Pyongyang deploys more patrol boats along South Korea border

This week activists in South Korea launched balloons full of anti-Kim Jong Un leaflets across the border into the north. In the past, Pyongyang called the balloon launches provocations and demanded they be stopped before any inter-Korean engagement efforts could proceed.

However, the source said that the rubber can be easily punctured by multiple bullets and/or shrapnel, likening such a scenario to one wherein “a vehicle collapses from a punctured tire”.

(MENAFN – Qatar News Agency) s the Japanese parliament passed controversial security legislation to allow overseas combat, South Korea, the United and Japan are seeking to hold Defense Trilateral Talks (DTT) next month to discuss the matter.

In case the North takes such a provocative step, the United Nations Security Council will convene an emergency session nearly automatically under the so-called trigger clause in the council’s resolution adopted after Pyongyang’s nuclear test in 2013, he pointed out.

Japan’s last chance to come back ended in the ninth with two strikeouts and a fly out, giving Taiwan its first win against the Asian baseball powerhouse in the championship since 2001. The South Korean government once again attempted to send a letter to North Korea proposing high-level talks on August 5, the day of the ground breaking, but the North rejected this too. In March, Seoul created a new cabinet post to handle cybersecurity after a hack on its nuclear power plant operator in December which was blamed on Pyongyang.

North Korea’s ambassador characterized the U.N.’s human rights investigations in North Korea as politically motivated and criticized Japan for “internationalizing” the abduction issue.

North Korea is also expected to be a focus of their discussions. “It has nothing to do with Kirby”.

However Korea analyst Kang Chul-hwan, with the Center for North Korea Strategy in Seoul, is somewhat optimistic that the reunions will take place as planned. “But it could be affected if sanctions widen”, he said in a phone interview with the CBS radio station based in Seoul.

North Koreans say farewell as they leave their South Korean relatives following a reunion event in 2010.

Kirby said previous reunions had been planned and cancelled for no apparent reason, and that the North Korean approach was exacerbating the suffering of the families longing for contact.