North Korea has made headlines quite a bit as of lately and tonight they are back in the headlines once again as reports are indicating that North Korea’s state radio has recently broadcast strings of indecipherable numbers in a possible move echoing a Cold War-era method of sending coded messages to spies operating in South Korea.

The numbers are read for two minutes on June 24 and 14 minutes on Friday, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry and National Intelligence Service, including phrases such as ‘turn to page 459, question 35’ in what is described as a mathematics assignment. The reason for the concern of this is because, During the Cold War, Pyongyang sent such numbers via shortwave radio to give missions to agents dispatched to South Korea, according to captured North Korean spies.

Recently North Korea’s propaganda outlet DPRK uploaded videos of medium-range ballistic missile launches and simulations of attacks against the U.S. mainland or U.S. military bases. And then on July 7th North Korea labeled US sanctions against its leader Kim Jong-Un ‘a declaration of war’, promising to provide Washington with a strong response. The restrictive measures constitute “the worst hostile act” and “an open declaration of war. Shortly after this threat, North Korea threatened the U.S.Mainland with new missiles it boasted of. The video featured numerous North Korean missile launches but highlights the KN-14 intercontinental ballistic missile believed to have a range of up to 8,077 miles, enough to target New York or Washington D.C.


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Only days later North Korea’s military threatened to make a “physical response” to South Korea’s new missile defence system. This threat followed North Korea’s fourth nuclear test this year and launched a long-range rocket, resulting in tough new UN sanctions and a series of bilateral sanctions against it.  Japan was then threatened by Nort Korea when the Pyongyang-based newspaper Rodong Sinmun, which is the official publication of the hermit state’s one-party government, issued a terrifying declaration of war in response to a Japanese military drill that took place. The editorial accused Japan of working with South Korean officials, and described it as “the worst group of traitors”, as part of a plan to invade the country.

Could North Korea finally follow through on an actual threat by carrying out a “Sudden Attack” against South Korea, Japan or the United States? It has been a much controversial debate on whether they would be able to carry out such attacks as they claim and propagate in their many videos. One thing is sure, and that is they have been very active in their threats and military maneuvers preparing for something big on the horizon.