US Counterfeiting Own Money?

Now a few weeks back this would have been something I'd just shrug off. I mean it is coming from NoKo, but then there were disclosures Bush wanted to paint a spy plane in UN colors and send it over Iran. His hope was Iran would shoot it down, or at least at it, thus provoking a US attack. Now I'm not so sure this claim is idle.

North Korea has charged the United States with counterfeiting its own currency and shifting the blame to Pyongyang, adding artists with "blood-shot eyes" in Japan are making cartoons attacking Pyongyang's leaders.

A spokesman for the Ministry of People's Security said in a statement the North had obtained "shocking evidence" Washington and Tokyo are producing false material that gives the impression Pyongyang is a criminal state, the North's KCNA news agency said late Wednesday.

"The CIA secretly enlist(s) experts on counterfeiting notes claimed to be the 'most sophisticated in the world' and invite(s) them to issue lots of fake currencies at 'counterfeit notes printing houses of North Korean-style' operating in U.S. military bases in different parts of the world," the spokesman said.

Can you say regime change? Yeah, I thought you could.

Officials from the United States, Japan and other regional powers have been trying to get North Korea to return to stalled talks on ending Pyongyang's atomic programs.

The talks have hit a snag over a U.S. crackdown on firms Washington suspects of aiding North Korea in illicit activities such as counterfeiting and drug trafficking.

North Korea has said it is unthinkable for it to return to the nuclear talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States when Washington is trying to topple its rulers through financial pressure.

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