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Quotes of the Day:
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and more courage so rare.”
– Mark Twain
“Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
– Francis of Assisi
1. Why Is North Korea Launching Balloons Carrying Trash?
2. US and allies clash with China and Russia over North Korea's launches and threats to use nukes
3. N. Korea sends some 720 more trash-carrying balloons to S. Korea, continues GPS jamming for 5 days
4. S. Korea, U.S. defense chiefs condemn ‘reckless’ N.K. provocations | Yonhap News Agency
5. Vehicle damaged by trash-carrying balloons from N. Korea
6. US doubtful it could help Korea on nuclear-powered subs
7. N. Korea's Kim inspects 1st lecture at newly built ruling party training school
8. South to launch 'unendurable' response to North's trash balloons
9. South, U.S. vow 'stern response' to North's missiles, balloons
10. South Korea Finds Itself Powerless To Stop Excrement-Filled Balloons in Apparent Public Relations Win for the North
11. Man Who Started North Korea Balloon Fight Plots Revenge for Poop Attack
12. South Korea to resume loudspeaker broadcasts along DMZ
1. Why Is North Korea Launching Balloons Carrying Trash?
Information is an existential threat to Kim Jong Un and the Kim family regime. It is also the key to unlocking freedom for the Korean people in the north and the foundation for creating the conditions for regime transition.
And more than information itself is the example of the South. The lives the Korean people in the South live, the prosperity they have, and the opportunities they have are all a threat to the regime.
On the statement that the balloon rivalry goes back decades - when I was on the DMZ in the 1980s our platoons would come back from PT with half inflated nK balloons filled with propaganda because the balloons had gone down in t e DMZ. Sometimes they could come back from a ruck march marching in formation with a half inflated balloon making them look like they were marching down 5th Ave in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade.
We also used to have propaganda leaflet drop boxes on Yongsan as we would find north Korean leaflets that made it that far South of the DMZ.
Why Is North Korea Launching Balloons Carrying Trash? - The New York Times
nytimes.com · by Choe Sang-Hun · June 2, 2024
The unusual offensive, across the world’s most heavily fortified border, is a revival of a Cold War era tactic. The South has threatened to respond by blasting K-pop.
Listen to this article · 5:18 min Learn more
Collecting debris sent by balloon from North Korea at a shopping center west of Seoul.Credit…Yonhap, via EPA, via Shutterstock
By Choe Sang-Hun
Reporting from Seoul
June 2, 2024, 4:07 a.m. ET
North Korea launched 720 balloons across the world’s most heavily armed border overnight Saturday, hitting South Korea with their payloads: plastic bags full of cigarette butts and other trash.
Since last Tuesday, North Korea has sent roughly 1,000 of these trash balloons across the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. Once the balloons reached South Korean airspace, their timers released the plastic bags containing assorted rubbish, including scraps of used paper and cloth.
The South Korean military dismissed initial reports that the balloons were carrying human waste, but it did note that some of the trash appeared to be compost.
So far, the authorities in the South have found “nothing hazardous” in the payloads. But if North Korea persisted in its “nonsensical and irrational provocation,” the South warned of taking “all steps North Korea could find unbearable.”
Its officials indicated that they might switch on their loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border to blare K-pop music, which the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has found so threatening that he once called it a “vicious cancer.”
The North has cast the floating offensive as “tit-for-tat action.” It has accused North Korean defectors living in South Korea of “scattering leaflets and various dirty things” over its border counties in recent days.
Here’s what to know about the unusual offensive.
It has been unsettling but not disruptive.
When South Korea reports objects launched from North Korea, they are usually rockets carrying satellites or ballistic missiles of a kind the North says is capable of delivering nuclear warheads. But the North’s actions in the past week have been a revival of a Cold War era tactic: propaganda balloons as psychological warfare.
Last week’s balloon offensive triggered some confusion and public complaints when the government mistakenly warned people near the border of an “air raid.”
Mostly South Koreans remained calm, treating the episode as little more than irritating antics from the North. On social media, people posted pictures of the North Korean balloons in trees, on farmland or on urban side streets bursting with trash.
One of the North Korean balloons that landed in South Korean farmland.Credit…Yonhap, via Reuters
But there was an ominous undertone when South Korea urged people not to touch the balloons and to report them to the authorities immediately. North Korea is known to hold large stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, which its agents once used to assassinate Mr. Kim’s estranged half brother, Kim Jong-nam.
Photos and video footage released by the South Korean military on Sunday showed officers clad in biohazard and bomb-disposal gear inspecting the trash piles.
The balloon rivalry goes back decades.
During the Cold War, North and South Korea waged psychological warfare. They tried to influence each other’s citizens with shortwave radio broadcasts laden with propaganda. Along the DMZ, loudspeakers bombarded rival soldiers day and night with propaganda songs. Billboards urged the soldiers to defect to a “people’s paradise” in the North or to the “free and democratic” South.
And the two Koreas launched leaflet-laden balloons into each other’s airspace. Millions of such leaflets vilifying the other side’s government were scattered over the Korean Peninsula, material that both Koreas banned their people from reading or keeping. In the South, the police rewarded children with pencils and other school supplies when they found the leaflets in the hills and reported them.
But until fairly recently, balloons from North Korea seldom carried common trash.
A court decision allowed the balloons to fly again.
By the 1990s, it was clear that the North’s propaganda was losing its relevance as the South’s economy pulled ahead. The South had become a vibrant democracy and a global export powerhouse, while the North suffered chronic food shortages and relied on a personality cult and a total information blackout to control its people.
