North Korea is feeling ignored and issuing new threats, saying it will not give any warning before any attack on South Korea.

Pyongyang’s state news agency ran a statement reading “Our retaliatory action will start without any notice from now,” promising “sledge-hammer blows” of retaliation if South Korea did not apologize for anti-North Korean protests attended by a small group of senior citizens in Seoul, something that conservatives in the South do several times a year anyway.

Pyongyang is also miffed about ongoing joint military exercises with South Korea and the United States.  It comes a day after North Korea celebrated the birthday of founder Kim Il Sung, grandfather of the current “dear leader” Kim Jong-Il.

In Washington, President Obama said in an interview broadcast Tuesday that he does not believe that North Korea has the ability to produce a miniature nuclear device to mount onto the warhead of a missile of any range.  That’s a contradiction of an earlier report from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency which said with “moderate confidence” that Pyongyang was able to do so.