October 12 - North Korea warns of 'all-out war'

North Korea on Saturday issued a fresh warning of an "all-out war", urging the United States to stop military drills and what it described as "nuclear blackmail".

In a thinly veiled threat to strike the United States, the North's National Defence Commission (NDC), chaired by leader Kim Jong-Un, said the US government must withdraw its policy of hostility against the North if it wants peace on both the Korean peninsula and the "US mainland".

"(The United States) must bear it in mind that reckless provocative acts would meet our retaliatory strikes and lead to an all-out war of justice for a final showdown with the United States," a spokesman of the NDC was quoted as saying in a statement carried by Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency. "We emphasize again that the United States must withdraw various measures aimed to isolate and strangulate us. Dependent upon this are... peace and security, not only on the Korean peninsula but the US mainland as well."