North Korea has lashed out at the United States for imposing \"double standards\" on Pyongyang\'s recent rocket launch, calling the US move a product of its \"hostile policy\" toward the North. \"The US malignantly slandered the (North\'s) satellite launch as \'a long-range missile launch\' and spearheaded a campaign for \'protesting\' against it for no reason,\" the North\'s Foreign Ministry said in an English-language statement carried late Monday by the country\'s official Korean Central News Agency. The ministry claimed the US backed \"other country\'s\" long-range missile launch, saying, \"The US application of the double standards is, in the final analysis, a product of its hostile policy towards\" the North. The latest statement came a week after the UN Security Council condemned the launch and called on member states to find ways to tighten sanctions on the communist country. North Korea launched a long-range rocket on April 13 to put what it claims was a satellite into orbit, but it exploded soon after lift-off, with the pieces falling into the sea off South Korea\'s west coast.