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RTHK
9 hours ago
- Politics
- RTHK
All quiet on the Korean front amid reciprocal moves
All quiet on the Korean front amid reciprocal moves South Korean soldiers go about the process of putting up a loudspeaker at the border last June when the Yoon Suk-yeol administration was in place. File photo: Reuters North Korea appears to have stopped broadcasting strange and unsettling noises along the border, Seoul's military said on Thursday, a day after South Korea stopped blaring its own loudspeaker propaganda northwards. The North has been broadcasting a horror movie-esque soundtrack into border areas since last year, as part of an escalating propaganda war between the arch foes. But South Korea's new President Lee Jae-myung, who took office last week after his predecessor was impeached over an abortive martial law declaration, ordered the military to stop blasting K-pop and news reports into the North in an attempt to "restore trust". "Today, there was no region where North Korea's noise broadcasts to the South were heard," Seoul's military said on Thursday. "The military is closely monitoring related trends in North Korea." Relations between the two Koreas have been at one of their lowest points in years, with Seoul taking a hard line towards Pyongyang, which has drawn ever closer to Moscow in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But South Korea's new president has vowed to improve relations with the North and reduce tensions on the peninsula, halting the loudspeaker broadcasts Seoul had begun last year in response to a barrage of trash-filled balloons flown southwards by Pyongyang. The North claimed the balloons – which contained toilet paper and other garbage – were retaliation for similar missives floated northwards by activists in the South, carrying anti-Kim Jong-un propaganda. North Korea resumed its own propaganda broadcasts soon after, sending strange and eerie noises – such as chilling music and what sounds like bombs exploding – into the South, prompting complaints from border residents. On Ganghwa island, which is close to the North, the strange noises were last heard on Wednesday at around 6pm, its county councillor Park Heung-yeol said. "And from 8pm to 9pm yesterday, the North broadcast its propaganda music, instead of the strange noise," he added. "I slept so well last night. I had not been able to do that for so long," another Ganghwa resident An Mi-hee said. South Korea's Lee has promised a more dovish approach towards Pyongyang, compared with his predecessor Yoon Suk-yeol. (AFP)
Korea Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- Korea Herald
Yoon, wife to face special counsel probes
577 prosecutors, investigators allotted to look into ex-first couple President Lee Jae-myung's Cabinet on Tuesday passed bills to open three special counsel investigations into former President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife Kim Keon Hee. The bills are intended to "end the insurrection" that the Lee administration and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea accuse Yoon of instigating with his short-lived martial law decree on Dec. 3, 2024. At the second Cabinet meeting since Lee took office last week, the Democratic Party-led bills passed into law to bring together 577 prosecutors and investigators in total to investigate the former first couple. The combined size of the legal teams involved in the investigations is comparable to a district attorney's office. With Tuesday's passage, a special counsel investigation will look into if Yoon committed either insurrection or treason by trying to impose martial law. Yoon declared martial law late in the evening of Dec. 3, only to lift it six hours later following a National Assembly resolution that opposed it. The Democratic Party contends that Yoon attempted to provoke military action from North Korea with his hawkish policies to lay the groundwork for the declaration of martial law. Yoon's Ministry of National Defense playing anti-Kim Jong-un regime broadcasts along the inter-Korean borders from June 2024 was one example of the former administration deliberately seeking military confrontation with North Korea, according to the Democratic Party. Before their resumption last year, the border broadcasts had been used by the South Korean military as a psychological warfare tactic in the past, before they were halted in 2018 under then-President Moon Jae-in. The Democratic Party also claims that Yoon sent drones across the border into North Korea in October 2024, echoing Pyongyang's accusations that the South Korean military was behind the alleged drone infiltration. Yoon allegedly attempting to instigate an armed conflict with North Korea in the run-up to his martial law decree qualifies as "treason," the Democratic Party claimed, on top of being a "rebellion against the Constitution, which is to say, insurrection." Yoon's wife Kim is set to face a separate special counsel investigation that will scrutinize allegations she was involved in the then-ruling People Power Party's nomination of candidates for a National Assembly seat in the 2022 by-election. Another special counsel investigation would revisit the death of a Marine in July 2023. Cpl. Chae Su-geun, 20, died when he was swept away in moving water during a search and rescue operation to locate flood victims in a rain-swollen river in Yecheon, North Gyeongsang Province. The Democratic Party says Yoon's presidential office tried to impede the preliminary probe into Chae's death at the time to cover up possible wrongdoing at the top. Special counsels will be given as long as 170 days to investigate Yoon and his wife. Yoon was removed from office on April 4 in a unanimous ruling by the Constitutional Court over the martial law debacle, leading South Korea to hold an early presidential election on June 3.
