Regime depends on foreign aid

NORTH Korea is heavily reliant on foreign aid to feed its population of about 23 million.

China is the biggest donor, giving more than 500,000 tonnes of food in 2005 - about half the total received by North Korea. South Korea is the next biggest, and the United States has provided aid in the past, giving 100,000 tonnes in 2003 and 50,000 in 2004.

For more than a decade, the country has been unable to feed itself. In the mid-1990s, anything between 600,000 and 3.5 million people are thought to have died in a famine. Electricity supplies are intermittent, with frequent power cuts designed to preserve what little there is to keep the lights on in the capital, Pyongyang.

Up to a quarter of the population of North Korea is believed to be malnourished and the United Nations' World Food Programme helps nearly 1.9 million of its people. Alongside other aid organisations, it has made calls to ensure any sanctions do not affect the most vulnerable, such as children and pregnant women.

It is estimated that some 13 per cent of North Korea's GDP was spent on arms in 2005, while South Korea's military spending was 2.5 per cent.

Internal opposition to the totalitarian regime is ruthlessly crushed. There are believed to be 200,000 political prisoners and there have been reports of torture, public executions, slave labour, forced abortions and infanticide in prison camps.