North Korea blames US for internet outages

North Korea today accused the United States for the internet outages it experienced in recent days as tensions between the two countries over the hacking of the film studio Sony Pictures increased even as the country's internet and 3G mobile networks were paralysed again in the evening today. According to reports by China`s official Xinhua news agency.

North Korea's National Defence Commission accused the US of ''disturbing the internet operation'' of its media outlets and even called US President Barack Obama a ''monkey'' for inciting cinemas to screen a comedy featuring a fictional plot to kill its leader, and threatened ''inescapable deadly blows'' over the movie.

North Korea's main internet sites suffered intermittent disruptions early in the week due to reasons, US tech companies said could range from technological glitches to a hacking attack.

''The United States, with its large physical size and oblivious to the shame of playing hide and seek as children with runny noses would, has begun disrupting the internet operations of the main media outlets of our republic,'' the North's National Defence Commission said in a statement.

The NDC accused Obama of taking the lead in encouraging theatres to screen `The Interview' on Christmas Day. Sony had initially cancelled its release after major US theatre chains said they would not show it, following threats to moviegoers by hackers.

''Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,'' a spokesman for the NDC's policy department said in a statement published by the North's official KCNA news agency.

''If the US persists in American-style arrogant, highhanded and gangster-like arbitrary practices despite (North Korea's) repeated warnings, the US should bear in mind that its failed political affairs will face inescapable deadly blows,'' the NDC spokesman said.

Meanwhile, following the limited Christmas cinema release, critics and movie goers in New York talked about Sony's controversial comedy `The Interview' being less than a masterpiece.

According to a spokesman for the commission, it was truly laughable. The comments were carried by the North's official KCNA news agency.

The spokesman further rejected an accusation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation that North Korea was responsible for the cyber attack on Sony Pictures and demanded that the US produce the evidence for its accusation.

Meanwhile, the BBC reported that the film was very funny partly because it was also a very good political satire.

The film portrays, North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un as a vain, buffoonish despot, alternating between threats and weeping that he had been misunderstood.

His associates display all the signs of fear one might expect with a despot - they second-guess his likes and dislikes.

North Korean defectors sometimes smuggle USB sticks with films and soaps into the closed-off country, and there was a view in the south that these were particularly effective in undermining the regime in Pyongyang.

According to the BBC, that fear might explain the North Korean leadership's intemperate, deeply racist language, it was not the first time it had called president Obama a monkey.

Sony Pictures had initially pulled the film after it was hit by an unprecedented hacking attack by a group that called itself the Guardians of Peace.

The hackers also threatened to launch a terrorist attack on cinemas showing the film on Christmas Day, the day it was scheduled for release.