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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lkdood" data-source="post: 9525156" data-attributes="member: 92282">North Korea threatened "all-out war" in response to exercises by  South Korean and US troops due to start Monday and told Seoul to stop  cross-border propaganda, upping the rhetoric against its arch rivals.Pyongyang  would respond to the upcoming drill, with "unprecedented all-out  counteraction" that would turn the South's capital Seoul into a "sea of  flames", the Korean Central News Agency said Sunday."The army and  people of the DPRK will return bolstered nuclear deterrent of our own  style for the continued nuclear threat... and our own missile striking  action for their vicious attempt to eliminate our missiles," KCNA said.The  statement was in contrast to more conciliatory comments it made earlier  this year aimed at securing peace talks with the United States but came  after Pyongyang officials stormed out of talks with the South this  month.Some 200,000 South Korean and 12,800 US troops will take  part in the Key Resolve/Foal Eagle drills, which the North has labelled a  preparation for war.Key Resolve, a command post exercise  involving computer simulation, will last until March 10. Part of Foal  Eagle, a joint air, ground and naval training exercise, will continue  through April 30.The exercise reportedly includes scenarios such  as localised provocations, tracing weapons of mass destruction, a sudden  regime change in the communist state and an exodus of refugees, Yonhap  news agency reported.It also said the US planned to deploy it 97,000-tonne aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan for the drills.Cross-border  tension has been acute since the North's deadly shelling of a frontier  island in November that killed four South Koreans including two  civilians and sparked fears of war.The first attack on civilians  since the 1950-53 Korean War prompted Seoul to stage a series of  military drills alone or with the United States and to expand regular  exercises in a show of force against Pyongyang.The South also  revived a propaganda campaign across the heavily-fortified border  targeting ordinary North Koreans -- a practice it had suspended since  2000 due to protests by the North.Conservative opposition  politician Song Young-Sun, citing a report from the defence ministry,  said on Friday balloons carrying humanitarian supplies such as medicine  and clothes were being launched across the border by the military.She  said the balloons also carried news of civil uprisings against  repressive regimes in the Arab World and were aimed at getting  information to the people of North Korea, who are largely cut off from  the outside world.The South's private activists also have for  years used helium balloons to smuggle US dollar notes, DVDs and leaflets  denouncing the North's regime and leader Kim Jong-Il into the hermit  state.The North threatened on Sunday it would begin firing on  border areas where the South's activists and military launch the  balloons."Our army will stage a direct fire at... sources of the  anti-DPRK psychological warfare to destroy them on the principle of  self-defence, if such actions last despite our repeated warning," KCNA  said.Pyongyang tightly controls access to the Internet and  attempts to block other sources of information about the outside world.  But DVDs and mobile phones smuggled from China have been eroding  barriers.A survey by two US academics of some 1,600 refugees from  the North found that roughly half of them had access to foreign news or  entertainment -- a sharp rise from the 1990s.<a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ju0VF9x69mYuG7ViFnC1qNaH2Fkw?docId=CNG.1de1d43eba079baba9d7893981d8c7a1.b1" target="_blank">AFP</a></blockquote>

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