SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea is stepping up its propaganda campaign ahead of annual U.S.-South Korea war games next month, saying the peninsula is “on the verge of war.” 
 
 Such rhetoric is common from Pyongyang at times of crisis; the current standoff began with the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and shows no signs of easing. Pyongyang has carried out a series of missile tests in recent months and made repeated threats that it is ready to attack South Korea and U.S. bases in the Pacific while pursuing the capability to hit the American mainland with a nuclear-tipped missile. 
 
 South Korea accused Pyongyang of floating propaganda leaflets down the Han River earlier this week. The military discovered dozens of plastic bags, each carrying about 20 leaflets, near the river’s estuary, close to the tense Korean border last Friday, the South’s Defense Ministry said. 
 
 Police also have launched an investigation after nearly 200 lapel pins bearing the image of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il turned up in a flowerbed near Incheon International Airport. Police recovered the coin-sized pins Thursday morning after a hotel employee reported there were North Korean propaganda leaflets in the flowerbed, said an officer who asked to remain anonymous. 
 
 Mere possession of the pins, which are mandatory accessories for all adults in North Korea, wouldn’t be considered a crime in the South; however, distribution of propaganda items would violate South Korea’s National Security Law, the officer said. 
 
 Kim Jong Il, who ruled North Korea from 1994 until his death in 2011, was the son of the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, and the father of current leader Kim Jong Un. 
 
 The lapel-pin find comes a day after the 63rd anniversary of the signing of an armistice that ended fighting during the Korean War. Gen. Vincent Brooks, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, said during a Wednesday ceremony at the Demilitarized Zone that, without the armistice, many incidents that have happened over the years — such as the August maiming of two South Korean soldiers by a mine reportedly planted by the North just before the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises — could have reignited war on the peninsula. 
 
 “Without the agreement and its buffers, we would almost have certainly seen several of the provocations, the provocative border skirmishes of the past six decades, spread like wildfire into larger battles,” he said. 
 
 On Thursday, North Korea’s top diplomat for U.S. affairs, Han Song Ryol, told The Associated Press that Washington “crossed the red line” and effectively declared war by adding Kim to a sanctions list. 
 
 Ryol said recent U.S. actions — likely including a decision to station a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, known as THAAD, in the southeastern region of Seongju — have put the peninsula on the verge of war, and that a vicious showdown could erupt if the U.S. and South Korea go ahead with annual war games planned for next month. 
 
 The leaflets contained threats to launch missile attacks and a repeat of the North’s long-running propaganda, such as claims that it won the 1950-53 Korean War, according to a ministry official quoted by the AP. 
 
 The propaganda incidents may be retaliation for South Korean propaganda broadcasts from loudspeakers at the border that resumed after North Korea’s fourth underground nuclear test in January. The North has been broadcasting its own propaganda across the DMZ and launching anti-South leaflets over the border via balloons, the AP reported. 
 
 chang.kyong@stripes.com ||||| North Korean soldiers keep a watch toward the south as it rains during a ceremony marking the 63rd anniversary of the signing of the Korean War cease-fire armistice agreement at the truce village of Panmunjom,... (Associated Press) 
 
 SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean police found about 200 lapel pins bearing the image of late North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il strewn near the country's main international airport on Thursday, police officers said. 
 
 Police were analyzing security cameras to find how the 196 lapel pins ended up in a flowerbed of a hotel close to Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul, according to a local police officer who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media on the matter. 
 
 He gave no further details, but South Korean media said police were looking at a possibility that the lapel pins may have been carried by propaganda balloons that North Korea floated across the border. 
 
 The possession of such lapel pins would be illegal in South Korea, where praising North Korea is punishable by up to seven years in prison. North Korea, for its part, enforces strict, state-organized public reverence of the Kim family, which has ruled the impoverished yet authoritarian country since its foundation in 1948. 
 
 All North Koreans must wear lapel pins carrying the images of both Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung or the images of either of them. Portraits of the two Kims hang in public buildings and homes, and their birthdays are the two most important holidays in North Korea. 
 
 South Korean officials said they haven't received any reports that North Korea has produced a lapel pin for current leader Kim Jong Un, who took power after his father Kim Jong Il's death in late 2011. 
 
 A lapel pin with images of both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il is considered more valuable than other pins because it's the one given to government and military officials and diplomats. Some ordinary citizens buy that pin at unauthorized street markets, according to defectors and activists in Seoul. A Kim Il Sung pin is more used by citizens than a Kim Jong Il pin, they said. 
 
 The rival Koreas restarted Cold War-era psychological warfare after the North's fourth nuclear test in January. Seoul began blaring anti-Pyongyang broadcasts and K-Pop songs via border loudspeakers, and Pyongyang responded by its own border broadcasts and launches of balloons carrying anti-South leaflets. 
 
 The rivals are divided along the world's most heavily fortified border since their war in the early 1950s ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
– North Korea has apparently kicked off a new propaganda war ahead of planned war games between the US and South Korea next month. South Korea says its military found hundreds of propaganda leaflets floating down a river near the border last week, boasting that the North won the Korean War and threatening missile attacks, reports the AP. Some 200 flag-shaped lapel pins featuring a photo of Kim Jong Il were also discovered in a hotel flowerbed near Incheon International Airport on Thursday, reports Stars and Stripes. These are no ordinary pins: As Atlas Obscura explains, they're a patriotic symbol distributed by North Korea's Workers' Party to be worn by all adults on the left side of the chest. Some say Kim Jong Un's wife disappeared after failing to wear one in public. Other versions feature Kim Il Sung, and a rare few show both former leaders. These are only given to high-ranking government officials and military leaders, though ordinary citizens can get a knock-off version from China on the black market. North Koreans were even using the pins in place of cash before the Workers' Party made it illegal. Police are investigating how the pins got into the flowerbed as possession of such items is illegal in South Korea, but say they may have arrived via a propaganda balloon. Meanwhile, Pyongyang accuses the South of releasing snakes across the border "as part of a 'cunning scheme' to challenge our unity," reports the Guardian. A diplomat also promises action if the war games go ahead as planned, noting the US "crossed the red line" when putting Kim on a sanctions list.