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North Korea celebrates new time zone, ‘Pyongyang Time’

South Korea has accused the North of planting the mines in violation of the Armistice Agreement that effectively ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

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She urged Pyongyang to “wake up” from the delusion that it could maintain its regime with provocation and threats, which she claimed would result only in the North’s isolation and destruction.

All South Korean units involved in the broadcasts “whether they are fixed or mobile, will never escape the strikes”, it added.

After the mine blasts which maimed two South Korean soldiers on border patrol, Seoul recently resumed high-decibel propaganda broadcasts across the heavily militarized frontier, using batteries of loudspeakers that had lain silent for more than a decade.

The nuclear-armed North regularly ups its bellicose rhetoric before and during the joint military exercises South Korea holds with its US ally every year, but rarely follows through on its threats.

August. 11, 2015: Members of South Korean conservative group shout slogans after burning an effigy of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un & North Korean flags throughout a rally denouncing the North Korea at the Imjingak Pavilion near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea.

DPRK stands for the North’s official name Democratic People’s Republic of Korea while KPA is the acronym for the North’s Korean People’s Army.

It has said it is not interested in a dialogue with the United States like that which led to a deal over Iran’s nuclear program and says its nuclear capabilities are an “essential deterrence” against hostile US policy.

North Korea’s chief astronomer Jong Sok said changing time zones made a lot of sense – and was appropriate as the country marked 70 years since it was liberated from Japanese rule.

Though surprising when it was announced last week, the move to establish a unique time zone for North Korea strikes a chord with many on both sides of the demilitarized zone, who harbor resentment toward the Japanese government.

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Earlier this year, there had been hopes the anniversary might be an opportunity for some sort of inter-Korean rapprochement, but instead inter-Korean ties have been on a downward trajectory for months.

North Korea welcomes new time zone to break from 'imperialism'