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• But while the North has come a long way since the famine and economic breakdowns believed to have killed hundreds of thousands in the mid-1990s, it continues to suffer widespread food shortages made worse by frequent natural disasters, limited economic growth and the lack of seeds, fertilizers and fuel, according to an internal, preliminary version of the report being prepared by WFP for current or prospective donors.
• The report, noting statistics that every third North Korean child is stunted and every fifth child is underweight, said it is "very concerned" about the long-term physical and intellectual development of malnourished children. North Korean officials were not available to immediately comment on the contents of the report.
• The report also highlighted concern with WFP's own funding crisis.
• ___

• JERUSALEM (AP) -- Nine months of U.S.-driven diplomacy have left Israelis and Palestinians less hopeful than ever about a comprehensive peace agreement to end their century of conflict. Although a formula may yet be found to somehow prolong the talks past an end-of-April deadline, they are on the brink of collapse and the search is already on for new ideas.
• U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts have exposed vast differences: On sharing Jerusalem, resolving the situation of millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees, and even borders, the sides seem nowhere close to agreement. And Thursday, Israel said it halted the talks in response to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' decision a day earlier to form a unity government with the Islamic militant Hamas movement, which Israel and the West consider a terrorist group.
• "Unfortunately, under the current conditions, it is apparently not possible to reach 'end of conflict' -- or, in more poetic language, a peace agreement," said dovish Cabinet member Amram Mitzna, a former general in charge of the West Bank.
• Mohammed Madani, a leading member of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party, said the Palestinian leader told visiting Israeli politicians that the Palestinians "cannot continue with talks in vain."
• He said the Palestinians will press with their applications for membership as a state with various United Nations and other world bodies, a strategy aimed at entrenching the view that all the area Israel captured in the 1967 war is a foreign country and not -- as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have it -- "disputed territory."

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