This photo provided by the North Korean government, shows what it says a test launch of new intercontinental ballistic missile “Hwasong-19” at an undisclosed stie in North Korea Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. File
| Photo Credit: AP

North Korea launched a ballistic missile on Monday (January 6, 2025) toward the East Sea, South Korea’s military said, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.

“North Korea sent unknown ballistic missile towards East Sea,” South Korea’s military said.

Monday’s (January 6, 2025) launch took place while outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting Seoul for talks with some of its key ministers.

The ballistic missile launch is Pyongyang’s first this year and comes after its last in November when it test-fired what it said was its most advanced and powerful solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

That was North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s first weapons test since being accused of sending soldiers to help Russia fight Ukraine.

In response, South Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea in a show of force after Pyongyang’s salvo of missile launches.

South Korea, a vibrant democracy, has also been plunged into weeks of crisis by its sitting president Yoon Suk Seol, who declared a short-lived martial law decree on December 3.

North Korean state media last week said the South was in “chaos” and paralysed politically over an attempt by investigators to execute an arrest warrant for Yoon.

Ganghwa-gun, South Korea:

Gunshots, screams, eerie laughter: South Korea’s border island Ganghwa is being bombarded nightly with blood-curdling sounds, part of a new campaign by the nuclear-armed North that is driving residents to despair.

Before it started, 56-year-old Kim Yun-suk fell asleep to the hum of insects and woke to the chirping of birds. Now, she is kept awake every night by what sounds like the soundtrack of a low-budget horror movie at top volume.

“The peaceful sounds of nature… have now been drowned out,” Kim told AFP.

“All we hear is this noise.”

The campaign is the latest manifestation of steadily declining ties between the two Koreas this year, which have also seen Pyongyang test ever more powerful missiles and bombard the South with trash-carrying balloons.

Since July, North Korea has been broadcasting the noises in huge chunks almost every day from loudspeakers along the border.

The northern point of Ganghwa — an island in the Han river estuary on the Yellow Sea — is only about two kilometres (a mile) from the North.

When AFP visited, the nighttime broadcast included what sounded like the screams of people dying on the battlefield, the crack of gunfire, bombs exploding, along chilling music that started at 11:00 pm.

In the almost pitch-black fields, sinister noises echoed as the stars in the clear night sky shone beautifully alongside the coastal road lights, creating a stark and unsettling contrast.

North Korea has done propaganda broadcasts before, said 66-year-old villager Ahn Hyo-cheol, but they used to focus on criticising the South’s leaders, or idealising the North.

Now “there were sounds like a wolf howling, and ghostly sounds”, he said. 

“It feels unpleasant and gives me chills. It feels bizarre.”

Ganghwa county councillor Park Heung-yeol said that the new broadcasts were “not just regime propaganda — it’s genuinely intended to torment people”.

– Torture – 

Experts said the new broadcasts almost meet the criteria for a torture campaign.

“Almost every regime has used noise torture and sleep deprivation,” Rory Cox, a historian at the University of St Andrews, told AFP.

“It is very common and leaves no physical scarring, therefore making it deniable.”

Exposure to noise levels above 60 decibels at night increases the risk of sleep disorders, experts said, but AFP tracked levels of up to 80 decibels late at night on Ganghwa during a recent trip.

“I find myself taking headache medicine almost all the time,” An Mi-hee, 37, told AFP, adding that prolonged sleep deprivation due to the noise has also led to anxiety, eye pain, facial tremors and drowsiness.

“Our kids can’t sleep either, so they’ve developed mouth sores and are dozing off at school.”

Distraught and desperate, An travelled to Seoul and got on her knees to beg lawmakers at the National Assembly to find a solution, breaking down in tears as she described the island’s suffering. 

“It would actually be better if there were a flood, a fire, or even an earthquake, because those events have a clear recovery timeline,” An said.

“We have no idea if this will go on until the person in North Korea who gives the orders dies, or if it could be cut off at any moment. We just don’t know.”

– ’70s horror flick’ –

The noise tormenting Ganghwa island residents appeared to be a rudimentary mix of clips from a sound library, typically common at any TV or radio broadcasters, audio experts told AFP. 

The sound effects are “like something found in a South Korean horror film in the 70s and 80s,” said sound engineer Hwang Kwon-ik.

The two Koreas remained technically at war since the 1950 to 1953 conflict ended in an armistice not a peace treaty.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year declared Seoul his “principal enemy” and has ramped up weapons testing and built closer military ties with Russia.

The isolated and impoverished North is known to be extremely sensitive about its citizens gaining access to South Korean pop culture. 

Some experts have suggested the latest broadcasts could be aimed at preventing North Korean soldiers from hearing the South’s own propaganda broadcasts, which typically feature K-pop songs and international news.

In August, just weeks after South Korea resumed K-pop broadcasts in response to Pyongyang floating trash-carrying balloons south, a North Korean soldier defected by crossing the heavily fortified border on foot.

But Lee Su-yong, an audio production professor at the Dong-Ah Institute of Media and Arts, said “if there is sound coming towards the North that you want to mask, then the sound (you use to cover it) must also be directed toward the North.”

“It seems less about masking noise and more about inflicting pain on people in the South,” he told AFP.

Choi Hyoung-chan, a 60-year-old resident, said the South Korean government had failed to protect vulnerable civilians on the frontier.

“They should come here and try to live with these sounds for just ten days,” he told AFP, referring to officials in Seoul.

“I doubt they could even endure a single day.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Seoul:

North Korea is launching more balloons believed to be carrying trash southward, South Korea’s military said Saturday, the latest in a series of border barrages that have ignited a tit-for-tat propaganda war.

