South Korea resumes anti-North Korea propaganda broadcasts

In 2010, South Korea restarted radio broadcasts and restored loudspeakers as part of retaliatory measures after a warship sinking blamed on North Korea that killed 46 South Korean sailors.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – As world leaders debated how to punish North Korea’s claim of a fourth nuclear test, South Korea retaliated by broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda across the rivals’ tense border Friday on what was believed to be Kim Jong Un’s birthday. On Wednesday (Jan. 6), it recorded tremors caused by the nuclear test that had a power equivalent to an natural disaster of a magnitude of 5 on the Richter scale, according to Lucas Barros, head of the observatory.

Cameramen film video footage of North Korea’s border county of Kaepoong (background) from a South Korean observation post in Paju near the Demilitarized Zone dividing two Koreas on January 8, 2016. “So I can entirely understand the pressure South Korea feels to respond”.

However, Pyongyang must have thought that its past nuclear development was not enough to bring the United States to the negotiating table.

The United States and South Korea are limited in their military options.

In October 2014, North Korean troops opened fire after South Korean activists launched balloons carrying propaganda leaflets. 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 neighbor. But China’s leverage over Pyongyang is mitigated, analysts say, by its overriding fear of a North Korean collapse and the prospect of a reunified, US-allied Korea directly on its border. An H-bomb detonated over Beijing could take out that city, not to mention liquidate the government.

Later Friday, South Korea was to announce the results of its first round of investigations of samples collected from sea operations to see if radioactive elements leaked from the North’s test, according to the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety.

China has always pushed for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, maintaining that all relevant parties should refrain from unilateral moves detrimental to regional peace and stability.

South Korea has included songs by girl groups in anti-North Korea broadcasts initiated earlier on Friday along the inter-Korean border, sources in the South Korean defense ministry said. Negotiations collapsed after the last round of talks in 2008, with North Korea declaring the deal void after refusing inspections to verify compliance.

The growing stature of the hermit kingdom under Kim Jong-un has increased China’s worries over the years.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he made clear in a phone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that China’s approach to North Korea has not succeeded. But today in my conversation with the Chinese, I made it very clear: “That has not worked and we can not continue business as usual”. “China by itself can not solve that problem”.

“Broadcasts from South Korea can reach deep and far into North Korea’s society, imbuing the minds of its people with the images of a free nation and hurting the oppressive personality cult”.

The head of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), which uses monitoring stations around the world to detect atomic tests, said only “normal” levels of xenon had been detected, at a site in Japan.