North Korea Goes Youtube for Propaganda

North Korea has opened an account with the global video-sharing website YouTube, uploading clips praising the isolated communist state and denying allegations that it sank a South Korean warship.

Eleven clips were found Tuesday under the name of uriminzokkiri, a North Korean government website.

One English-language video with a duration of five minutes and 56 seconds praised leader Kim Jong-Il, calling him as a "general sent by the heaven."

Another clip posted a week ago berates South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan over his controversial remarks last month that young South Korean leftists should not enjoy freedom in the South but should live under Kim Jong-Il.

A third clip, also uploaded a week earlier, ridicules Seoul for its failure to prevent the UN Security Council from including Pyongyang's denial in its statement deploring the deadly March sinking of the Cheonan warship.

The North denies responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan near the disputed inter-Korean sea border in the Yellow Sea, which claimed 46 lives.

Tensions have risen sharply since late May when South Korea and the United States, citing a multinational investigation, accused the North of torpedoing the corvette, the Cheonan.

North Korea has been expanding the use of the Internet in its propaganda offensive, Yonhap news agency said.

In June, a North Korean woman uploaded a clip praising the communist state on YouTube, drawing media attention in South Korea and abroad.(AFP)