When their leaders held the first inter-Korean summit meeting in 2000, the two Koreas agreed to end government-sponsored efforts to influence each other’s citizens. But North Korean defectors and conservative and Christian activists in the South carried on the information war, sending balloons laden with mini-Bibles, transistor radios, household medicine, computer thumb drives containing K-pop music and drama, and leaflets that called Mr. Kim a “pig.”
To them, their payloads contained “truth” and “freedom of expression” that would help awaken North Koreans from their government’s brainwashing. To Pyongyang, they were nothing more than political “filth,” and North Korean leaders vowed to retaliate in kind.
Then the government in Seoul enacted a law that banned the sending of leaflets to the North, saying they did little more than provoke Pyongyang. But a few years later, in 2023, a court ruled the law unconstitutional, and last month the activists resumed launching balloons.
“We have tried something they have always been doing, but I cannot understand why they are making a fuss as if they were hit by a shower of bullets,” Kim Yo-jong, Mr. Kim’s sister and spokeswoman, said last week. “If they experience how unpleasant the feeling of picking up filth is and how tired it is, they will know that it is not easy to dare talk about freedom of expression.”
is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
nytimes.com · by Choe Sang-Hun · June 2, 2024
2. US and allies clash with China and Russia over North Korea's launches and threats to use nukes
The sides are clear.
Calling out China and Russia for their malign activities is good. I hope our Deputy UN Ambassador added a human rights component to his statement (e.g., the suffering of the Korea people because of the prioritization of missiles and nuclear weapons over their welfare) that just is not being reported by the press.
Excerpts:
U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood urged the Security Council to condemn the DPRK’s launches and hold it accountable for violating U.N. sanctions.
“But two council members, China and Russia, continuously block the Security Council from speaking against the DPRK’s behavior with one voice and makes us all less safe,” he said.
Wood also accused the DPRK of unlawfully transferring dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 containers of munitions to Russia to aid its war against Ukraine, “prolonging the suffering of the Ukrainian people.”
He rejected as “groundless” and disingenuous” claims by the DPRK and its supporters on the council that its missile launches are a response to U.S.-led military exercises.
US and allies clash with China and Russia over North Korea's launches and threats to use nukes
BY EDITH M. LEDERER
Updated 9:19 PM EDT, May 31, 2024
AP · June 1, 2024
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States and allies South Korea and Japan clashed with China and Russia Friday over North Korea’s latest satellite and ballistic missile launches and threats to use nuclear weapons that have escalated tensions in northeast Asia.
The scene was an emergency open meeting of the U.N. Security Council called after North Korea’s failed launch of a military reconnaissance satellite on May 27 and other launches using ballistic missile technology in violation of U.N. sanctions.
Since the beginning of 2022, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – the North’s official name – has launched over 100 missiles using this banned technology as it has advanced its nuclear weapons program. In response, the U.S. and its allies have carried out an increasing number of military exercises.
U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari briefed the council meeting saying sovereign states have the right to benefit from peaceful space activities – but the DPRK is expressly prohibited from conducting launches using ballistic missile technology and its continuing violations undermine global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation treaties.
“We remain deeply concerned about growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” Khiari said. “There is a need for practical measures to reduce tensions, reverse the dangerous dynamic, and create space to explore diplomatic avenues.”
North Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Kim Song insisted that its satellite launches – and it had a successful one last November – are “the legitimate and universal right of a sovereign state” under international law and the Outer Space Treaty. He stressed that reconnaissance satellites are not only needed to strengthen its self-defense capabilities but to defend its sovereignty.
Kim told the Security Council that the “massive deployment of strategic assets and aggressive war exercises” by the United States on the Korean Peninsula and in the region have broken all records and destroyed the military balance.
This has turned the Korean Peninsula “into the most fragile zone in the world, fraught with the danger of outbreak of war,” he said, claiming that joint military exercises since the beginning of the year are “a U.S.-led nuclear war rehearsal.”
The DPRK ambassador said the Security Council shouldn’t waste time debating the legitimate rights of a sovereign state, but should direct its attention to putting an immediate end to the killing of civilians in Gaza, “which continues unabated under U.S. patronage.”
South Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Joonkook Hwang said it should be his country – not the DPRK – that should claim the right to self-defense.
He said the DPRK’s nuclear policy and its rhetoric “are getting increasing aggressive and hostile,” and Pyongyang no longer views its nuclear arsenal as just a deterrent against the United States, “but instead as a means to attack my country.”
He quoted DPRK leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, saying two weeks ago that the only purpose of their tactical nuclear weapons “is to teach a lesson to Seoul.”
U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood urged the Security Council to condemn the DPRK’s launches and hold it accountable for violating U.N. sanctions.
“But two council members, China and Russia, continuously block the Security Council from speaking against the DPRK’s behavior with one voice and makes us all less safe,” he said.
Wood also accused the DPRK of unlawfully transferring dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 containers of munitions to Russia to aid its war against Ukraine, “prolonging the suffering of the Ukrainian people.”
He rejected as “groundless” and disingenuous” claims by the DPRK and its supporters on the council that its missile launches are a response to U.S.-led military exercises.
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Anna Evstigneeva countered that “one of the key catalysts for the growing tensions in the region has been and remains the build-up of military activity by the U.S. and its allies.”
U.S.-led military drills against the DPRK and numerous other hostile acts with a threatening military component “are provoking countermeasures from North Korea, which is forced to take action to strengthen its national defense capacity,” she said.
Evstigneeva claimed “the unstable situation around the Korean Peninsula is of benefit to Washington, which continues to confidently and deliberately pursue the path of confrontation instead of dialogue.”
