31.  Kang said that admitting North Korea would help it fight its chronic food shortages, which already have begun to claim lives.

32.  Kang said that admitting North Korea would help it fight its chronic food shortages, which have already begun to claim lives.

33.  Large stretches of farm land were devastated, aggravating its already chronic food shortages.

34.  Most North Koreans reportedly leave because of chronic food shortages in their country.

35.  North Korea had hoped for a bumper harvest to ease its chronic food shortages.

36.  North Korea was forced to seek outside aid for the first time after massive flooding devastated its farm industry last summer, aggravating already chronic food shortages.

37.  North Korea, an isolationist state that stresses self-reliance as the linchpin of its social and political philosophy, is suffering chronic food shortages.

38.  North Korea is planting more potatoes and encouraging the breeding of sheep and goats to help alleviate its chronic food shortages, a senior North Korean official has said.

39.  North Korea remained the main country in Asia facing chronic food supply problems.

40.  North Korea still has large numbers of malnourished children despite a concerted foreign effort to overcome four years of chronic food shortages, a UNICEF official said Wednesday.