05/30/2024

North Korea’s Trash Rains Down on South Korea

Here’s what it means

Manure. Cigarette butts. Scraps of cloth. Waste batteries. Even, reportedly, diapers. This week, North Korea floated hundreds of huge balloons to dump all of that trash across rival South Korea — an old-fashioned, Cold War-style provocation that the country has rarely used in recent years.

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un confirmed Wednesday that North Korea sent the balloons and attached trash sacks. She said they were deployed to make good on her country’s recent threat to "scatter mounds of wastepaper and filth" in South Korea in response to the leafleting campaigns by South Korean activists.

Experts say the balloon campaigning is meant to stoke a division in South Korea over its conservative government’s hardline policy on North Korea. They also say North Korea also will likely launch new types of provocations in coming months to meddle in November’s U.S. presidential election.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Associated Press.