North Korea has sent thousands of trash-filled balloons southward since May, saying they are retaliation for propaganda balloons launched by South Korean activists.

The latest launch comes as relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with the North recently announcing the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers to its southern border.

The nuclear-armed North was “again launching (suspected) trash balloons aimed at the South,” Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement late Saturday. 

It advised the public to refrain from touching the balloons and to report them to authorities.

Last month, balloons launched by Pyongyang hit the South Korean presidential compound in the capital, prompting the government to mobilise chemical response teams to collect them. 

In response to the balloon barrages, Seoul has resumed propaganda broadcasts along the frontier, suspended a tension-reducing military deal and restarted live-fire drills in some border areas. 

The isolated North is extremely sensitive about its people’s exposure to South Korean pop culture. According to a recent South Korean government report, a man was executed in 2022 for possession of content from the South.

On Thursday, Seoul’s military said a suspected North Korean had defected to the South across a de facto maritime border in the Yellow Sea, with some experts suggesting the decision may have been influenced by the South’s resumed propaganda broadcasts, which include news reports as well as K-pop content.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Seoul:

North Korea successfully tested its multiple-warhead missile capability, state media said Thursday, as dozens more trash-laden balloons from Pyongyang landed in the South.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with Pyongyang ramping up weapons testing while bombarding the South with balloons full of trash it says are in retaliation to similar missives sent northwards by activists in the South.

The balloons briefly forced Seoul’s major hub Incheon Airport to close on Wednesday, and in response to the successive launches, South has fully suspended a tension-reducing military treaty and re-started propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts and live-fire drills near the border.

North Korea claimed it had “successfully conducted the separation and guidance control test of individual mobile warheads”, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Thursday.

The “separated mobile warheads were guided correctly to the three coordinate targets” during the test, carried out the day before, it said.

“The test is aimed at securing the MIRV capability,” KCNA added, referring to multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle technology — or the ability to fire multiple warheads on a single ballistic missile.

South Korea’s military had previously said the North’s test on Wednesday appeared to be of a hypersonic missile, but that the launch ended in a mid-air explosion.

More smoke than usual appeared to emanate from the missile, raising the possibility of combustion issues, the official said, adding it may have been powered by solid propellants.

According to KCNA, the test “was carried out by use of the first-stage engine of an intermediate-range solid-fuel ballistic missile within a 170-200 kilometre (105 to 124-mile) radius.”

“The effectiveness of a decoy separated from the missile was also verified by anti-air radar,” it said.

Acquiring multiple-warhead missile technology is an ultimate goal for nations seeking ICBM-level missiles to carry nuclear warheads, said Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification.

It appears the North is “testing such technology step by step over the long haul,” he told AFP.

“They appear to be making technological advancements in the early development stages of multiple-warhead missiles.”

Balloon blitz 

For three consecutive days, North Korea has floated hundreds of trash-carrying balloons southward in a tit-for-tat propaganda campaign.

Seoul’s military said around 70 balloons had landed by Thursday morning, mainly in northern Gyeonggi province and the Seoul area, with the contents found to not be hazardous.

“The payload is about 10 kilograms (22 pounds), so there is a risk if the balloons descend rapidly,” it said, adding the military was ready to respond.

The response to the latest balloons “will be flexible depending on the strategic and operational situation. This depends on North Korea’s actions,” it added.

South Korea’s Marine Corps resumed live-fire exercises on islands near the western inter-Korean border on Wednesday, marking the first such exercises since the 2018 tension-reducing military deal with the North was fully suspended this month.

South Korea and the United States also staged joint air drills Wednesday involving around 30 aircraft, including Washington’s advanced stealth fighter jet, F-22 Raptor.

President Yoon Suk Yeol visited a US aircraft carrier on Tuesday that arrived in South Korea for joint trilateral military drills this week aimed at countering North Korean threats.

The drills, which run from Thursday to Saturday, involve Washington’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Tokyo’s guided-missile destroyer JS Atago, and Seoul’s fighter jet KF-16s, among other assets.

Pyongyang has routinely criticised such exercises as rehearsals for an invasion

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A photo showing North Korea’s missile launch is displayed at the Unification Observation Post in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. S
| Photo Credit: AP

North Korea fired two ballistic missiles off its east coast, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Japanese Coast Guard said on Wednesday, September 13, 2023, just hours before leader Kim Jong Un was expected to meet President Vladimir Putin in Russia.

It was the first such launch to occur while Kim was abroad for a rare trip, analysts said.

No details on the size or range of the missiles were immediately available. But about five minutes after the first launch warning, Japan’s Coast Guard reported the missile had fallen into the sea.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters that Japan had lodged a protest against North Korea through diplomatic channels in Beijing.

Both missiles fell in the sea outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), he added.

The nuclear-armed North has conducted regular launches of everything from short-range and cruise missiles to massive intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that can strike the continental United States.

UNSC resolutions

All of North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons activities are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions that were last passed with the support of Pyongyang’s partners in China and Russia in 2017.

Since then, Beijing and Moscow have called for sanctions to be eased on the North to jumpstart diplomatic talks and improve the humanitarian situation.

Mr. Kim didn’t leave his country for six years after taking power in 2011 when his father died.

In 2018 and 2019 he visited China, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and Russia in nine separate trips, but his current visit in Russia is the first since then.

How Mr. Kim maintains command and control over his country’s missile and nuclear forces while abroad is unclear, but analysts say recent drills have revealed a system for overseeing nuclear weapons similar to those used in the United States and Russia.

A report in March by the 38 North programme, which tracks North Korea, said state media announcements outlined a process that includes commanders of units and various sub-units, a launch approval system, and “technical and mechanical devices” governing nuclear weapons control.