The secretive country has made a rare admission that it faces food shortages and needs help from outside.

The country has asked the World Food Programme to expand its assistance to meet the gap.

In recent years, the North has reduced the work of the WFP and other agencies.

But returning from a six-day visit to North Korea, WFP regional director Tony Banbury said he had been told by the country’s officials that there was a food shortfall of one million tonnes.

He says the situation will only get worse unless the international community acts.

“If the donors do not respond to the request, millions of people are going to go hungry. Pregnant women will have bad birth outcomes. Infant mortality may indeed increase. We’re asking donors to look at the situation in the country now, recognize how serious it is, and provide assistance now because the needs of the people are separate from the political talks. There ought not to be a direct linkage between those talks and the food security situation in the country,”

Well South Korea says it will resume sending food aid to the North.
But another way the South claims it’s helping the North is through the joined tourist complex at Mount Kemuang in North Korea.

The South Korean government is holding the project up as a symbol of slow reunification.

However, the Bush administration and Right-wing opposition parties in Seoul claim the money from the project is propping up a dictatorship and paying for Kim Jong-Il’s nuclear bombs.

I visited the controversial mountain tourism complex to find out.

Spectacular performances by Pyongyang acrobats welcome tourist to Mount Keumang…a hiker’s paradise.

It’s a mountain South Koreans say that they must visit before they died.

However, it is located in hostile North Korea, just past the demilitarization zone.

But a joint project between Pyongyang and business giant, Hyundai-ASAN, has made it possible for people from the south to hike the sacred mountain.

“The North Korean tour has become very popular. In a stable situation many people want to come and visit here because it’s a very unique place; the only place where one country is divided in two,”

In the conference room of the tourism complex hotel Whan-Bin Jan, Senior Vice President of Hyundai, explains how this place was the brain-child of his boss.

He was born in the North and wanted to give something back to his home town. His long term goal is reunification of the Korean peninsular.

The company is not making a profit with this project; they didn’t break even last year.

“It’s not easy to make a profit but we are committed to this project. I believe that in ten years there will be economic reunification on the Korean peninsular. This program is allowing for visits between the South and North that must happen before reunification can take place,”

It’s also a long term business investment; a join project between Hyundai and Kim Jong-il that is being backed by the South Korean government.

With the new optimism following the 13th of February nuclear agreement the project is expanding.

A fork-lift carves out the hard ground.This barn land is being turned into a luxury golf course.

“You can see hole number three this is the longest run in the world… par seven, one thousands one hundred meters,”

“Some rich, rich tourists want to play golf. We are building a tourist complex here so we must have a golf course,”

The dramatic contrast between a golf course and the near by peasant villages is bizarre.

“This is surreal. We come to a place where we are regimented the whole time. We have not spoken to a single North Korean since we arrived and we can’t take photos. They tell us that this is a tourist site - at the same time they tell us that people are told to stay inside when tourists come past. It’s more than bizarre - I feel like I am in Alice in Wonderland!”

The major opposition party back in Seoul has more serious concerns. They say the project is highly irresponsible and must be shut down.
Jaewan Bahk is the Chief Secretary for the President of the Grand National Opposition Party.

“The money is directly flowing to the dictatorship regime and the project is heavily subsidized by the South Korean government. There is no benefit what so ever as South Korean tourists have no contact with people from the North, only well trained administration guides. There is no opportunity for them to meet and learn about the South Korean system or market,”

It’s a view shared by Japan and the Bush administration. The November nuclear test by the North increased pressure on the Roh government to change its engagement policy.

But Hyundai-ASAN insists the money from the project is directly helping the North Korean people.

In Pyongyang lots of the public buses are now operating and also the power plant and we believe most of the money is going to the people. Since 2003 we are paying only 1 million dollars a month, it is small money. The standard of living is getting better in Pyongyang. We cannot trace the money but people tell us it goes to the people.
The South Korean Roh government doesn’t want to follow the German model of reunification.

They are not prepared to bear the huge economic costs of a sudden reunification.

The model the South is pursuing is instead a slow economic partnerships. Professor Paik Nak-chung from Seoul University argues the way to go is a federation of states.

“The Germans didn’t follow a federate route and that accrued greater costs to the German republic. By having a federation the North will not use the same currency as the South and they will not have complete freedom to cross the border. This will be a much slower reunification process and the cost will be spread out over a much long period of time,”

There is indeed a long way to go and many hurdles along the way.

Back hiking in the Kemuang mountains I get a rare opportunity to speak with a North Korean; an artist amazingly trying to sell his landscape drawings on a rock.

He says that he is very proud to come from North Korea a country that has beautiful nature like these mountains.

Moments later an Italian television crew starts questioning him too. This catches the eye of a government official who demands that they erase the video tape.

A shuffle breaks out and a shadow hangs over the rest of our visit.

The small window the painter gained, to make some money, has suddenly closed.

It’s symbolic of the reunification process; one step forward and two steps back.