SEOUL: South Korea is monitoring an expected change in the wind direction on Monday that could allow North Korea to send more trash-carrying balloons across their heavily armed border, in their latest bout of tit-for-tat psychological warfare.
Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a major defense deal that observers worry could embolden Kim to direct more provocations at South Korea.
That could include the launching of more huge balloons carrying rubbish toward South Korea in response to a South Korean civilian group’s recent floating of balloons with anti-North Korean propaganda into the North.
South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Lee Sung Joon told reporters Monday that the military is closely monitoring North Korean moves because northerly or northwesterly winds, favorable for North Korean balloon launches, were forecast on Monday.
Starting in late May, North Korea launched a series of balloons that dropped manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste batteries and vinyl in various parts of South Korea. No highly dangerous materials were found. North Korea said its balloon campaign was a tit-for-tat action against South Korean activists who flew political leaflets critical of its leadership across the border.
Kim’s influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, threatened Friday to retaliate after a South Korean group said it sent 20 balloons carrying 300,000 propaganda leaflets, 5,000 USB sticks with South Korean pop songs and TV dramas, and US one-dollar bills across the border the previous night.
“When you do something you were clearly warned not to do, it’s only natural that you will find yourself dealing with something you didn’t have to,” Kim Yo Jong said, without saying whether North Korea would launch balloons again.
The South Korean military didn’t say how it would respond if North Korea conducts a new round of balloon launches.
In reaction to North Korea’s earlier balloon campaign, South Korea’s military on June 9 redeployed gigantic loudspeakers along the border for the first time in six years and resumed anti-North Korean propaganda broadcasts. The broadcasts reportedly included hits by K-pop sensation BTS such as “Butter” and “Dynamite,” weather forecasts and news on Samsung, the biggest South Korean company, as well as criticism of North Korea’s missile program and its crackdown on foreign videos.
North Korea views front-line South Korean broadcasts and civilian leafleting campaigns as a grave provocation because it bans access to foreign news for most of its 26 million people. North Korea has reacted to past South Korean loudspeaker broadcasts and civilian balloon activities by firing rounds across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korea. No casualties were reported.
Earlier Monday, South Korea, the United States and Japan issued a joint statement strongly condemning expanding military cooperation between Russia and North Korea. It said the North Korean-Russian moves should be of “grave concern” to efforts to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula, the global non-proliferation regime and support for the Ukraine people.
During a meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, last Wednesday, Kim Jong Un and Putin struck a deal requiring each country to provide aid if attacked and vowed to boost other cooperation. Observers say the accord represents the strongest connection between the two countries since the end of the Cold War. The US and its partners believe North Korea has already been providing Russia with much-needed conventional arms for its war in Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance.
The South Korea-US-Japan statement said the three countries reaffirmed their intention to further boost diplomatic and security cooperation to cope with North Korean threats and prevent an escalation of the situation. It said US commitments to the defense of South Korea and Japan “remain ironclad.”
Last Saturday, a nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea for a three-way Seoul-Washington-Tokyo military exercise that is expected to begin this month.
North Korea has previously called such joint US military drills an invasion rehearsal and responded with missile tests. North Korea maintains that US hostility forced it to pursue nuclear weapons in self-defense.
Change in wind direction prompts worry about more North Korean trash balloon launches toward South
https://arab.news/n3ker
Change in wind direction prompts worry about more North Korean trash balloon launches toward South
- Starting in late May, North Korea launched a series of balloons that dropped manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste batteries and vinyl in various parts of South Korea
Reference to Trump’s impeachments is removed from the display of his Smithsonian photo portrait
- For now, references to Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton being impeached in 1868 and 1998, respectively, remain as part of their portrait labels, as does President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation as a result of the Watergate scandal
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s photo portrait display at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has had references to his two impeachments removed, the latest apparent change at the collection of museums he has accused of bias as he asserts his influence over how official presentations document US history.
The wall text, which summarized Trump’s first presidency and noted his 2024 comeback victory, was part of the museum’s “American Presidents” exhibition. The description had been placed alongside a photograph of Trump taken during his first term. Now, a different photo appears without any accompanying text block, though the text was available online. Trump was the only president whose display in the gallery, as seen Sunday, did not include any extended text.
The White House did not say whether it sought any changes. Nor did a Smithsonian statement in response to Associated Press questions. But Trump ordered in August that Smithsonian officials review all exhibits before the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4. The Republican administration said the effort would “ensure alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”
Trump’s original “portrait label,” as the Smithsonian calls it, notes Trump’s Supreme Court nominations and his administration’s development of COVID-19 vaccines. That section concludes: “Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials.”
Then the text continues: “After losing to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump mounted a historic comeback in the 2024 election. He is the only president aside from Grover Cleveland (1837– 1908) to have won a nonconsecutive second term.”
Asked about the display, White House spokesman Davis Ingle celebrated the new photograph, which shows Trump, brow furrowed, leaning over his Oval Office desk. Ingle said it ensures Trump’s “unmatched aura ... will be felt throughout the halls of the National Portrait Gallery.”
The portrait was taken by White House photographer Daniel Torok, who is credited in the display that includes medallions noting Trump is the 45th and 47th president. Similar numerical medallions appear alongside other presidents’ painted portraits that also include the more extended biographical summaries such as what had been part of Trump’s display.
Sitting presidents are represented by photographs until their official paintings are commissioned and completed.
Ingle did not answer questions about whether Trump or a White House aide, on his behalf, asked for anything related to the portrait label.
The gallery said in a statement that it had previously rotated two photographs of Trump from its collection before putting up Torok’s work.
“The museum is beginning its planned update of the America’s Presidents gallery which will undergo a larger refresh this Spring,” the gallery statement said. “For some new exhibitions and displays, the museum has been exploring quotes or tombstone labels, which provide only general information, such as the artist’s name.”
For now, references to Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton being impeached in 1868 and 1998, respectively, remain as part of their portrait labels, as does President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation as a result of the Watergate scandal.
And, the gallery statement noted, “The history of Presidential impeachments continues to be represented in our museums, including the National Museum of American History.”
Trump has made clear his intentions to shape how the federal government documents US history and culture. He has offered an especially harsh assessment of how the Smithsonian and other museums have featured chattel slavery as a seminal variable in the nation’s development but also taken steps to reshape how he and his contemporary rivals are depicted.
In the months before his order for a Smithsonian review, he fired the head archivist of the National Archives and said he was firing the National Portrait Gallery’s director, Kim Sajet, as part of his overhaul. Sajet maintained the backing of the Smithsonian’s governing board, but she ultimately resigned.
At the White House, Trump has designed a notably partisan and subjective “Presidential Walk of Fame” featuring gilded photographs of himself and his predecessors — with the exception of Biden, who is represented by an autopen — along with plaques describing their presidencies.
The White House said at the time that Trump himself was a primary author of the plaques. Notably, Trump’s two plaques praise the 45th and 47th president as a historically successful figure while those under Biden’s autopen stand-in describe the 46th executive as “by far, the worst President in American History” who “brought our Nation to the brink of destruction.”
