N. Korea urges S. Korea to stop Internet broadcasts on unification

SEOUL, Oct. 14 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Friday called on South Korea to halt its Internet broadcast service on inter-Korean affairs, condemning Seoul's move as a grave provocation.
The North's Committee for Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland also accused Seoul's Unification Ministry of trying to tarnish the image of North Korea.
The comments by the committee, which handles inter-Korean affairs, were carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.
The angry reaction came two weeks after the South's ministry, which is in charge of relations with North Korea, launched the weekly television broadcasts and one-hour daily online radio broadcasts to try to raise public awareness on potential unification with North Korea.
The North has recently issued a series of military threats against South Korea over anti-Pyongyang leaflets that Pyongyang claims are aimed at toppling the communist regime.
For years, North Korean defectors and other South Korean activists have frequently sent leaflets calling for an uprising against North Korean leader Kim Jong-il over the border by balloon.
The North's latest rhetoric came hours after U.S. President Barack Obama said North Koreans have the same desire as people in the Middle East for freedom of speech and the right to decide their own destiny.
Popular uprisings across the Arab world ousted longtime autocratic leaders earlier this year.
"Although the path from dictatorship to democracy is always uncertain and fraught with danger, what we've seen also is that human spirit eventually will defeat repressive governments," Obama said in a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak after their summit talks in Washington on Thursday.
Still, many experts are skeptical about an Arab Spring-style popular uprising in the isolated country, citing North Korean authorities' intolerance of dissent and tight control over any flow of information within and across the country's borders.