To: bentway who wrote (490668 ) 6/25/2009 4:34:39 PM From: longnshort Respond to of 1573867 So much for the world loving us once Obeyme becomes Pres. Brimming with Nuclear Bombast, North Korea Warns Foes Article Tools Sponsored By By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: June 25, 2009 SEOUL, South Korea — About 100,000 North Koreans rallied and marched in Pyongyang on Thursday, the Communist state’s official media reported, as the regime threatened a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation” against the United States and its ally South Korea. North Korea commemorated the Thursday anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 with a state-mobilized display of anti-American fervor. It was the first time in three years that North Korea commemorated the anniversary with a massive outdoor rally. The crowd brimmed with anti-American slogans and speeches, denouncing the U.S.-led international sanctions the United Nations recently imposed on the North following its May 25 nuclear test. A large poster hung at the rally showed a rifle tipped with a bayonet over a hill covered with graves and admonished: “If you attack, only death will await you.”Such harsh statements are a hallmark of North Korean rhetoric against the United States and its allies, which the North regularly threaten with a “nuclear holocaust.” But its tone has recently grown more strident. “Our revolutionary armed forces will deal an annihilating blow that is unpredictable and unavoidable, to any ‘sanctions’ or provocations by the U.S.,” a speaker told the crowd, according to the Korean Central News Agency, the North’s state-run news service North Korean media said the North would never give up but strengthen its “nuclear deterrent” because of what it called an American plot to invade the North. Rodong Sinmun, Pyongyang’s main newspaper, said that Washington’s recent pledge to defend South Korea was tantamount to “asking for the calamitous situation of having a fire shower of nuclear retaliation all over South Korea.” International sanctions could further isolate the already impoverished North. But the regime appears to be is using them to stoke anti-American anger and consolidate its power at home at a time when the leader, Kim Jong-il, is seeking to bequeath his power to one of his sons, according to both officials and private analysts in Seoul. Mr. Kim, 67, is reported to have suffered a stoke last August.nytimes.com .