GENEVA, May 8, 2018 (News Wires) - The United Nations food agency said its chief would visit North Korea on Tuesday to look into boosting food distributions to hungry women and children, in the latest sign of an opening in the isolated country. The four-day trip comes amid a warming of relations between the North and South Korea and in the build-up to planned talks on denuclearisation with US President Donald Trump. The World Food Programme (WFP) said it had been active in the North for years, but the visit would focus on stepping up support. About 70 per cent of North Korea's 25 million people are "food insecure", meaning they struggle to avoid hunger, and one in four children under five is stunted from chronic malnutrition, according to the WFP. A 2015 drought worsened the situation, it says. The agency currently aims to assist 650,000 women and children there each month providing fortified cereals and enriched biscuits. On average, it now reaches about 500,000 of them, WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher said. "Funding shortfalls have meant that rations have had to be reduced and suspended in some cases," WFP said in a statement coinciding with the start of the May 8-11 visit by WFP executive director David Beasley.
