As world leaders debated ways to penalize North Korea’s claim of a fourth nuclear test, South Korea voiced its displeasure with broadcasts of anti-Pyongyang propaganda across the rivals’ tense border Friday, believed to be the birthday of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
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Seoul resumed the cross-border broadcasts Friday for the first time in the almost five months.
North Korea see the broadcasts as an act of war.
“The United States and its puppets have wasted no time in driving the situation on the peninsula to the brink of war, resuming their psychological warfare broadcast”, said Kim Ki Nam, a senior official in North Korea’s ruling party.
South Korea’s high-decibel broadcasts played out at almost a dozen places along the border, risking the wrath of a neighbor that has repeatedly shown a willingness in recent years to open fire.
North Koreans are prohibited from listening to K-pop, but defectors have said their countrymen enjoy music and other elements of South Korea popular culture that are smuggled into the country on USB sticks and DVDs. John McCain, R-Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that the North Korean test was “the latest example of the failed national security agenda of the Obama administration” and said the United States should deploy the THAAD anti-missile defense system in South Korea. That reaches numerous huge force of North Korean soldiers stationed near the border and also residents in border towns such as Kaesong, where the Koreas jointly operate an industrial park that has been a valuable cash source for the impoverished North.
Many North Korea watchers had been anticipating another nuclear test.
Most eyes were on North Korea’s main ally, China, which condemned the test but gave no signal that it was ready to approve a significant tightening of sanctions on its recalcitrant neighbour. The North broadcasts were not clearly audible from the South and appeared meant to drown out those from the South Yonhap said citing a South Korean official. “Countries run by dictatorships even try to control human instincts”. The incident was blamed on the north, and the north rejected it.
Despite their old friendship, China opposes the North’s nuclear programme and has supported sweeping United Nations sanctions on North Korea for its weapons development. For current sanctions and any new penalties to work, better cooperation and stronger implementation from Pyongyang’s protector China is seen as key.
A day after the test, reports emerged that the USA was considering sending strategic assets to South Korea, including nuclear powered submarines, fighter jets and B-52 bombers. “At this point, what makes their nuclear arsenal more unsafe is not so much explosive power of the bomb, but its size, weight and the ability to deliver it with missiles”.
Big Bang’s slightly raunchy dance hit with its “Like you’ve been shot/Bang Bang Bang” chorus, contrasted with the more plaintive tone of GFriend’s offering – sample lyric: “We’re both so shy/But I wanna go closer to you”.
North Korean military personnel clap hands in a rally, after North Korea said Wednesday it had conducted a hydrogen bomb test, at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, Friday, Jan. 8, 2016.
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Pyongyang said on Wednesday that it had elevated its nuclear capability with its first “successful” hydrogen bomb test.
