North Korea denies artillery firing and mocks South Korea's detection capabilities
Seoul (AP): The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un mocked South Korea's ability to detect weapons launches by the North on Sunday, as she denied Seoul's claim that North Korea fired artillery shells into the sea the previous day.
South Korea's military quickly dismissed her statement as "a low-level psychological warfare" and warned that it will make a stern response to any provocations by North Korea.
South Korea's military earlier said North Korea fired shells near the rivals' disputed western sea boundary for a second consecutive day on Saturday. The military said North Korea fired more than 60 rounds on Saturday, a day after launching more than 200 shells.
North Korea acknowledged it performed artillery firings on Friday but said it didn't fire a single round on Saturday.
Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, said Sunday that North Korea only detonated blasting powder simulating the sound of its coastal artillery at the seashore to test the South Korean military's detection capabilities.
"The result was clear as we expected. They misjudged the blasting sound as the sound of gunfire and conjectured it as a provocation. And they even made a false and impudent statement that the shells dropped north" of the sea boundary, Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.
"I cannot but say that (South Korean) people are very pitiful as they entrust security to such blind persons and offer huge taxes to them," she said. "It is better 10 times to entrust security to a dog with a developed sense of hearing and smell."
Calling South Korea's military "gangsters" and "clowns in military uniforms," Km Yo Jong suggested its possible future miscalculation of North Korean moves could cause an accidental clash between the rivals, jeopardising the safety of Seoul, a city of 10 million people which is only an hour's drive from the land border.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff responded in a statement that it closely monitors North Korean military activities. It said North Korea must stop acts that escalate tensions, saying it will "overwhelmingly" react if North Korea launches provocations.
South Korea carried out artillery firings on Friday in response to the North's earlier firing drills. South Korea didn't perform live-firing exercises on Saturday.
Animosities between the two Koreas are running high because North Korea has conducted a barrage of missile tests since 2022 while South Korea has expanded its military training with the United States in a tit-for-tat cycle.
During their respective artillery firings on Friday, both Koreas fired shells at a maritime buffer zone they had established under a 2018 military agreement meant to ease front-line military tensions.
The agreement was meant to halt live-fire exercises and aerial surveillance along their tense border, but the deal is now in danger of collapsing because the two Koreas have taken measures in breach of the accord.
Experts say Kim Jong Un is likely to ramp up weapons tests ahead of South Korea's parliamentary elections in April and the US presidential elections in November. They say Kim Jong Un likely thinks a bolstered weapons arsenal would allow him to wrest greater US concessions when diplomacy resumes.
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Madhya Pradesh: BJP leader assaults blind woman in Church
Jabalpur: Anju Bhargava, vice-president of BJP's Jabalpur city unit, has come under sharp scrutiny, creating the ripples of political controvery in Madhya Pradesh, after a video surfaced online showing her physically assaulting a visually impaired woman inside a church.
The New Indian Express has reported that the said incident reportedly took place on Saturday (20 Dec) at a church in the Hawa Bagh area, which comes under the limits of Gorakhpur police station.
The video footage that has circulated widely on Monday shows Anju Bhargava, assaulting the blind woman in the presence of a police officer. In the video, Bhargava is seen shouting at the woman, twisting her arm and forcibly grabbing her face. The victim can be heard pleading to Bhargava to speak to her rather than resorting to physical violence. Also, we can hear Bhargava screaming, “will be blind in her next birth too”
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According to The Indian Express reports, Bhargava entered the church, with members of several Hindutva affiliated organisations, alleging that the visually impaired children were being forced into religious conversion; But, the students present at the church have flatly denied all the allegations.
An unnamed police officer cited in media reports states that there was no evidence to support claims of forced religious conversion. The incident has since intensified political debate in the state, with opposition parties demanding accountability and action against those involved.
