NCP leader in Pabna deletes firearm video as police investigate

North Korea said on Thursday that propaganda loudspeakers along its border with South Korea will be ready to switch on within days, setting up the first exchange of cross-border broadcasts in 16 months if Seoul answers in kind.

Kim Yo-jong, a senior Workers' Party official and the sister of leader Kim Jong-un, made the announcement in statements carried by the state Korean Central News Agency. On Wednesday she said the loudspeakers would be in operation along the whole border at some point in October. A day later she said they would be on standby within days and that "new counter means" would be placed on alert along the frontier.

"Our tactical hunting teams are taking new positions, and within October, the loudspeakers for psychological warfare against the ROK will be in operation along the whole border," she said, using the initials of South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea. She also warned Seoul of "the most horrible and distressing situation" if it continued what Pyongyang calls interference in the North's internal affairs.

Giant loudspeakers have been part of the two Koreas' psychological campaign since the Cold War. In recent years the North has broadcast haunting, animal-like sounds across the line, while the South has played K-pop and news critical of Pyongyang. South Korea's military began dismantling its fixed speakers in August 2025, weeks after President Lee Jae Myung suspended broadcasts in his first days in office that June as a confidence-building step. The North then stopped its own broadcasts.

Ties have deteriorated since September, when a landmine exploded south of the military demarcation line and injured three South Korean soldiers, two of them seriously. Seoul and the United Nations Command, which oversees the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War without a peace treaty, concluded that the device was a North Korean anti-personnel mine and that planting it violated the truce. Pyongyang denied responsibility and called the incident a "self-staged farce".

North Korea has spent the past three years reinforcing its side of the 250km border. Since Kim Jong-un declared in December 2023 that the two Koreas were "two states hostile to each other", the North has laid mines, strung barbed wire and built anti-tank barriers. On Wednesday Kim Yo-jong inspected fortification points with Marshal Pak Jong-chon, an adviser to the defence ministry, and said the border had been "clearly blocked and turned into a fortress more thoroughly". She said her brother wanted it to be "a permanent line never to be crossed".

Seoul says North Korean troops have crossed the demarcation line repeatedly during the construction work, prompting South Korean warning broadcasts and warning shots. Pyongyang describes those as provocations by "armed rogues". At a briefing on Thursday, a South Korean defence ministry spokesperson said that if the North went ahead there would "naturally" have to be a proportional measure, but made clear that no decision had been taken. The joint chiefs said they had observed routine maintenance of the North's loudspeakers before Kim's statements.

Seoul's foreign ministry said on Thursday that it would send a letter to the UN Security Council arguing that the September blast was caused by mines planted by North Korea and amounted to a violation of the armistice. The letter will demand an apology and call for dialogue to prevent an escalation, a ministry spokesperson said.

The threat is a setback for Lee's policy of engagement, which has yet to produce talks. Pyongyang has refused to resume dialogue and has formally designated the South a hostile state. It is not clear whether the loudspeakers will actually be switched on, how far they will carry, or what the "new counter means" are. Seoul has not said whether it would restart its own broadcasts, a step that would end the pause Lee began last year. Nor is it known whether the Security Council will act on the letter, given the divisions among its permanent members. North Korea has given no date beyond October.

For Bangladesh, the peninsula is more than a distant flashpoint. South Korea is a major destination for Bangladeshi workers under its Employment Permit System, and thousands of families depend on the wages they send home. A prolonged rise in tension can affect shipping, insurance and energy costs across Asia, and it complicates the wider trade and migration picture that Dhaka watches.

The immediate test is whether KCNA announces that the speakers have gone live, and how Seoul responds. South Korean officials have left room for a measured reply rather than an immediate resumption of their own broadcasts. Any return of South Korean loudspeakers would remove the last confidence-building measure Lee has with Pyongyang and push the border back towards the tit-for-tat both sides avoided after June 2025.

Two dogs bit 27 people in two days in Barura municipality in Cumilla district, the upazila health complex said, in an episode that has renewed concern about stray dogs and rabies across Bangladesh.

The attacks began at about 9pm on Wednesday in Noyontola, Pathanpara and Dewatli, three neighbourhoods of the municipality. Thirteen people were treated at Barura Upazila Health Complex between 10pm and 11:30pm. Fourteen more came in between 9am and noon on Thursday, after the dogs moved through the same areas again.

Dr Mujahidul Islam, the health complex's acting resident medical officer, confirmed the two-day count and the timing of the two waves. He said he had been told the injuries were caused by two rabid dogs. The hospital did not say whether any patient was referred to Cumilla Medical College Hospital or whether anyone was admitted.

A second official gave a slightly different account earlier in the day. Dr Reza Sarwar, the upazila health and family planning officer, said 22 to 25 injured people reached the hospital within about two hours on Thursday morning. If the bites came from rabid dogs, he said, the injuries could put lives at risk. He added that it was not clear why so many people had been bitten in such a short time and that the matter needed investigation. He said he would write to the local administration asking it to act.

Residents of the three areas said they were worried about children and older people, bd24live reported. The health complex is the first stop for bite patients in the upazila. Officials did not say on Thursday whether the facility had enough anti-rabies vaccine for the people treated, or how many had started the full course of shots.

Rabies is the immediate concern after any dog bite. The disease is almost always fatal once symptoms appear, which is why doctors treat exposure as an emergency rather than waiting for signs of illness. Bangladesh has recorded a rising number of animal-bite patients at its main referral hospital in Dhaka: 94,380 in 2023, 122,263 in 2024 and 146,243 in 2025, according to figures from the Infectious Diseases Hospital. Rabies deaths rose from 42 in 2023 to 58 in 2024 and 59 in 2025, with 19 recorded in the first two and a half months of 2026, the hospital's data shows.

The increase has coincided with the weakening of the national programme meant to suppress it. A coordinated effort begun in 2010 combined dog vaccination, birth control, public awareness and prompt treatment for bite victims, and the Directorate General of Health Services says nearly 2.9 million dogs were vaccinated across more than 60 districts. Officials involved in disease control say the programme has effectively stopped since the political change of 2024, with no funding for new vaccination or sterilisation rounds.

"We are preparing a new plan to prevent rabies. However, under this plan, only humans will be vaccinated," said Professor Md Halimur Rashid, director of the disease control division at the DGHS. "At this moment, there is no plan to vaccinate dogs or to control the dog population." In Dhaka, the south city corporation sterilised about 150 dogs in roughly 20 months, against more than 500 a year before 2024, its veterinary officer said.

Barura is not an isolated case. On 11 October, a stray dog bit 28 people over about three hours in three villages of Mithapukur upazila in Rangpur. All were treated and given anti-rabies vaccine at the upazila health complex, and one was referred to Rangpur Medical College Hospital, according to the complex's resident medical officer. The World Health Organization says an area can be freed of dog-mediated rabies if at least 70 per cent of its dogs are vaccinated for three consecutive years.

For Barura, several things remain unknown. No official has said whether the two dogs were tested for rabies, whether they have been caught or removed, or how the municipality plans to deal with the stray population in the three neighbourhoods. The upazila administration has not said when it will act on the health officer's request.

What happens next will be watched closely in a district where the health complex, rather than a veterinary team, ends up treating the consequences. Rabies can be prevented if exposed people receive post-exposure treatment promptly, health officials say. The practical questions for Barura are whether the dogs are found before they bite again, and whether the people already bitten complete their course of vaccine.