North Korea releases propaganda video showing US aircraft carrier being blown up
North Korea has released its latest propaganda video showing a US aircraft carrier being blown up as it warned the US against carrying out military action.
The clip was released at the weekend when it conducted a ground test of a new type of high-thrust rocket engine that leader Kim Jong-un called a revolutionary breakthrough for the country's space programme.
Displaying images taken from its own recent ballistic missile launches and US/South Korean military exercises, it then shows a superimposed image of the USS Carl Vinson on fire, with the warning: “A knife will be stabbed into the throat of the carrier.”
It then shows an image of a B-1B bomber in flames, declaring: “The bomber will fall from the sky after getting hit by a hail of fire.”
Pyongyang, which released a similar video showing a nuclear attack on the White House in 2013, released the latest video at a time of heightened tensions with the US.
On Friday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signalled a tougher strategy from Donald Trump, suggesting the possibility of pre-emptive military action was on the table.
"Let me be very clear: The policy of strategic patience has ended," he said in South Korea. "We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security and economic measures. All options are on the table."
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North Korea said on Monday it was not frightened by such threats and nothing would stop its nuclear programme.
"The nuclear force of (North Korea) is the treasured sword of justice and the most reliable war deterrence to defend the socialist motherland and the life of its people," the official Korean Central News Agency quoted a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry as saying.
A senior US official told Reuters on Monday the Trump administration was considering sweeping sanctions aimed at cutting North Korea off from the global financial system as part of a broad review.
The sanctions would be part of a multi-pronged approach of increased economic and diplomatic pressure - especially on Chinese banks and firms that do the most business with North Korea - plus beefed-up defences by the United States and its South Korean and Japanese allies, according to the administration official familiar with the deliberations.
