North Korea’s military threatened Monday to blow up the Seoul offices of South Korean media outlets following critical coverage of a mass children’s event in Pyongyang. The military general staff, in an unusually detailed statement on the official news agency, said missile units and other forces had fixed the longitude and latitude coordinates for several firms’ offices in central Seoul. The statement named the Chosun Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo newspapers, a TV channel operated by Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, and the KBS, CBS, MBC and SBS television stations. The North’s military accused conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak of inciting the coverage and called on him to apologise to avert an attack. “In case dens of monstrous crimes are blown up one after another, the Lee group will be entirely held responsible for this,” it said in what it termed an “open ultimatum”. The North’s military accused the South’s government and media outlets of portraying the event as a propaganda gimmick staged by Pyongyang’s leadership.
