Powerful sister of North Korean leader denies removal of frontline speakers
Kim Yo Jong's statement came after South Korea's military said Saturday it had detected the North removing some of its loudspeakers, days after the South dismantled its own front-line speakers used for anti-North propaganda broadcasts in a bid to ease tensions.
Kim reiterated previous North Korean statements that it has no immediate interest in reviving long-stalled negotiations with Washington and Seoul and cited an upcoming joint military exercise between the allies as proof of their continued hostility toward Pyongyang.
While saying that North Korea was removing some of its speakers, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff didn't disclose the sites where it spotted such activity and said it wasn't immediately clear whether the North would take all of them down.
During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, South Korea's new liberal President Lee Jae Myung described the North's alleged steps as a 'reciprocal measure' to South Korea's speaker removals and expressed hope that the Koreas could 'gradually reopen dialogue and communication.'
Kim accused Lee's government of misleading the public, saying that the North Koreans 'have never removed loudspeakers installed on the border area and are not willing to remove them.'
In recent months, South Korean border residents have complained that North Korean speakers blasted irritating sounds, including howling animals and pounding gongs, in a tit-for-tat response to South Korean propaganda broadcasts.
The South Korean military said the North stopped its broadcasts in June after Lee ordered to halt South's broadcasts in his government's first concrete step toward easing tensions between the war-divided rivals. South Korea's military began removing its speakers from border areas last week but didn't specify how they would be stored or whether they could be quickly redeployed if tensions flared again.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
21 minutes ago
- CBS News
Colorado governor responds to letter from Department of Justice urging end to "sanctuary policies"
The Colorado governor's office says the U.S. Department of Justice is threatening to pull federal funding and seek legal action, accusing the state of limiting local cooperation with federal immigration agents. The letter dated Aug. 13, the DOJ states in part, Under President Trump's leadership, full cooperation by state and local governments in immigration enforcement efforts is a top priority. To ensure such cooperation, the President has directed the Attorney General of the United States, in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, to identify sanctuary jurisdictions and notify them of their unlawful sanctuary status and potential violations of federal law. The Justice Department put 11 other states on its list besides Colorado — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia. It also included Baltimore County, Maryland; Cook County, Illinois; San Diego County, California; and San Francisco County, California, along with 18 cities from Seattle to Philadelphia. The letter states that a response to the letter must be submitted by Aug. 19 that "confirms your commitment to complying with federal law and identifies the immediate incentives you are taking to eliminate laws, policies, and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement." Gov. Polis' Office said in a statement to CBS Colorado: "Colorado is not a sanctuary state. The Governor continues to be frustrated by this mistaken and incorrect label and the lack of transparency from the federal administration on this and many other items. In Colorado, we are improving public safety, apprehending dangerous criminals, cooperating with federal law enforcement on criminal investigations, and keeping our communities safe. The Governor encourages the federal administration – and Congress – to focus on actually securing the border, decreasing violent crime, increasing transparency, and passing real immigration reform." "Sanctuary policies impede law enforcement and put American citizens at risk by design," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement last week. "The Department of Justice will continue bringing litigation against sanctuary jurisdictions and work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to eradicate these harmful policies around the country." In April, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to "publish a list of States and local jurisdictions that obstruct the enforcement of Federal immigration laws" to be known as "sanctuary jurisdictions."
Wall Street Journal
21 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Will the Democrats Go Centrist in the 2028 Election?
New York A pair of safe predictions: The winner of the 2028 Republican presidential nomination will have to negotiate the protean wishes of Donald Trump. And the winner of the Democratic contest will have to confront the party's attraction to socialism and an array of factions that would rather see Democrats lose than compromise: the climate lobby, advocates of open borders and transgenderism, and, above all, the anti-Israel left.
29 minutes ago
Peru's president affirms sovereignty of Amazon River island
LIMA, Peru -- LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian President Dina Boluarte on Friday traveled to an Amazon River island at the center of a territorial dispute with Colombia, where she affirmed Peru's unquestionable sovereignty over the territory. The first visit from Boluarte to the island comes against a backdrop of diplomatic tensions with Colombia, whose president, Gustavo Petro, recently disavowed Peruvian jurisdiction over Santa Rosa Island. Security force chiefs and members of Parliament welcomed Boluarte and Cabinet ministers to the territory, where she sang the Peruvian national anthem as people waved red-and-white flags. 'Unfortunately, for several days now, unacceptable actions have been taking place that affect the brotherhood that unites our two nations and the border communities,' Boluarte said. 'Peru's sovereignty is not in dispute; the district of Santa Rosa de Loreto is Peruvian and will remain so.' Tensions between the neighboring countries escalated Tuesday, when Peruvian police arrested three Colombian men who were on the island doing land surveying work. Colombia's government on Thursday demanded the immediate release of the men after a Peruvian judge freed one of them but ordered the other two remain in jail for seven days while authorities investigate them for the alleged crime of attacking national sovereignty. Petro described the arrests as a 'kidnapping.' His government has said the detainees — a land surveyor and a boat driver — were conducting studies to measure the depth of bodies of water for a pier expansion in the Colombian border city of Leticia. Peruvian authorities said the workers were not authorized to carry out the measurements. The arrest of the two Colombians marks the third binational incident in the area since Petro denied Peru's jurisdiction over Santa Rosa Island on Aug. 5. Two days later, a Colombian military aircraft flew over the island, and on Monday, the former mayor of the Colombian city of Medellín, Daniel Quintero, planted a Colombian flag there. Police later removed the flag. About 3,000 people live in tiny Santa Rosa Island, which emerged in the middle of the Amazon River last century. Peru maintains it owns Santa Rosa Island based on treaties about a century old, but Colombia disputes that ownership because the island had not yet emerged from the river at the time.
