Aamer Madhani

USA TODAY

North Korea has suffered another Internet disruption, according to news reports.

China's Xinhua news agency reported Saturday that North Korea's Internet and 3G mobile phone networks had been paralyzed once again.

The report of the latest internet outage to hit the hermetic regime comes as North Korea hurled a racist insult at President Obama and accused the United States of being behind widespread Internet interruptions that have bedeviled the country in recent days.

An unidentified spokesman for North Korea's National Defense Commission told the official Korean Central News Agency, "Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest."

The Obama administration last week blamed North Korea for launching a cyberattack on Sony Pictures in response to the comedy The Interview, which depicts the assassination plot of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by American journalists played by actors Seth Rogen and James Franco.

Sony Pictures initially called off the film's release after hackers threatened 9/11-style attacks on theaters screening the movie. Obama called the move "a mistake," and many across the USA were outraged by what was perceived as a capitulation to terrorists, an infringement on American sovereignty and a threat to freedom of expression.

Sony Pictures then reversed its decision and released the film on a limited number of screens across the country on Christmas Day and made it available for digital rental and purchase online.

It's not the first time that the North Koreans have thrown racially-charged insults at Obama. In May, the official North Korean news agency referred to Obama as a "crossbreed" and "wicked black monkey" not long after he had met with South Korea President Park Geun-hye.

North Korea has denounced the film but maintains that it was not behind the Sony attack, which exposed executives' private e-mails and yet-to-be-released films.

U.S. officials have not commented on whether the country had a role in the Internet outages. Last week, Obama said the U.S. would take unspecified action against North Korea.

Internet and mobile service had not returned as of 9:30 p.m. local time, Xinhua reported. The official Chinese news agency cited reporters in the country that had confirmed the situation over landline telephone systems.

Relatively few North Koreans have access to the Internet. Roughly 1.7 million of country's 25 million people have cellphones, according to the website Gizmodo.