BEIJING,(Saba) - Nearly four million North Koreans will be deprived of U.N. food rations by February if foreign donors do not provide more aid to the communist state, the head of the U.N. World Food Program said
on Saturday.

According to the Reuters report here on Saturday, the comments by WFP Executive Director James Morris followed an emergency appeal last week for $171 million worth of rations to feed 6.5 million North Koreans, mostly women and children, plagued by years of hunger compounded by shock price reforms.

With the timing of a second round of six-way negotiations to curtail North Korea's nuclear arms program still uncertain, Chinese and U.S. officials met in Beijing on Friday to discuss the way forward.