North Korea sends new wave of up to 720 trash-filled balloons into South Korea

• North Korea floated another 720 trash-filled balloons into South Korea, local reports said.
• Pyongyang says it is retaliation for activists sending anti-North Korean leaflets across the border.
•  Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, called the balloons “sincere presents.”

North Korea launched another 720 balloons across its border with South Korea Saturday night, carrying plastic bags full of cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, and waste paper.

Pyongyang says it was retaliation for activists sending anti-North Korean leaflets and USB drives containing K-pop music across the border.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said , not human excrement, which earlier reports had speculated — though the outlet said human feces were sent by North Korea in 2016.

Some of the balloons were equipped with timers, suggesting that they were intended to release the trash in midair, AP reported.

In a statement on Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, called the balloons “sincere presents” for South Korean “goblins of democracy who are crying for the guarantee of freedom of expression,” according to a statement by state-run Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday.