Category: DMZ

Is this the world’s most dangerous view from a Starbucks?:

Coffee drinkers can sip their beverages and view a quiet North Korean mountain village from a new Starbucks at a South Korean border observatory. Customers have to pass a military checkpoint before entering the observatory at Aegibong Peace Ecopark, which is less than a mile from North Korean territory and overlooks North Korea’s Songaksan mountain and a nearby village in Kaephung county.

The tables and windows face North Korea at the Starbucks, where about 40 people, a few of them foreigners, came to the opening Friday. The South Korean city of Gimpo said hosting Starbucks was part of efforts to develop its border facilities as a tourist destination and said the shop symbolizes “robust security on the Korean Peninsula through the presence of this iconic capitalist brand.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

More tit-for-tat between North Korea and the ROK:

 North Korea’s jamming of GPS signals across the border with South Korea continued Sunday for the 10th consecutive day, the military said.

GPS jamming was detected in the northern part of Gangwon Province early Sunday morning, according to the military. 

The latest jamming attacks began near the northwestern islands before they began spreading to the northern parts of Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces last Thursday.

The military has said the jamming has involved weaker signals than in May and June and lasted for shorter periods over various directions.

The jamming appears to be a North Korean military exercise in responding to the possible appearance of drones, according to the military.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The ROK is informing North Korean Soldiers along the DMZ that they could potentially become cannon fodder in Putin’s war in Ukraine:

The South Korean loudspeakers blaring at the Demilitarized Zone are causing pain for the residents of the nearby Unification Village, the village chief told Stars and Stripes by phone Tuesday. Since Monday, the South Korean armed forces’ “Voice of Freedom” has been broadcasting around-the-clock to North Koreans that their troops are deployed to Russia to support the invasion of Ukraine, Lee Wanbae said.

“Not only me but also my villagers have been hearing the anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker broadcasts all day long every day,” he said. “The military broadcasts it from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. … and it is very loud. So, our ears are starting to hurt.” Unification Village, in a buffer zone just outside the DMZ, is just over a mile from the no-man’s land dividing the two countries.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This wasn’t a very well thought out plan because it had no chance of ever working:

A former defector, unhappy with life in the South, stole a 25-seat shuttle bus this week and attempted to cross a bridge into North Korea before he was apprehended by guards. The defector, 35, was caught at 12:55 a.m. Monday on the Tongil Bridge, or Unification Bridge, in Paju city, by South Korean military guards and turned over to civilian police, according to military and police spokespeople Tuesday.

Privacy laws prohibit authorities from publicly identifying most people under arrest in South Korea. The defector was held on suspicion of theft and violating the National Security Act, a police spokesman said. The defector found the key to the minibus in a company garage in Munsan town, crawled through a window near the driver’s seat and drove nearly three miles to the bridge’s south checkpoint, a spokesman for North Gyeonggi Provincial Police said by phone.

The lane toward the checkpoint was heavily guarded, so the unidentified defector drove in the opposing lane onto the bridge, the spokesman said. Bypassing the checkpoint and ignoring guards trying to stop him, the defector drove another 900 yards before hitting a barricade in front of the north checkpoint, where soldiers stopped him, the spokesman said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This is interesting because it is very rare for a North Korean Soldiers to defect across the DMZ like this. It causing officials to wonder if Seoul’s newly started propaganda broadcasts might be having an effect:

A North Korean soldier crossed the border into South Korea early Tuesday in the latest defection amid Seoul’s propaganda campaign in response to Pyongyang’s s repeated launches of trash-carrying balloons.

The South Korean military detected the soldier from north of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas in the eastern section of the border and conducted an operation to help him arrive in the South.

The North Korean, wearing a military uniform, is believed to have walked southward through a path located near the Donghae road along the east coast — one of the two rare roads connecting the two Koreas where the North has installed mines and removed street lights. (….)

The defection came just 12 days after a North Korean resident defected to the South by crossing the neutral zone of the Han River estuary located west of the inter-Korean land border.

It also came as South Korea has been conducting full-scale anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, including news and K-pop music, daily through its border loudspeakers since mid-July in response to the North’s repeated launches of trash-carrying balloons.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the newest addition to the Odusan Observatory:

Oh Eun Jeong, a poet who fled North Korea in 2009, left behind a younger sister for whom she still longs. Oh, profiled by The Washington Post in 2018 as one of many young North Korean defectors thriving with new lives in the South, said that longing motivated her to write poetry. “I think about my sister every day,” she told Stars and Stripes by phone Aug. 8. “Knowing she’s still there while I’m here makes my heart heavy.” Oh and other former North Koreans now have a place to bring those sentiments. On Aug. 1, the South Korean Ministry for Unification unveiled a monument to those who escaped the North or lost their lives in the attempt. “This monument gives me a place to express that longing, even if I can’t be with her,” Oh said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This is just probably busy work to create fortifications to stress the South Korean threat to the North Korean Soldiers:

North Korea’s military has been carrying out unexplained construction inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, according to a military source Saturday.

“Recently, the North Korean military has been erecting walls, digging up the ground and constructing roads in some areas between the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and the Northern Limit Line in the DMZ,” the source said.

The source added it was unclear whether these activities indicate an intention to build a long wall north of the MDL or simply to establish defensive structures at specific points.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Considering everything going on lately with the North Koreans; I have to wonder if this crossing into South Korea was really inadvertant or not?:

About 20 North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the inter-Korean land border earlier this week and went back to the North’s side after the South’s military fired warning shots, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday.

The North Korean soldiers crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas in the central section of the border at around 12:30 p.m. Sunday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

The South Korean military conducted warning broadcasts and fired warning shots, prompting the North Koreans to return to their side of the border, the JCS said, adding that there was no unusual activity after the warning shots.

JCS spokesperson Col. Lee Sung-jun said the military assesses the soldiers, who were working on an unspecified task inside the DMZ, did not intend to cross the MDL, considering that they returned immediately after the warning shots.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I can remember over 20 years ago when North Korea was sending propaganda leaflets into South Korea and it appears we are going back to those times:

South Korea’s military said Tuesday it is vetting objects assumed to be propaganda leaflets distributed by North Korea.

“The military is taking measures after unidentified objects assumed to be North Korean propaganda leaflets were found in border areas in Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a notice sent to the press.

The JCS advised residents in the areas to refrain from accessing the objects and report to nearby military or police authorities in the event they discover such objects.

Earlier, North Korea warned of taking “tit-for-tat action” against the distribution of anti-Pyongyang leaflets in border areas.

“Mounds of wastepaper and filth will soon be scattered over the border areas and the interior of the ROK and it will directly experience how much effort is required to remove them,” Kim Kang-il, the North’s vice defense minister, said in a statement released via state media, using the acronym for South Korea’s official name.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.