korea warns of a famine in the impoverished country just before the second summit of ruling leader Kim Jong-un with US President Donald Trump. It lacks around 1.4 million tons of food, according to a two-page undated report by North Korea to the United Nations.
The news agency Reuters saw the letter yesterday. The reason for the food shortage were high temperatures, droughts, floods and the UN sanctions against the country, which was punished for banned nuclear weapons and missile tests. The government in Pyongyang must therefore almost halve the food rations for the population.
Trump insists that North Korea abandons its nuclear program. He and Kim want to get together in Hanoi next week. A first meeting between the two took place last June in Singapore. Trump and Kim had agreed to make the Korean peninsula nuclear weapons free. However, according to US data, little progress has been made in the negotiations so far, which is why the US is maintaining its sanction pressure on North Korea. North Korea is internationally isolated because of its nuclear and missile tests.
Travel bans canceled
The UN Security Council yesterday suspended travel bans on several North Korean government officials. The reason is their planned participation in the meeting of Trump and Kim in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese government had asked for the step and none of the 15 council members had contradicted, said diplomats to the German Press Agency. Also financial sanctions, after which assets of the persons concerned were frozen, had been temporarily lifted for the delegation.
