Life in N.Korea Dire and Desperate, U.N. Forum Told

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GENEVA, March 16 (Reuters) - The people of North Korea are subjected to "intolerable suffering" including starvation, torture and almost universal spying, a U.N. investigator said on Monday in one of the toughest reports presented to a U.N. forum.

Thai jurist Vitit Muntarbhorn told the world body's Human Rights Council that the situation in the communist-ruled country was "dire and desperate" with the population living in fear and pressed to inform on each other.

"The country is under one-party rule. At the pinnacle there is an oppressive regime, bent on personal survival, under which the ordinary people of the land undergo intolerable and interminable sufferings," he said.