Activists have been releasing the balloons for years, such as here at Paju, north of Seoul, in 2012
North Korea has said it is cutting all communication with South Korea because Seoul has not stopped leaflet-filled balloons being floated over the border.
Severing communication between the countries was the first step to "completely shut down all contact means with South Korea", said state news agency KCNA.
So much for a velvet glove.
It said the decision had come from Kim Jong Un's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, and Kim Yong Chol, a former military intelligence chief....
Have the relationships between the USA and the rest of the world has never been worse.
China wants the communications to continue, but, North Korea won't have it. It may be SARS-CoV-2 is the reason to end communications between the Koreas. China was rather successful in stemming the spread of the virus. I would think advisors may be helping North Korea. The release of flyers to the people from South Korea may be one of the problems North Korea has identified as a high-risk activity.
The region is having problems with the virus. Russia is the third-highest number of cases in the world behind the USA and Brazil. It is difficult to say if the communication breakdown is only due to the release of flyer balloons. To say the relationship with the West and North Korea is a minor problem is a huge understatement. The West didn't even know if the Korean president Kim Jong Un was even alive a few weeks ago.
There is a huge loss of any relationship with the North with the South or West for such information to be lost. The president wasn't interested in the West's knowledge of his well being. It is safe to say if there was a change in authority in North Korea because of illness or loss of the President the government will remain with same with Kim Yo Jong appearing to be more of a radical than the current Korean President Kim Jong Un.
June 8, 2020
By Min Chao Choy
The China-North Korean border city of Mudanjiang (click here) has detected 19 additional asymptomatic cases of COVID-19, Mayor Wang Wenli said Monday, raising fears of a potential surge just over 170 kilometers from the DPRK.
The results came as China reckons with “imported cases” from Russia that first centered on the small border city of Suifenhe in April, which quickly spread to other cities in Heilongjiang and Jilin Provinces, which border North Korea.
The outbreak represents a higher risk to the DPRK than previous outbreaks reported as taking place along the Sino-DPRK frontier: Mudanjiang is the next stop inside China from Russian gateway cities such as Suifenhe, and serves as a major travel and services hub for the Chinese-North Korean-Russian corridor....
Students took part in a rally in Pyongyang last week to denounce defectors who flee to the South
There has been no improvement in relations with North Korea and the West. If anything it is worse.
