FAMINE, ISOLATION, a collapsing economy and a leader reportedly near death - times are tough for North Korea, writes David McNeillin Tokyo
And now another irritant has arrived to test the patience of the time-warped Stalinist state: balloons! For weeks, anti-Pyongyang protesters have gathered near the demilitarised zone that separates the divided peninsula and launched hundreds of hydrogen-filled "propaganda missiles" north of the border.
The balloons bear water-proofed one-dollar bills and fliers criticising the North's ailing dictator Kim Jong-il, who is believed to be recovering from a stroke. "Down with Kim Jong-il" is one of the milder comments; others brand him a hypocrite, philanderer, kidnapper, murderer and demand that he tell the world about the state of his health.
"We're going to keep this up until the regime collapses," protester Choi Sung-yong promised the South Korean media this week. Choi leads a group called the Abductees' Family Union, which accuses Pyongyang of kidnapping dozens of southern citizens. The group is believed to be backed by supporters in the South and the United States.
According to sources in China and elsewhere, the balloons have scattered thousands of leaflets around the impoverished countryside. This has infuriated Pyongyang which has become sensitive to criticism since reports of Kim's illness began. The fliers have reportedly forced the mobilisation of North Korean troops to track them down. Several farmers caught reading them have been imprisoned, says the Korea Times.
The protest has further aggravated already tense relations between the two sides, which have soured since the February election of the South's president, Lee Myung-bak. Lee has cut back on co-operation and aid until Pyongyang comes clean on its nuclear weapons programme.
On Monday, hundreds of South Koreans were expelled from the Kaesong industrial site, a $440-million (€348 million) joint-capitalist experiment started in 2000 under Lee's predecessor Kim Dae-Jung. Cross-border traffic has slowed to a trickle and the North's key source of foreign currency, the Geumgang Mountain tourist zone, has been closed since the summer following the killing of a South Korean tourist.
President Lee's opponents blame him for needlessly provoking Seoul's belligerent northern neighbour and torpedoing a decade of slowly improving ties. Some argue that the balloons have made things worse. Critics have turned out in force to prevent them getting airborne, sparking clashes that the police have struggled to contain. Several protesters on both sides have been hospitalised.
Propaganda balloons were used by the South's military until frozen relations began thawing about a decade ago, but the South Korean ministry of unification wants the protests to end, despite being legally powerless to stop them.
Choi and his supporters believe they are helping to educate the North and credit the fliers with spreading the news of Kim's illness among its beleaguered citizens. "They are our brothers and sisters," he said this week. "We can't abandon them."