N Korea attacks 'junket of war'

North Korea defiant over US accusations

A "confrontational maniac" who is also the "incarnation of evil" is embarking on a "junket of war and anti-reunification" this week.

This is the North Korean media's way of addressing US President George W Bush's visit to South Korea on Tuesday - the second leg of his three-nation tour of east Asia.

Bush is politically ignorant and the incarnation of evil

Kim Ho-sam, radio commentator

The past few days have seen a continuation of the media attacks on Mr Bush and his administration which began after he included North Korea in the "axis of evil" in last month's State of the Union address.

According to a radio commentary beamed at the South, the president used that speech to "indiscriminately spew out all kinds of vicious remarks that spoke ill of our republic, calling our republic an 'axis of evil' or whatever".

He was "a confrontational maniac who has advocated the establishment of a US-styled order of force".

Iran and Iraq are also named in the famous three-country "axis of evil"

The commentary added that his visit to Seoul was "a junket of war, which will bring acute tension and war to the Korean peninsula, and an anti-reunification junket hampering our nation's reconciliation and unity".

"Bush is indeed a villain," opined another North Korean radio commentator, Kim Ho-sam.

"He is also politically ignorant and the incarnation of evil."

The state news agency, KCNA, condemned the "axis of evil" speech as a piece of "brigandish logic".

War hysteria

"This is little short of declaring a war against the DPRK," it commented, referring to the country by its official title - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The US imperialists... have gone off into war hysteria

KCNA news agency

It warned Mr Bush against treating North Korea as another Afghanistan.

"The US imperialists, who seem to be upbeat over the defeat of the Taleban forces in Afghanistan, have gone off into war hysteria.

"But they should know that the DPRK is quite different from those countries against which the US has carried out armed intervention and war exercises," it warned.

"The Korean people... will never allow anyone to encroach upon their country's sovereignty."

'New-born puppy'

A commentary read out on North Korean TV was more explicit in its warnings.

We will completely annihilate all aggressors, whether they be one million or 10 million, who crawl into this land

North Korean TV commentary

"Bush... is running amok like a new-born puppy knowing no fear of a tiger," it declared.

"Our revolutionary armed forces and our people will not miss the moment in history when the crimes of the US imperialists... will be totally settled," it continued, before concluding:

"We will completely annihilate all aggressors, whether they be one million or 10 million, who crawl into this land."

Human-rights

Other North Korean commentators have responded to US criticisms on specific issues, such as the country's human-rights record.

The world recognises we have no human rights problem whatsoever

North Korean radio

Such criticisms are "truly pitiful and despicable" and an exercise in "gangster-like sophistry", North Korea radio declared.

"As the world officially recognises, we have no human rights problem whatsoever," it boasted.

"The more the United States babbles about someone else's human rights situation, the more the true character of the United States, which is a reckless place regarding human rights, will be revealed," it concluded.

"They will bring on the world's denunciation and ridicule."

South Korea 'seething'

To judge by another North Korean TV commentary, the North's view is shared south of the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas.

"All of South Korea is currently seething with anti-Bush, anti-US and anti-war heat" at Mr Bush's "nonsense", it said.

"The South Korean people... have embarked on a struggle, which is an explosion of accumulated grudge and indignation against the US imperialists," it continued.

"South Korean people will further fiercely burn the already-lit flames of struggle against the United States and Bush and thereby expel the US imperialist forces of aggression," it concluded.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.