She also dismissed claims that Russia is engaging in illegal military and technical cooperation with the DPRK as “absolutely unfounded.”
China’s U.N. ambassador, Fu Cong, called the situation on the Korean Peninsula “highly tense, with antagonism and confrontation escalating,” and called on all parties to exercise restraint and avoid any actions or rhetoric that might increase tension.
He warned that a planned large-scale joint military exercise on the peninsula in August “practicing a scenario involving a nuclear war” will only increase tensions.
U.S. envoy Wood retorted that “the United States is in no way a threat to the DPRK,” stressing that the U.S. offer to reach out “an open hand” and hold talks with the DPRK without preconditions over the past few years “has been met with a clenched fist.”
AP · June 1, 2024
3. N. Korea sends some 720 more trash-carrying balloons to S. Korea, continues GPS jamming for 5 days
The north Korean S**t show continues. But it is the electronic warfare that concerns me.
(3rd LD) N. Korea sends some 720 more trash-carrying balloons to S. Korea, continues GPS jamming for 5 days | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Han-joo · June 2, 2024
(ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead; UPDATES with more info throughout)
SEOUL, June 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has sent around 720 more balloons carrying trash to South Korea and continued jamming GPS signals for five straight days against the South, Seoul's military said Sunday, as South Korea's presidential office was considering taking countermeasures.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it has detected some 720 balloons that floated across the Military Demarcation Line separating the two Koreas and fell in different parts of the country between 8 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
The balloons carried various pieces of trash, such as cigarette butts, paper and plastic bags, just like the previous balloons, according to the JCS.
"About 20 to 50 balloons are moving per hour through the air and coming down in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, North Chungcheong Province and North Gyeongsang Province," a JCS official said on the condition of anonymity.
The official later stated that no additional balloons had been detected after 1 p.m.
This photo, provided by the Incheon Fire Service, shows a Norean Korean balloon carrying trash found in Incheon, 27 kilometers west of Seoul, on June 2, 2024. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
North Korea previously sent around 260 balloons carrying trash and excrement to the South on Tuesday and Wednesday after it warned of a "tit-for-tat action" against anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent by the South's activists.
The total number of balloons is similar to the total amount observed annually in the 2016-2017 period.
The JCS advised people not to touch the objects and report them to nearby military or police authorities. It also warned of possible danger from the balloons.
The military dispatched teams to recover the debris instead of shooting down the balloons, as the possibility of them carrying toxic chemicals cannot be completely ruled out.
There have been no reports of injuries so far.
The Seoul city government also said Sunday that it will operate an emergency center 24 hours a day to respond to such objects.
This image, provided by South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) on June 2, 2024, shows military personnel collecting debris of trash-carrying North Korean balloons in Seoul. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
North Korea has been jamming GPS signals near the border since Wednesday.
The North's balloon launches come after a recent series of provocative steps, including the botched attempt to launch a spy satellite Monday. The country staged GPS jamming attacks in waters near South Korea's northwestern border islands for the fourth straight day Saturday.
North Korea also fired a barrage of artillery from super-large multiple rocket launchers toward the East Sea on Thursday in a drill that it said was to demonstrate its resolve to conduct a preemptive strike against South Korea.
South Korea's presidential office is set to hold a meeting of the National Security Council later Sunday to discuss the North's balloon provocation.
Seoul's unification ministry warned Friday it will take "unendurably" painful measures against North Korea if it continues to stage "irrational" provocative acts.
South Korea may consider staging psychological warfare against North Korea, including military authorities' resumption of loudspeaker broadcasting along the border or the sending of leaflets critical of the North's regime.
On Sunday, the defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States denounced North Korea over its latest provocations, including the launches of trash-carrying balloons and a military spy satellite.
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, made the criticism as they met on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue.
This photo, provided by South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) on June 2, 2024, shows debris carried by North Korean balloons found in Seoul. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
khj@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Han-joo · June 2, 2024
4. S. Korea, U.S. defense chiefs condemn ‘reckless’ N.K. provocations | Yonhap News Agency
Please respond with an information campaign as President Yoon said he would in December 2022 in response to provocations. Let slip the PSYOP dogs of information and influence from the ROK and US militaries.
S. Korea, U.S. defense chiefs condemn ‘reckless’ N.K. provocations | Yonhap News Agency
Defense 13:13 June 02, 2024
SEOUL/SINGAPORE, June 2 (Yonhap) — The defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States denounced North Korea on Sunday over its latest provocations, including the launches of trash-carrying balloons and a military spy satellite, and vowed a firm response, the defense ministry said.
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, made the criticism as they met on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, following a series of provocative acts by North Korea that began last week.
The defense chiefs made clear that North Korea’s provocations and missile and nuclear development, amid its deepening military ties with Russia, heighten tensions not only on the Korean Peninsula but in the Indo-Pacific region as well, and vowed a stern response, the ministry said in a release.
Shin was quoted by the ministry as emphasizing that the North’s launch of trash-carrying balloons is a grave violation of the Armistice Agreement and pledged support for an ongoing investigation into the case by the U.N. Command.
Defense Minister Shin Won-sik (R) shakes hands with his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, during their meeting held on the sidelines of the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore on June 2, 2024, in this photo provided by Shin’s office. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
During Sunday’s talks, they reaffirmed continued efforts to deter North Korean threats and bolster the U.S. extended deterrence through bilateral consultative bodies, including the Nuclear Consultative Group, the ministry said.
Ahead of the South Korea-U.S. talks, Shin held a meeting with his Japanese and Australian counterparts, Minoru Kihara and Richard Marles, respectively, in what marked their first trilateral meeting, according to the ministry.
