North Korea Slams Aid Conditions

North Korea today unleashed a rhetorical tirade against the new South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, amid worries about renewed friction on the peninsula.

In its fiercest personal attack since Lee took power in February, Pyongyang's state media said the president's more assertive stance in talks on nuclear decommissioning would result in "catastrophic consequences".

In a shift from the "sunshine policy" of engagement pursued by his two predecessors, Lee says humanitarian assistance depends on the progress made by Pyongyang in dismantling its nuclear weapons program. North Korea is furious that the two issues are being linked.

In commentary today, the Communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun labeled Lee a "political charlatan", an "absent-minded traitor" and a "US sycophant".

Hostilities are rising. Last week, Pyongyang test-fired three missiles and ordered South Korean officials to leave a shared industrial zone.

Military commanders in the south have talked hypothetically about targeting suspected North Korean nuclear facilities. In response, a North Korean military commentator warned at the weekend that the south would be reduced to "ashes" in a pre-emptive strike.

But the two sides are still far from the furious confrontations that marked much of the cold war.

Over the past 10 years of liberal rule in the South, Seoul and Pyongyang have moved closer toward reconciliation. They have held two summits, reconnected road and rail links and conducted a handful of reunions of divided families.

Lee has proposed an aid package that he says would lift average incomes in the North to $3,000, but Pyongyang has dismissed the plan as "piffle".