Kim heads ruling party meeting on the economy

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned about possible food shortages and called for his people to brace for extended COVID-19 restrictions as he opened a major political conference to discuss national efforts to salvage a broken economy.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency also said Wednesday that Kim called for discussions on how the North should deal with the “current international situation”. Meanwhile, the North’s economy has decayed further amid pandemic border closures, while devastating typhoons and floods last summer decimated crops. Kim had called for the party meeting to review national efforts to rebuild the economy for the first half of the year.