The defense chiefs of the three nations discussed ways to deter North Korean threats and seek regional peace and stability, it said.
The back-to-back meetings came as the North has floated some 900 balloons carrying manure and trash across the border since Tuesday after its botched attempt to launch a spy satellite Monday. The country staged GPS jamming attacks in waters near South Korea’s northwestern border islands for the fifth straight day Sunday.
North Korea also fired a barrage of artillery from super-large multiple rocket launchers toward the East Sea on Thursday in a drill that it said was to demonstrate its resolve to conduct a preemptive strike against South Korea.
mlee@yna.co.kr
(END)
Keywords
S. Korea, U.S. defense chiefs condemn ‘reckless’ N.K. provocations
5. Vehicle damaged by trash-carrying balloons from N. Korea
I wonder what filing the insurance claim looks like here. Is this covered?
Vehicle damaged by trash-carrying balloons from N. Korea | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Boram · June 2, 2024
SEOUL, June 2 (Yonhap) -- A vehicle was damaged by a balloon carrying trash from North Korea on the southern outskirts of Seoul on Sunday as Pyongyang has continued its provocative actions for five straight days against the South, police said.
A North Korean balloon, filled with pieces of trash, such as cigarette butts, paper and plastic bags, came down on a passenger car in a multi-complex housing area in Ansan, just 30 kilometers south of Seoul, at 10:22 a.m., according to the police.
The car's windshield was damaged due to the ballon, but no one was injured.
The police took control of the scene, and handed the balloon and its contents over to the military.
But they noted that it is difficult to obtain compensation for the damage caused by these balloons due to a lack of clear legal terms.
A military officer checks debris from trash-carrying North Korean balloons in Incheon, 27 kilometers west of Seoul, on June 2, 2024. (Yonhap)
brk@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Boram · June 2, 2024
6. US doubtful it could help Korea on nuclear-powered subs
Young Gyo Kim of VOA hosted Professor Eric French and me for a 10 minutes discussion of the nuclear powered submarine issue at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNGlZr6oqdY
US doubtful it could help Korea on nuclear-powered subs
The Korea Times · by 2024-06-01 15:49 | North Korea · June 1, 2024
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin delivering his speech at a plenary session of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) 21st Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, June 1, in a handout photo made available by the U.S. Department of Defense. EPA-Yonhap
The United States is unlikely to help Korea build nuclear-powered submarines at the moment, as it is stretched by AUKUS commitments to Australia, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Shangri-La security dialogue in Singapore.
In 2021 the United States signed the AUKUS pact with Britain and Australia to share nuclear-powered submarine technology and to sell at least three Virginia-class boats to Australia in the 2030s.
Several other allies, including Korea, have expressed interest in involvement.
Asked on Saturday at the security summit how he would respond to a direct Korean request for help obtaining nuclear submarines, Austin said it would be "very, very difficult" for Washington to accommodate that "on top of what we do right now."
"(AUKUS) is no small endeavour," he said. "We just started down this path with Australia. (It's) highly doubtful that we could take on another initiative of this type anytime in the near future."
The two-stage security pact aims to counteract China's growing power in the Asia-Pacific region. It will be the first time Washington has shared nuclear-propulsion technology since it did so with Britain in the 1950s.
It includes a second technology-sharing "pillar," besides the submarines, which has drawn interest from New Zealand and Japan.
"We believe that AUKUS is actually a good addition to regional security," New Zealand Defence Minister Judith Collins said on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue on Friday, adding that New Zealand had enquired about the second pillar
"We've had no actual invitation to join it but it is something that we are certainly looking at," she said.
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said that he could imagine other countries' involvement in the future but that the focus for now was on the U.S.-UK-Australia trio getting "runs on the board" of submarine projects, which are set to last decades. (Reuters)
The Korea Times · by 2024-06-01 15:49 | North Korea · June 1, 2024
7. N. Korea's Kim inspects 1st lecture at newly built ruling party training school
The number one party priority: ideological indoctrination (not education or even training but indoctrination).
N. Korea's Kim inspects 1st lecture at newly built ruling party training school | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Han-joo · June 2, 2024
SEOUL, June 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected the first lecture held at a newly built school for the country's ruling party officials, state media reported Sunday.
The visit to the opening ceremony of the Central Cadres Training School of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in Pyongyang took place Saturday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The visit follows visits on May 15 and May 22. He also inspected its construction on March 30.
While inspecting the lecture, Kim said, "The school should make all the educational processes and everyday life a good lecture helping the students steadily get ideological and moral pabulum necessary for Party work and revolutionary work and possess communist traits," according to the KCNA's English dispatch.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C, standing) inspects a lecture at the newly built Central Cadres Training School of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang on June 1, 2024, in this photo released by the North's official Korean Central News Agency the following day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
The training school, which traces its roots back to the Central Party School established in 1946, is the highest educational facility to train WPK officials.
"Talented party cadres capable of leading the development of all fields of politics, military, the economy and culture and of all regions constitute the most valuable and decisive resources for a ruling party, and their role grows more important the more the revolution and construction advance," Kim said.
Other members of the WPK, such as Premier Kim Tok-hun and Jo Yong-won, secretary for organizational affairs, also attended the training course under "the Party's policy on in-service retraining," according to the KCNA. Kim also inspected the retraining lecture as well.
