South Korea plays loudspeaker broadcasts after receiving North Korea trash balloons News
Daniel Oberhaus, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
South Korea plays loudspeaker broadcasts after receiving North Korea trash balloons

South Korea started playing loudspeaker broadcasts towards North Korea on Saturday after trash balloons from North Korea entered South Korea. The trash balloons were sent around a week after North Korea already made an agreement with South Korea to stop sending the balloons.

The Vice-Minister of National Defense of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), North Korea’s formal name, stated in a press release that North Korea sent 3,500 balloons full of “wastepaper” from May 28 to June 2 in retaliation for anti-North Korea leaflets being sent into North Korea from South Korea. He said at the time that the balloons would stop being sent temporarily, but it will continue to send the trash balloons “hundred times the amount of scatter leaflets” if the leaflets continue to be sent from South Korea. A KoreaTimes news article stated that the leaflets were sent by a North Korean defectors’ groups in South Korea.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff stated in a press release that the South Korean military has been recently training for the first time since 2018 to prepare for situations when broadcasts towards North Korea are implemented. It said the purpose of the exercise is to expose North Koreans to the realities of North Korean and South Korean society.

South Korea has denied responsibility for the initial leaflet balloons and condemned North Korea, calling the North’s actions “inhumane” and “low-grade.” North Korea responded by saying that if the “wastepaper” balloons are an “obvious violation of international law,” as reported by South Korea, then the propaganda balloons must also be.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Alberto Fujimori born

On July 28, 1938, Alberto Fujimori was born in Lima, Peru. Fujimori became President of Peru exactly 62 years later on July 28, 1990 and served until November 22, 2000, when he fled to Japan under a cloud of allegations involving corruption and human-rights violations. Fujimori was widely credited with restoring Peru's economy and national security during his time in office but was convicted in 2007 of ordering an illegal search and seizure and sentenced to 6 years in prison. In 2009, he was also convicted in a separate trial of human rights violations stemming from his war against domestic terrorists during his time in office. Learn more about Alberto Fujimori and his trial from the archives of the New York Times.

Fourteenth Amendment ratified

On July 28, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, granting citizenship to former slaves and protecting due process of law and equal protection of laws in the States, was ratified. Learn more about the history of the Fourteenth Amendment.