SOUTH KOREA said today that it has restarted propaganda broadcasts into North Korea to retaliate against the North’s latest round of rubbish-carrying balloon launches.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that it used loudspeakers to blare anti-Pyongyang broadcasts over the border between Thursday evening and this morning. 

The broadcasts were the first of their kind in about 40 days. The contents were not immediately known, but last month they reportedly included K-pop songs, weather forecasts and news on Samsung, the biggest South Korean company.

Past broadcasts have also included criticism of the North’s missile programme and its crackdown on foreign videos.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that they will conduct loudspeaker broadcasts in a fuller manner and other stronger steps if North Korea continues provocations such as balloon launches.

Previous North Korean-flown balloons carried scraps of cloth, cigarette butts, waste batteries and even manure, though they caused no major damage in South Korea. 

North Korea said they were sent in response to South Korean activists sending political leaflets to the North via their own balloons.