North, South Korea hold talks in DMZ

High level official from North and South Korea continue to hold talks at a historic truce village inside the de-militarized zone. They are trying to defuse tensions after Pyongyang threatened military action, if Seoul did not turn its loud speakers blaring anti-North propaganda.
North Korean frontline troops have been ordered by Kim Jong-un on a war footing, after an exchange of fire with the South across their heavily fortified border, CNN reported on Friday, August 21st citing N. Korean state media reports.
The KCNA report said Kim declared a “semi-state of war” at an emergency meeting late Thursday.
It threatened action unless Seoul ends its anti-Pyongyang border broadcasts.
The North often uses fierce rhetoric when tensions rise and it has made similar declarations before.
The BBC’s South Korea correspondent Steve Evans says that although this ritual of aggression often sees such language escalate to the firing of ammunition, this time the rhetoric is fiercer and artillery shells are now in use.
KCNA reported that Mr Kim had ordered that troops be “fully ready for any military operations at any time” from 17:00 Friday local time (08:30 GMT), at the emergency meeting of the central military commission.
South Korea’s Vice Defence Minister Baek Seung-joo said that 11 sites with loudspeakers for the anti-Pyongyang broadcasts are likely to be targets.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing a government source, said that North Korea appeared to be preparing to fire missiles.
The North often conducts missile tests to show displeasure at South Korea, or in protest at US-South Korean military drills.
Loudspeakers and psychological warfare
In 2004, South Korea and North Korea reached an agreement to dismantle their propaganda loudspeakers at the border.
The broadcasts were part of a programme of psychological warfare, according to South Korean newspaper Korea Times, to deliver outside news so that North Korean soldiers and border-area residents could hear it.
On 10 August this year, South Korea restarted broadcasting in an apparent reaction to two South Korean soldiers being injured in a landmine explosion in the demilitarised zone that was blamed on the North.
Military authorities say days later the North also restarted its broadcasting of anti-South propaganda.
However, some reports said that the quality of the North Korean loudspeakers is so bad that it is difficult to understand what they are saying.
The South had previously threatened to restart broadcasts in 2010 but although the loudspeakers were reinstalled at that time, they were not put into use, with the South using FM broadcasts into the North instead.