N Korea 'geared for attack'

ANCHORAGE - North Korea has massed 70 per cent of its military forces near the South Korean border and might launch a desperate conventional attack sparked by hunger and economic frustration in Pyongyang, a senior US defence official said yesterday, Reuter reports.

'The North Koreans have continued to increase their production of (military) equipment. They are more forward deployed and I think we may be entering a kind of danger zone here,' said the official, flying to Washington from Seoul with the Defense Secretary, Les Aspin. 'These guys are starving' and may feel that 'you can either starve or get killed in a war'.