South Korean activists send propaganda balloons north

SEOUL

South Korean activists said on Thursday they had sent 10 balloons loaded with anti-Kim Jong Un leaflets and K-pop music into North Korea, in response to hundreds of trash-carrying balloons from Pyongyang.

North Korea has said its recent balloon blitz, lugging bags of garbage such as cigarette butts and plastic waste, was retaliation for previous missives sent by the activists.

Pyongyang called off its campaign on June 2, but has warned it would restart if more balloons came north.

Past propaganda tit-for-tats have had real-world consequences for inter-Korean relations.

South Korea has called the latest provocation from its nuclear-armed neighbor "irrational" and "low-class" but, unlike the North's spate of recent ballistic missile launches, the trash campaign does not violate U.N. sanctions on Kim's isolated government.

The defector group Fighters for Free North Korea announced yesterday they had launched 10 balloons northward carrying 200,000 leaflets and 5,000 USB flash drives containing Korean pop music and TV shows, as well as thousands of one-dollar bills.

The same group sent balloons carrying around 2,000 USB drives containing songs by South Korean singer Lim Young-woong, as well as other K-pop tracks and K-dramas, into the North on May 10, they said earlier this week.