North Korea threatens critics from South over book review

North Korea on Thursday vowed to execute reporters from two South Korean newspapers, saying they insulted the country’s dignity while reviewing and interviewing the British authors of a book about life in the isolated country.

Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency carried a state court statement expressing anger over the descriptions of North Korean lives as increasingly capitalist.

It also objected to the translated title of the South Korean edition as Capitalist People’s Republic of Korea and the book’s cover that replaced the red star in North Korea’s official seal with the US dollar mark.

The court also “sentenced to death” the presidents of the newspapers and said the North will “track down to the end and cut off the dirty windpipes” of those responsible for such provocations.