The construction of its new campus began in April last year, reflecting North Korea's priority on educating future party officials as it seeks to tighten social discipline against the inflow of outside information amid economic difficulties.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks during the opening ceremony of the newly built Central Cadres Training School of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang on June 1, 2024, in this photo released by the North's official Korean Central News Agency the following day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
khj@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Han-joo · June 2, 2024
8. South to launch 'unendurable' response to North's trash balloons
The only unendurable response to the regime's actions is overwhelming information for the Korean people in the north. Let's not make empty threats of only rhetoric. Let us launch a comprehensive information campaign against the regime that will have the very important benefit of helping the Korean people in the north which is what the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry recommends that member nations do. Show the north what right looks like when it comes to providing information to the people.
Sunday
June 2, 2024
dictionary + A - A
Published: 02 Jun. 2024, 19:34
South to launch 'unendurable' response to North's trash balloons
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-06-02/national/northKorea/South-to-launch-unendurable-response-to-Norths-trash-balloons/2059931
A South Korean soldier uses a chemical testing device to inspect trash strewn across the ground near a weather observatory in Incheon's Jung District on Sunday morning after a balloon sent over the border by the North landed there. [YONHAP]
South Korea’s National Security Council (NSC) agreed at an emergency meeting on Sunday to take measures the North would find “unendurable” for launching hundreds of trash-laden balloons across into the South, according to a presidential official.
The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity during a closed-door briefing, said participants at Sunday’s NSC meeting decided Seoul should take steps to retaliate against multiple actions by the North in the past week.
Calling Pyongyang’s “provocations” a “threat to the safety of the South Korean people,” the official said Seoul intends to “undertake measures that the North will find unendurable.”
While declining to specify the exact nature of the measures under consideration, the official said that similar acts by the North in the future would be met with an “even stronger response” from the South.
Over the past week, the North has conducted multiple acts that the South has condemned as violations of both international law and the armistice that concluded fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War.
According to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) on Sunday, North Korea sent approximately 720 balloons laden with trash into South Korea over the weekend after launching 260 balloons also carrying trash and excrement across the border on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Related Article
The JCS said the latest batch of balloons floated over the inter-Korean border and fell across South Korea between 8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday, and that the balloons carried cigarette butts, paper, plastic bags and other waste items.
“Approximately 20 to 50 balloons per hour are making their way down to Seoul, Gyeonggi, North Chungcheong and North Gyeongsang,” a JCS official told reporters on condition of anonymity, leaving open the possibility that more balloons could be detected.
The North launched the first batch of balloons on Tuesday, a day after a space launch vehicle carrying what would have been the regime’s second spy satellite exploded just after takeoff.
Over the weekend, North Korean Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang-il issued a statement via state media that the North planned to scatter “mounds of wastepaper and filth” over South Korea as part of a “tit-for-tat” action against anti-regime leaflets sent over the border by defectors and human rights groups.
The North also began jamming GPS signals near the inter-Korean border on Wednesday, a day before it launched 10 short-range ballistic missiles from near Pyongyang into the East Sea.
In messages delivered over South Korea’s advisory alert system, regional governments have warned people not to touch the packages and to instead report them to nearby military or police authorities.
The Seoul city government said Sunday that it will operate an emergency hotline 24 hours a day to respond to reports filed by residents about the balloon-borne objects.
The presidential office told reporters on Sunday that the South Korean military has thus far refrained from intercepting the balloons mid-flight for fear that they may be carrying toxic chemicals and that detonating them mid-air could cause their contents to disperse more widely.
No casualties have been reported in relation to the North Korean balloons or their packages so far, but one balloon damaged the windshield of a passenger car upon landing in a residential area of Ansan, Gyeonggi, at 10:22 a.m. on Sunday, according to local police.
The balloons have also disrupted operations in commercial areas and agricultural activity in farmlands across the country by forcing local authorities to restrict access to their landing sites.
BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
9. South, U.S. vow 'stern response' to North's missiles, balloons
Information. Influence. Psychological Operations. Psychological Warfare. Let us not be afraid to use information.
Sunday
June 2, 2024
dictionary + A - A
Published: 02 Jun. 2024, 19:15
South, U.S. vow 'stern response' to North's missiles, balloons
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-06-02/national/defense/South-US-vow-stern-response-to-Norths-missiles-balloons/2059900
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik, second from right, sits across from U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, second from left, during their meeting on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Sunday. [MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE]
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin vowed to mount a "stern response" to North Korea's launches of trash-laden balloons and missiles during their meeting in Singapore, according to Seoul's Defense Ministry on Sunday.
The pair, who met on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, also criticized the North for escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region with its development of missiles and nuclear weapons, according to a press release issued by the ministry after their talks concluded on Sunday.
Shin and Austin also agreed to continue close cooperation through bilateral consultative groups, including the Nuclear Consultative Group, to strengthen the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to South Korea and counter the threat emanating from the North.
The ministry press release also quoted Shin as accusing the North of committing a “grave violation” of the armistice that terminated active hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War by launching balloons carrying trash across the inter-Korean border.
The South Korean defense minister also promised to actively support an ongoing investigation into the balloon launches by the United Nations Command, which oversees the armistice.
Before his talks with Austin, Shin held his first trilateral meeting with Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles, where the three officials discussed ways to deter North Korean threats and pursue peace and stability, according to Seoul’s Defense Ministry.
During their bilateral meeting the previous day, Shin and Kihara reached an agreement to prevent the recurrence of a 2018 incident in which a Japanese maritime patrol aircraft made an unusually low-altitude flyby over a Korean warship.
At the time, Seoul said the Japanese plane approached the Korean ship in a “menacing” manner, while Tokyo accused the Korean ship of locking its weapons targeting radar on the Japanese plane.
Under the new agreement, Korea and Japan agreed that their ships and aircraft should maintain safe distances and altitudes from each other and engage in active communication during unplanned encounters at sea.
