North Korea is considering restarting loudspeaker broadcasts near the border with South Korea, according to state-owned media.
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, said in a statement to Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) that the country is also mulling over the decision to deploy “additional tactical weapons”. No further details on what this would look like have been announced.
The ramped-up retaliation comes as the country’s dictator says that anti-North Korea confrontation has “exceeded” that of the previous Yoon government.
North Korea could restart loudspeaker broadcasts
North Korea started dismantling some of its loudspeakers in August, following Seoul’s own removal of propaganda speakers a week before.
The move was described as a concerted effort to de-escalate tensions from South Korea’s liberal president, Lee Jae Myung.
But Kim Yo Jong told state-media on Monday that the situation on the inter-Korean border is now “very unstable”.
This isn’t the first time that the two countries have returned to using loudspeaker broadcasts to disrupt citizens and blare out propaganda.
After a six-year pause, the technique resumed in June 2024 in response to Pyongyang's campaign of sending rubbish-filled balloons to the South.
North Korea tends to play general noises such as sirens and drums, as well as howling animal cries – while South Korea has aired K-pop songs and news reports, striking a nerve for Pyongyang who is notorious for its extreme sensitivity to any external criticism.
Residents living along the border had complained that their lives had been blighted by loud noise coming from both sides in the day and even at night.
Seoul previously claimed the broadcasts could be heard as much as six miles across the border in the day and more than double that length at night.
North Korea’s AI torpedo
On Saturday, North Korea claimed to have successfully conducted an underwater test of a new high-speed torpedo mechanism that uses artificial intelligence for target detection and guidance.
The test-firing of Zam-2.0, a "super-speed, precisely guided" system took place on Thursday and heralded a “significant” change in Pyongyang’s naval capabilities, reported the Korean Central News Agency, without providing more details on the weapon’s use of artificial intelligence.
The state media report framed the test as a final operation to confirm the viability of the weapon's propulsion systems, following more than 180 evaluations over the past five years.
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