{"id":75929,"date":"2014-12-20T20:41:17","date_gmt":"2014-12-20T20:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=75929"},"modified":"2014-12-20T20:41:17","modified_gmt":"2014-12-20T20:41:17","slug":"north-korea-seeks-joint-probe-us-sony-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=75929","title":{"rendered":"North Korea seeks joint probe with US on Sony hack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\" class=\"introduction\">North Korea has offered to hold a joint inquiry with the United States into a cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, strongly denying US claims that it is behind it.<\/p>\n<p>Its foreign ministry accused the US of &#8220;spreading groundless allegations&#8221;, which the joint probe would refute.<\/p>\n<p>Without addressing Pyongyang&#8217;s idea, a US spokesman insisted that North Korea must admit &#8220;culpability&#8221; .<\/p>\n<p>Sony has cancelled the release of The Interview, which includes plans to kill the fictional Kim Jong-un.<\/p>\n<p>The Interview had been due to open on Christmas Day. However, after anonymous threats against cinemas, Sony said it was considering releasing it &#8220;on a different platform&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI said on Friday that North Korea carried out last month&#8217;s cyber-attack, in which script details and private emails were leaked.<\/p>\n<p>The US defended its findings on Saturday, saying &#8220;we are confident the North Korean government is responsible for this destructive attack&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If the North Korean government wants to help, they can admit their culpability and compensate Sony for the damages this attack caused,&#8221; US National Security spokesman Mark Stroh said.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"cross-head\">Dire warning<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, the North Korean foreign ministry said: &#8220;As the United States is spreading groundless allegations and slandering us, we propose a joint investigation with it into this incident.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Without resorting to such tortures as were used by the US CIA, we have means to prove that this incident has nothing to do with us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The statement said there would be &#8220;grave consequences&#8221; if the Americans rejected their inquiry proposal.<\/p>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79860000\/jpg\/_79860817_025162076-1.jpg\" alt=\"The Interview poster, New York, 18 December\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\">The film had been scheduled for release on 25 December<\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\">\n<p>On Friday US President Barack Obama criticised the cancellation, saying he wished Sony executives had spoken to him before cancelling the release.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship,&#8221; he said, vowing to &#8220;respond&#8221; to the cyber-attack in a &#8220;manner that we choose&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Responding to the US president&#8217;s comments, Sony Pictures chief executive and chairman Michael Lynton said the studio had not made an error in cancelling the release.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have not given in, we have persevered,&#8221; he told CNN.<\/p>\n<p>A Sony statement said the decision had been based on &#8220;the majority of the nation&#8217;s theatre owners choosing not to screen the film&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Without theatres, we could not release it in the theatres on Christmas Day. We had no choice,&#8221; the statement added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is still our hope that anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The movie features James Franco and Seth Rogen as two journalists who are granted an audience with Mr Kim.<\/p>\n<p>The CIA then enlists the pair to assassinate him.<\/p>\n<p>The film&#8217;s cancelled release drew criticism in Hollywood, with some calling it an attack on the freedom of expression.<\/p>\n<p>Actor George Clooney told the trade website Deadline on Thursday the film should be released online, saying Hollywood should not be threatened by North Korea.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>North Korea has offered to hold a joint inquiry with the United States into a cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, strongly denying US claims that it is behind it. Its foreign ministry accused the US of &#8220;spreading groundless allegations&#8221;, which the joint probe would refute. Without addressing Pyongyang&#8217;s idea, a US spokesman insisted that North Korea [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":75930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[34,6],"class_list":["post-75929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-ghana-standards-authority","tag-togbe-afede"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}