Shin and Kihara also announced in their joint statement that Seoul and Tokyo agreed to conduct regular talks between their vice defense ministers, working-level meetings and high-level exchanges between their military personnel to promote “essential” cooperation against North Korean threats.
“Both ministers concurred that South Korea-Japan security cooperation is the cornerstone of South Korea-U.S.-Japan security cooperation, which stands firm and is beneficial for two countries that share core values and strategic interest,” they said.
Austin welcomed the deal, saying in a statement that the agreement between Seoul and Tokyo would “strengthen their bilateral defense relationship, including measures to support operational safety and lines of communication.”
“Stronger bilateral cooperation between each of our countries helps advance trilateral cooperation among all of our countries,” Austin said.
Shin is also scheduled to hold a meeting with both Austin and Kihara on Sunday.
BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
10. South Korea Finds Itself Powerless To Stop Excrement-Filled Balloons in Apparent Public Relations Win for the North
So is shooting them down the right answer? With what?
Why is this a public relations win for the north? (my criticism of the headline editor). The South sends sophisticated information to the north and the north sends filth to the South. How is that a propaganda win?
Why does the media not call out the north? Does it sell more newspapers to belittle the ROK. There should be much more emphasis on the statement in the subtitle. We should remind people of the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry
South Korea Finds Itself Powerless To Stop Excrement-Filled Balloons in Apparent Public Relations Win for the North
Kim Jong-un’s sister calls them ‘sincere presents’ in response to demands for freedom of expression in North Korea, which assiduously blocks all signs of dissent.
DONALD KIRK
Friday, May 31, 2024
15:20:58 pm
nysun.com
North Korea has discovered that dropping manure over South Korea earns far more publicity than test-firing more missiles and artillery shells.
After shrugging off missile-testing with pro forma denunciations, South Korea has responded with about the most strongly worded condemnation it’s ever mustered to the indignity of North Korea firing 260 balloons carrying garbage, including the excrement of cows, pigs, and possibly even people.
Darkly, the South’s unification ministry vowed the government would “take all measures that North Korea cannot endure” if the North repeated such “provocative acts.” The North, said the unification ministry, would bear “all responsibility for what will take place afterward.”
There was no clue, however, as to what South Korea would really do that would effectively retaliate for the insult of dumping excrement over the South. Short of shelling the North’s sites for launching balloons, the South was essentially helpless in the face of such an indignity.
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, had nothing to say publicly about the excrement attack, but he was assumed to have endorsed it. A representative of the International Coalition for Human Rights in North Korea, Nam Sin-u, told the Sun that nothing of that magnitude could happen in North Korea without Mr. Kim’s full approval even though his younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, likely had a hand in the attack.
Mr. Kim’s younger sister Kim Yo-jong clearly exulted in the attack — and the South’s response. South Korea’s Yonhap News quoted her as promising the North would deluge the South with garbage “dozens of times” as often as South Korean activists fired balloons over the North. They were, she said, “sincere presents” in response to demands for freedom of expression in North Korea, which assiduously blocks all signs of dissent.
The North’s balloon attack appeared as a direct response to more than 300 balloons fired from South Korea by long-time balloonist activist and leader of Fighters for Free North Korea, Park Sang-hak, who initiated the exchange by firing off 300 balloons.
They carried leaflets exposing the iniquities of the Pyongyang regime, including the Kim dynasty founded by Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, installed by the Soviet Union in 1945 after serving as an officer in the Soviet army.
Mr. Nam said the balloons fired from the South also were laden with recordings of South Korean drama and K-Pop that’s extremely popular in North Korea despite the risks of being caught watching or listening to it.
Mr. Park now is free to fire balloons into North Korea after the current conservative South Korean president lifted a law banning balloon attacks on the North. The previous leftist president, Moon Jae-in, had pushed through the law while courting Mr. Kim, who wound up ignoring his pleas for reconciliation.
Mr. Park has denied, however, that he will seek retribution in the form of firing manure to North from South. Rather, he plans to send messages of “truth and love” when he conducts his next launch of 200,000 balloons. Right now he’s got instruments testing the wind currents for when will be the propitious moment for launching the balloons with maximum impact.
Mr. Nam, however, was still not impressed by President Yoon’s tolerance of balloon launches. He said that Mr. Yoon had been essentially “neutral” in his view of the balloon launches while failing to respond effectively to serious North Korean threats.
Most recently, Mr. Kim was reported ordering the firing of 600-millimeter rockets in retaliation for South Korea test-firing ten short-range missiles Then, in a separate warning carried by the North’s Korean Central News Agency, Pyongyang warned of dire but unspecified possible retaliation for reconnaissance flights flown by American planes south of the North-South line.
The idea, said KCNA, was to show “what consequences” might befall the Americans and South Koreans “if they provoke us” — an almost routine response that could not possibly capture the same attention as the North Korean garbage attack.
Correction: Kim Il-sung was the grandfather of Kim Jong-un. An earlier version misstated the family genealogy.
nysun.com
11. Man Who Started North Korea Balloon Fight Plots Revenge for Poop Attack
Oh how I hate these asinine headlines. (But as I said, the regime is making itself vulnerable to memes and ridicule).
Balloons are nice but we need much more.
Yes a balloon can carry videos on USB drives.
Here is a video from Radio Free Asia that is broadcast into north Korea. It can also be sent by balloon. Compare this 15 minute video to the filth that the north sends to the South. Who has the moral high ground?
