PEACE

The North Korean government claimed to have successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb, which is a significantly more lethal weapon than the plutonium bombs North Korea has been previously testing. Many analysts doubt this claim, but it has elicited an angry response from most of the world.

Blaring anti-Pyongyang messages, promises of food and shelter, current events from around the world, stories of the South’s prosperity and wealth, and, of course, the latest K-Pop hits such as songs by Big Bang, IU, and A-Pink, these loudspeakers can be heard by people as far as 15 miles away.

The use of loudspeakers has been one of the South’s most effective ways of incensing Pyongyang because of its effectiveness in lowering the morale and loyalty of the civilians and soldiers near the border and undermining North Korea’s information blackout.

With the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, Japan has become much more cautious as it prepares for hosting high-profile events including next year’s Group of Seven summit and the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Earlier this year, an extremist group in Syria murdered two Japanese men, and in October of this year, gunmen in Bangladesh killed another Japanese man. ISIS took responsibility for this act.

Masanori Naito, a Middle Eastern affairs expert and professor at the graduate school of global studies at Doshisha University in Kyoto, said, “The Islamic State group has already identified Japan as part of the ‘Coalition of the Willing.’ It’s therefore up to the Japanese government’s actions in the future to determine the degree of risk for Japan.”

North Korea’s outdated military may be the butt of jokes around the world, but it has an ace up its sleeve: thousands of missiles — potentially nuclear-armed missiles, at that — pointed straight at cities such as Seoul and Tokyo and U.S. military bases throughout the Pacific. 

During a war, South Korea and the United States’ main priority is to neutralize any nuclear threat. The plan lays out details on how to detect, disrupt, and destroy North Korean missiles.

This comes at a time of several flareups between the North and South Korean militaries as well as the practically seasonal North Korean aggressive rhetoric. 

Wait, what? One of North Korea’s boats ventured across the border and quickly returned after the South Korean navy fired shots. North Korea did not shoot back. 

The Committee for Peaceful Reunification believes that this recent military provocation of South Korean “military gangsters” was aimed at destroying the atmosphere that was made between North and South Korea and could  “totally derail the process for implementing the North-South agreement.”

Pyongyang described the incident as a “serious military provocation” and claimed that South Korea was the one who wished to destroy the improved relations between the two nations.