South Korea yesterday said that it was removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports to North Korea, as the new administration in Seoul tries to ease tensions with its bellicose neighbor.
The nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.
It said in June that Pyongyang stopped transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the border that had become a major nuisance for South Korean residents, a day after South Korea’s loudspeakers fell silent.
Photo: AFP / South Korean Ministry of National Defense
“Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,” South Korean Ministry of National Defense spokesman Lee Kyung-ho told reporters yesterday. “It is a practical measure aimed at helping ease tensions with the North, provided that such actions do not compromise the military’s state of readiness.”
All loudspeakers set up along the border are to be dismantled by the end of the week, he said.
He did not disclose the number to be removed, but a Yonhap news agency report — which the ministry declined to verify — said that it was about 20.
Handout photographs released by the ministry showed soldiers wearing body armor unloading sets of speakers as part of the process.
Lee Jae-myung ordered the military to stop the broadcasts in a bid to “restore trust.”
Relations between the two Koreas had been at one of their lowest points in years, with Seoul taking a hard line toward Pyongyang, which has drawn ever closer to Moscow in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The two Koreas last year were involved in a tit-for-tat propaganda war, as the North sent thousands of trash-filled balloons southward, saying they were retaliation for propaganda balloons launched by South Korean activists.
In response, then-South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol ordered turning on the border loudspeaker broadcasts. Shortly afterward, North Korea started transmitting strange sounds along the frontier, unsettling South Korean residents.
Lee has taken a different approach in dealing with North Korea since his election in June, including requesting civic groups to stop sending anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets.
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said it is closely monitoring developments in Venezuela, and would continue to cooperate with democratic allies and work together for regional and global security, stability, and prosperity. The remarks came after the US on Saturday launched a series of airstrikes in Venezuela and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was later flown to New York along with his wife. The pair face US charges related to drug trafficking and alleged cooperation with gangs designated as terrorist organizations. Maduro has denied the allegations. The ministry said that it is closely monitoring the political and economic situation
UNRELENTING: China attempted cyberattacks on Taiwan’s critical infrastructure 2.63 million times per day last year, up from 1.23 million in 2023, the NSB said China’s cyberarmy has long engaged in cyberattacks against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, employing diverse and evolving tactics, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said yesterday, adding that cyberattacks on critical energy infrastructure last year increased 10-fold compared with the previous year. The NSB yesterday released a report titled Analysis on China’s Cyber Threats to Taiwan’s Critical Infrastructure in 2025, outlining the number of cyberattacks, major tactics and hacker groups. Taiwan’s national intelligence community identified a large number of cybersecurity incidents last year, the bureau said in a statement. China’s cyberarmy last year launched an average of 2.63 million intrusion attempts per day targeting Taiwan’s critical
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
RSS