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Attendants at the meeting include Hwang Pyong So, director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean People’s Army, Kim Yang Gon, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the North Korean side and Kim Kwan-jin, chief of the National...

North Korea had given the South until 5:00 p.m. Pyongyang time Saturday (0830 UTC) to stop the anti-Pyongyang cross-border broadcasts, which Seoul started up last week following a landmine explosion that wounded two South Korean soldiers.

The rival Koreas have resumed cross-border propaganda warfare as North Korea matched South Korea’s loudspeaker campaign with broadcasts of its own that reportedly included criticism of Seoul and praises for Pyongyang.

South Korea has said the two soldiers wounded in the mine explosions were on a routine patrol in the southern part of the DMZ that separates the two Koreas. Pyongyang is demanding they be turned off by Saturday evening.

The saber rattling in the Korean Peninsula escalated Friday as the North threatened military action if South Korea does not stop blaring propaganda from speakers across the border by Saturday.

The two Koreas traded threats on Friday following a brief exchange of fire a day earlier, in a confrontation that experts say carries a risk that the inexperienced North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un will provoke South Korea to launch a major military retaliation.

The land mines used wooden boxes and were of North Korean origin and were probably planted between July 22 and Tuesday, he said. It was unclear when the broadcasts would start or how long they would continue.

Kim Moo-sung, chairman of the ruling Saenuri Party, called on the military to raise its combat readiness as North Korea fired artillery shells targeted at loudspeakers at a South Korean front-line military unit on the western area.

The incident started when North Korea fired a rocket at a South Korean border area, prompting Seoul’s forces to reply with an artillery barrage.

For years, banks of speakers positioned at more than a dozen points along the border with the North had blared out propaganda messages about the joys of life in South Korea.

North Korea did not return fire but warned Seoul in a letter that it would take military action if the South did not stop the loudspeaker broadcasts along the border within 48 hours, the South’s Defense Ministry said.

In a response to growing worries over mounting debt, South Korea unveiled a set of measures aimed at mitigating risks from household borrowing in July. It did not mention whether there were injuries or damage on either side.

The explosions just hundreds of meters into the South’s portion of the inter-Korean Demilitarized Zone left two soldiers in need of leg amputations.

South Korea on Monday ordered border propaganda operations against North Korea to resume for the first time in 11 years, in retaliation for landmine blasts that maimed two of its soldiers during a frontier patrol.

One of the soldiers lost both legs, while the other lost one leg.