South Korea recommences loudspeaker border propaganda after North’s nuclear test

“We are sending out K-pop and information about life in South Korea as well as about North Korea”, a South Korean military official told NBC News.

Just last August, Seoul resumed its anti-Kim Jong-un broadcast for the first time in 11 years on August 10th, following the North’s landmine attack and subsequent exchange of artillery fire.

Kerry told reporters on Thursday that he spoke by phone with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

“But today in my conversation with the Chinese, I made it very clear, that has not worked and we can not continue business as usual”, Kerry said.

The six-party talks, which involve the DPRK, the Republic of Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russian Federation, launched in 2003 but were stalled in December 2008.

A South Korea defence ministry official said: “We have selected a diverse range of the most recent popular hits to make it interesting”.

North Korea announced Wednesday that it had successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen bomb, drawing widespread condemnation from the worldwide community.

In preparation for a potential assault through cyberspace, South Korea’s military has deployed more cyber defense agents, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. In the past, similar broadcasts have angered North Korea. China, Pyongyang’s most important economic and strategic partner, urges the North to refrain from acts that might worsen tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

A powerful U.S. B-52 bomber has flown over South Korea in a show of force following North Korea’s fourth nuclear test. North Korea expressed “regret” over the wounding of the border guards, and South Korea agreed to stop the broadcasts unless an “abnormal situation” developed.

North Korea has repeatedly said it wants a peace treaty to formally end the war, which it says will give it the security it needs, given what it sees as a hostile United States intent on “regime change” in Pyongyang.

In a related move the same day, lawmakers in both houses of the Diet adopted resolutions condemning North Korea for the nuclear blast. A congressional source said it was expected as soon as Monday.

The South has raised its military alert to the highest level in areas near the loudspeakers, and has also stepped up its cyber security level.

Kerry, for his part, took issue with those contentions, emphatically maintaining that, “North Korea has never been left unattended to”.

It claimed the last, on Tuesday, was a hydrogen bomb, though the White House has shed doubt on that assertion.

He had BALLOONED to the extent he walked with a limp, reports said.