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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Hyung-Jin Kim and Kim Tong-Hyung

North Korea's trash rains down onto South Korea, balloon by balloon. Here's what it means

Jeonbuk Fire Headquarters

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.

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