This is about my good friend and colleague and his sister. They are on a remarkable journey and someday I hope they will be leaders in the northern territory of a free and unified Korea – after they helped their fellow Koreans in the north and South to establish a United Republic of Korea (UROK).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82Bxvf8pCI0
[Eng Sub] Pyongyang to Manhattan: North Korean Siblings in Ivy League School
24,735 views May 29, 2024
There are North Korean siblings studying at the prestigious Columbia University in Manhattan, New York, the city of freedom and opportunity. Hyunseung and Seohyun Lee, who lived a life akin to that in Manhattan while residing in Pyongyang as part of North Korea's top 1% elite, have now left their affluent but empty lives in Pyongyang to fill that emptiness with freedom in Manhattan.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) visited New York for five days to closely document their lives
Man Who Started North Korea Balloon Fight Plots Revenge for Poop Attack
The activist who has been floating balloons over the border into North Korea for years has big plans to avenge the excrement-filled vessels sent into the South.
Donald Kirk
Updated Jun. 01, 2024 6:21AM EDT / Published May 31, 2024 9:40PM EDT
The Daily Beast · June 1, 2024
exclusive
Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast
North Korean defector and balloon-launching activist Park Sang-hak is planning to avenge North Korea’s manure attack on South Korea but says he would never stoop to match their lows.
“I will not react to North Korean barbarity with barbarity,” Park told The Daily Beast when asked if he would shower the North with manure when he sends 200,000 balloons over North Korea in response to the North sending balloons carrying garbage, including excrement, over South Korea.
“Instead we are sending them truth and love”—the message he’s printed on leaflets he’s launching whenever the winds are blowing the right way for them to land in populated areas—and also presumably on or near Kim Jong Un’s palatial complex near the port of Wonsan on the North’s southeastern coast.
“The North Korean animals sent manure to South Korea,” said Park, “but we love the North Koreans.”
Park, in charge of a group called Fighters for Free Korea, expressed his views in a wide-ranging zoom conversation arranged and interpreted for The Daily Beast by Nam Sin-u, who lives in the U.S. Nam has frequently met Park in South Korea on behalf of the International Coalition for Human Rights in North Korea.
A devout Christian since escaping from North to South Korea 24 years ago, Park said he’s responding to the North’s manure attack in accordance with biblical teachings, at least for now. “Jesus said ‘turn the other cheek,’” he said, “but if there’s nothing else to do, we should kill them.”
Officially, South Korea is promising a somewhat more measured response. Just what is not clear, but the South’s Yonhap Ness quoted an official as saying, “If North Korea does not stop its provocative acts, the government will take all measures that North Korea cannot endure.” Park does not think the South is doing nearly enough, but the conservative President Yoon Seok-yul is not halting balloon launches as did his left-leaning predecessor Moon Jae-in, whom Yoon succeeded in 2022.
“The South Korean government does not want to antagonize the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un,” said Park. “He does not interfere with balloon launches, but he’s not helping either.”
Although South Korea under Yoon has rescinded a law passed during the Moon administration banning balloon launches, Park believes the government sought to shut him up by jailing him for six months for joining in a protest against demolishing a church to make way for a construction project.
The case was not directly linked to the balloon launches, but Park believes there was a connection. “It was all politics,” he said. “I was innocent.”
No sooner was Park freed three weeks ago than he organized the launch of 300,000 balloons—a barrage that appears to have inspired the North to respond with excrement-laden garbage.
“Excrement is the worst insult,” he said. “Koreans used to use human excrement as fertilizer.” American GI’s called a container filled with it “a honey bucket,” he said—an historical reminder that added more insult to injury.
Park, however, is not changing the basic theme of his balloon attacks, which he has been waging for more than 10 years. “All I can do is send the truth about how terrible life is in North Korea to awaken North Koreans.”
Along with leaflets exposing the evils of the Kim dynasty, founded by Kim Jong Un’s grandfather Kim Il Sung in 1945, the balloons will also contain flash drives with popular K-Pop songs and South Korean dramas, as well as candy bars and dollar bills
“South Korean drama is very popular in North Korea,” said Park. “North Koreans love it”—even though it is banned by the regime, which imposes harsh punishment on those caught watching or listening to any of it.
Park attributes the North’s manure attack directly to Kim Jong Un even though his influential younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, may well have had a hand in suggesting it. Yo Jong, noted for acerbic remarks that obviously have big brother’s enthusiastic approval, promised “dozens more” such balloon launches as “sincere presents” for the South.
“All things from North Korea come from the top,” said Park. “Yo Jong is a puppet.”
Park believes that South Koreans, as much as Americans and other foreigners, simply do not comprehend the depths of North Korean dictatorship.
He’s afraid that South Koreans don’t care about what’s happening inside North Korea despite persistent North Korean threats—and missile tests.
“South Koreans are doing so well, they think of nothing but themselves,” he said. “They are not concerned about these shameful things. They enjoy life. They do not voice anger towards North Korea. I am worried about their lack of response.”
The Daily Beast · June 1, 2024
12. South Korea to resume loudspeaker broadcasts along DMZ
Good. A small but symbolic step. But there is so much more that can and must be done.
I still think I have mental and hearing effects from listening to the north and South loudspeakers on the DMZ for nearly 24/7 for 3 years in the1980s. (attempt at humor). But the SOuth Korean PSYOP soldiers were very accommodating. They would take requests from the US troops and broadcast American music in the American sector to raise the morale of US troops while patrolling the DMZ (especially in the winter). I remember one Christmas day on a patrol with one of our squads lying on the side of a rice paddy dike in the snow on the "dolphin head" watching nKPA guards scurry back into their guard posts when they saw us. All of a sudden we were listening to the Beach Boys playing "Wish They Could All Be California Girls). Those were the days.
