{"id":14621,"date":"2012-12-24T04:12:05","date_gmt":"2012-12-24T04:12:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-12-24T04:12:05","modified_gmt":"2012-12-24T04:12:05","slug":"SKorea-sheds-some-Christmas-light-on-North","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=14621","title":{"rendered":"SKorea sheds some Christmas light on North"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Korean church groups have displayed Christmas lights near the tense border with North Korea, an official said, despite concerns about a violent response from Pyongyang.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dozens of church leaders and followers put up the giant display — featuring thousands of glittering light bulbs on a tree-shaped steel tower — near the heavily-fortified border on Saturday, a defense ministry spokesman told AFP.<\/p>\n

The lights on a military-controlled hill in Gimpo, west of Seoul, will be displayed until early January and can apparently be seen several kilometers away in the impoverished North suffering from chronic power shortage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before the South’s “Sunshine Policy” of engagement with North Korea launched in 1998, the seasonal lighting displays were common.<\/p>\n

Pyongyang repeatedly condemned them as “psychological warfare”<\/strong> by its capitalist neighbor aimed at spreading Christianity in the isolated communist state.<\/p>\n

In 2004 the two Koreas agreed to halt official-level cross-border propaganda and the South stopped the Christmas border illuminations completely.<\/p>\n

They were resumed in 2010 after North Korea shelled a frontline island, but were postponed last year in a conciliatory gesture following the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.<\/p>\n

But the latest illumination has provoked fear among some local residents who staged a protest amid concerns about potential retaliation from the North, according to Yonhap news agency.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“All residents here are left to tremble in fear… as long as the light tower stays here,” a group of residents said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Before Kim’s death Pyongyang warned of “unexpected consequences” if Seoul displayed Christmas lights in 2011 and vowed unspecified retaliation.<\/p>\n

Cross-border tensions have been high since the nuclear-armed North this month staged a long-range rocket launch widely condemned as a disguised ballistic missile test by the international community.
\n
\nSource AP<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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