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N.Korea’s Internet collapses after Sony hack

– ‘Absurd’ call for hack probe –

But Zmijewski stressed it was impossible to say what had caused the outage. “They could have elected to simply pull the plug or they could have suffered from some sort of failure or attack,” he said.

Pyongyang has called for a joint investigation into the Sony hack, and vowed reprisals if the US brings in new sanctions such as restoring the country to a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The diplomatic row comes as China failed on Monday to block the first-ever UN Security Council meeting on North Korea’s dismal rights record after a strong majority of members voted in favor of it.

US ambassador Samantha Power — backed by envoys from Britain, Australia and France — said North Korean citizens experience a “living nightmare” of political repression.

She recalled testimony from a starving prison camp survivor who picked kernels of corn from cattle dung to eat, and of a former guard who said prison wardens routinely raped prisoners.

Power dismissed Pyongyang’s offer of a joint investigation into the hack as “absurd,” urging the council to take action against North Korean leaders.

No decision was taken on Monday on a call to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, but campaigners urged the body to keep the issue alive.

North Korea has limited access to the worldwide web with just four networks on the global Internet, compared to 150,000 in the United States, analysts say.

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All of North Korea’s routing is done through China Netcom, which is now part of China Unicom, Zmijewski said.

Washington has urged Beijing — Pyongyang’s closest ally — to help rein in the North’s cyber hacking activities, with US Secretary of State John Kerry speaking with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi over the weekend to discuss the problem.

China’s foreign ministry on Monday condemned “cyber terrorism” in any form but did not refer directly to North Korea.

Pyongyang’s main Internet presence is through its Uriminzokkiri website, which has Twitter and Flickr feeds and is best known for posting propaganda videos excoriating South Korea and the United States.

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