South Korea to resume loudspeaker broadcasts along DMZ - The Korea Times
Posted : 2024-05-31 17:02
Updated : 2024-06-02 20:48
koreatimes.co.kr
South Korea’s Director of National Security Chang Ho-jin enters a briefing room at the presidential office in Yongsan District, Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap
Presidential office warns of ‘measures North Korea cannot withstand’
By Kwak Yeon-soo, Nam Hyun-woo
The South Korean government is set to resume loudspeaker broadcasts along the inter-Korean border as a response to North Korea’s recent releases of nearly 1,000 balloons carrying trash into the South. Seoul’s national security advisor warned Sunday of “measures that the North cannot withstand.”
“The North’s recent hostilities are low-level, petty provocations,” Director of National Security Chang Ho-jin said in a press briefing after presiding over a National Security Council meeting, referring to the North’s balloon provocations, GPS jamming and ballistic missile launch last week.
He labeled the trash dumping via balloons and GPS jamming attack as “irrational and unreasonable provocative acts that a normal country would never contemplate.”
“Following the meeting, we will employ measures that the North cannot withstand, and we clearly warn that the regime should stop sending balloons and jamming GPS. Should these provocations continue, our response will become even stronger.”
South Korean soldiers dismantle stacked loudspeakers in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, in this May 2018 photo. Joint Press Corps
Chang did not explicitly mention loudspeaker operations during the briefing, while a senior official in the South Korean government indicated that such an option was not ruled out. The official emphasized that there would be necessary procedures to follow for such actions.
“We won’t delay in implementing the necessary measures, and you will see them put into action very soon, because we think (a prompt employment) will be effective,” the official said. “It seems Pyongyang is attempting to affect the structure of our North Korea policies by unnerving the general public, but I can clearly say that such dirty tactics won’t be effective.”
According to government sources, preparations are underway for loudspeaker operations and several other measures, comparable to the actions involving the trash-carrying balloons and GPS jamming. To facilitate this, the government intends to discuss the “nullification or suspension of relevant inter-Korean agreements” at an upcoming Cabinet meeting.
The agreements are assumed to be the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement and the Panmunjeom Declaration signed by then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, where the two Koreas agreed to “stop all hostile acts including the loudspeaker broadcasts and the scattering of leaflets in areas along the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) separating the two Koreas.”
It remains uncertain whether those agreements will be fully nullified or partially suspended, but sources said the South Korean government is seeking to take whatever measures are necessary to resume loudspeaker operations.
The South Korean military used to operate loudspeakers as part of its psychological warfare tactics against North Korea. It carried broadcasts on weather, K-pop and news critical of the North Korean regime, leading Pyongyang to express strong opposition due to possible effects on its military and the general public.
NK sends 720 more trash-carrying balloons to S. Korea, continues GPS jamming for 5 days
Vehicle damaged by balloons from N. Korea
Following the 2018 agreements, the South Korean military suspended loudspeaker operations, but Pyongyang has disregarded such pacts by persisting in military provocations.
In November last year, South Korea suspended a part of the 2018 military agreement after the North’s military spy satellite launch. In response, the North ended the agreement and continued its missile provocations. Most recently, the regime sent balloons laden with various forms of waste, including cigarette butts, paper, plastic bags and bottles.
South Korean service members use mine detectors to inspect debris from one of the trash-carrying balloons sent by North Korea that landed in Jung District of Incheon, Sunday. The North has sent nearly 1,000 balloons carrying various types of waste, such as cigarette butts and plastic bags, toward South Korea since last week, according to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Yonhap
According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sunday, the North has sent at least 720 trash-carrying balloons that floated across the MDL and fell in various parts of the South, including Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and even as far as North Gyeongsang Province, since 8 p.m. Saturday.
This came after Pyongyang had already sent around 260 similar balloons to the South last Tuesday and Wednesday.
Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, admitted that flying hundreds of balloons across the border was a “government-led” action.
South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, shared the view during their talks at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Sunday, that North Korea’s launch of the trash-laden balloons constitutes a violation of the Armistice Agreement set in 1953, according to the Ministry of National Defense.
They pledged support for an investigation by the United Nations Command (UNC).
Then-South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo, front row left, and North Korean Minister of the People’s Armed Forces No Kwang-chol, front row right, pose after signing an inter-Korean military agreement during the inter-Korean summit between then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in, back row left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, Sept. 19, 2018. Joint Press Corps
Experts, however, are divided over the effectiveness of resuming the use of the loudspeakers.
Moon Seong-mook, the chief of the Unification Strategy Center at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, asserted that the government needs to consider the option as a top priority.
“The loudspeakers are an effective tool to pressure North Korea. I bet North Korea will continue its aggressive acts, but there is no reason to shy away from what you need to do because you’re afraid of its consequences,” Moon said.
“North Korea failed to keep its promises from the April 2018 Panmunjeom Declaration, redefining inter-Korean relations as two states hostile to each other and continuing military provocations. The president has the authority to change related laws, and once he makes the decision, the military should be ready to take necessary steps.”
However, Lim Eul-chul, a professor of North Korean studies at Kyungnam University, said using the loudspeakers could ratchet up tensions further on the Korean Peninsula.
“If we resume loudspeaker broadcasts, it is clear that North Korea will respond sensitively to the matter. That will inevitably increase tensions on the peninsula, which will unnerve residents living near the border area,” Lim said.
The loudspeakers have been a hot-button issue between the two Koreas, leading to many disputes over the decades. Both sides have deployed speakers to direct propaganda at one another, and the North Korean regime has, on many occasions, responded sensitively to the matter.
koreatimes.co.kr
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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