NK weekly-inter-Korean news
Summary of inter-Korean news this week
SEOUL, July 26 (Yonhap) -- The following is a summary of inter-Korean news this week.
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(LEAD) N. Korea sends some 500 trash balloons into S. Korea earlier this week
SEOUL -- North Korea's latest round of its balloon campaign involved around 500 balloons carrying scrap paper and plastic sheets, including those that fell on the presidential office compound in the capital, South Korea's military said Thursday.
In what marked the second of its kind this week alone, North Korea launched the trash-carrying balloons the previous day, as the South Korean military blared anti-Pyongyang broadcasts in full scale through its border loudspeakers in response to the repeated balloon launches.
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(3rd LD) N. Korea sends some 300 trash-carrying balloons into S. Korea: JCS
SEOUL -- North Korea again launched hundreds of trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea on Wednesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, with some pieces of garbage landing on the presidential office compound in Seoul.
The launch, which marked the second of its kind this week, came as the South Korean military blared anti-Pyongyang broadcasts in full-scale through its border loudspeakers for the fourth day in response to the North's continued launches.
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(LEAD) N.K. trash balloon lands on presidential office compound
SEOUL -- A trash-carrying balloon sent by North Korea landed on the presidential office compound Wednesday, but nothing dangerous was found, the Presidential Security Service (PSS) said.
The PSS said it discovered fallen trash on the grounds of the presidential compound while monitoring the latest batch of balloons flown by the North earlier in the day.
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S. Korean cultural influence is causing 'cracks' in rigid N.K. society: unification minister
WASHINGTON -- Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho on Tuesday underscored the importance of "cultural" approaches to fostering internal change in North Korea, saying the inflow of South Korean pop culture is causing "cracks" in a rigid ideology-based society of the reclusive country.
Kim also pointed out North Korean authorities' "sense of crisis" over their people's growing rejection of the North's culture anchored in the ideology of "juche" or self-reliance, as he attended a Washington-based forum held to shed light on North Korea's human rights record.
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N. Korean defectors to S. Korea reach 105 in H1: official
SEOUL -- The number of North Korean defectors arriving in South Korea reached 105 in the first half of the year, slightly up from a year earlier, a unification ministry official said Tuesday.
A total of 43 North Koreans entered the South from January to March this year while another 62 arrived here in the April-June period, the official told reporters.
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(Yonhap Interview) Scores of N. Koreans staying overseas make attempt to defect: ex-N. Korean diplomat
SEOUL -- Scores of North Koreans staying abroad, such as diplomats and overseas workers, have attempted to defect to South Korea since North Korea began undoing its COVID-19 border closure last year, a former North Korean diplomat said Tuesday.
Ri Il-gyu, a former counselor of political affairs at the North Korean embassy in Cuba, said there have been more successful defections, but many people were also brutally brought back to North Korea, citing the example of a North Korean woman and her son who were caught during their botched attempt to flee Russia.
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S. Korea questions N. Korea's 'modernized' plants outside of Pyongyang in long-term
SEOUL -- South Korea's unification ministry on Tuesday questioned the feasibility of North Korea's project to build factories in a move to develop backward provinces.
North Korea kicked off a project earlier this year to build modernized factories in 20 counties over the next decade to raise the "basic material and cultural living standards of the people."
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New head of unification council vows efforts to let N. Koreans realize Seoul's unification efforts
SEOUL -- Tae Yong-ho, new secretary general of the presidential advisory council on unification, on Monday vowed efforts to let North Koreans understand South Korea's efforts to craft a peaceful unification vision based on a national consensus.
Tae, a former North Korean deputy ambassador to Britain, was appointed by President Yoon Suk Yeol last week as the chief of the secretariat of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council.
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(LEAD) S. Korea blares border propaganda broadcasts in full scale for 2nd day
SEOUL -- South Korea conducted anti-Pyongyang broadcasts through its border loudspeakers in full-scale for the second day Monday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, amid tensions over the North's launches of trash-carrying balloons into the South.
The military began the daily anti-Pyongyang broadcasts at 6 a.m. for a 16-hour run after turning them on all the fronts Sunday in response to the North's repeated launches of the balloons, according to the JCS.
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(3rd LD) S. Korea conducts full-scale propaganda broadcasts in response to N. Korea's trash balloons
SEOUL -- South Korea's military blared K-pop songs and news through its loudspeakers across the border with North Korea on Sunday as it stepped up its psychological campaign in response to North Korea's repeated launches of trash balloons.
The move came five days after Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, warned of "gruesome and dear" consequences over continued leaflet campaigns seen by North Korea as psychological warfare.
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