Military prosecutors sought capital punishment for an Army sergeant on Tuesday for killing and wounding a dozen unarmed fellow soldiers in a shooting rampage at a military outpost near the tensely-guarded eastern border with North Korea last year.The 23-year-old conscript, surnamed Lim, detonated a grenade and sprayed a hail of bullets in June last year in the military outpost of the 22nd Infantry Division stationed near the east-coastal front line, killing five comrades and wounding seven other

July 21, 2015

Seoul's top nuclear envoy will travel to China on Sunday for meetings with his counterpart and experts on Korea, the foreign ministry said.  Hwang Joon-kook will be in Shanghai until Tuesday and visit Beijing from Tuesday to Friday for talks with university scholars, think tank researchers and journalists, among other experts.  Hwang also plans to meet with Wu Dawei, China's special representative for Korean Peninsula Affairs.  Both Hwang and Wu are their governments' top envoys to the now-stall

July 19, 2015

China has launched regular military exercises in the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Strait, according to China's military newspaper on Saturday. The Chinese People's Liberation Army's Daily, the Chinese military's official newspaper, reported that eight days of "military missions" had begun on Friday in the northern parts of the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Strait, adjacent to the Korean Peninsula. Until next Friday, China's maritime authorities have banned ships from sailing in the affected areas. The br

July 18, 2015

The United States approved a possible foreign military sale to South Korea for a project to upgrade the country's aging fleet of KF-16 fighter jets for an estimated cost of $2.5 billion (2.86 trillion won), a U.S. defense agency said Wednesday.The cost estimate is about 1 trillion won higher than the 1.75 trillion won contract that South Korea had originally awarded to the U.S. unit of the British defense firm BAE Systems to upgrade 134 KF-16 fighters with better electronic warfare capabilities.

July 16, 2015

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) ― The U.S. Army’s troop reduction, driven by budget constraints, could ultimately affect South Korea, even though American troops levels in the Asian ally will remain the same in the first round, an Army official said Thursday.Earlier in the day, the Army announced force structure decisions and stationing plans that call for a reduction of the regular Army from 490,000 to 450,000 soldiers in fiscal years 2016 and 2017. The reduction of 40,000 will be completed by the end of f

July 10, 2015

The Navy on Friday granted a posthumous promotion to a soldier who was killed in a deadly maritime skirmish with North Korea, as a new film rekindled public commemoration of the inter-Korean clash.   The Navy decided to promote Chief Petty Officer Han Sang-kook to the rank of senior chief petty officer at a promotion evaluation committee meeting held earlier in the day, it said in a press release.   The belated decision came after the Navy revised the date of his death from June 29, 2002 to Aug.

July 10, 2015

President Park Geun-hye pledged Wednesday to expand investment in cybersecurity, the latest in a series of efforts by South Korea to better deal with potential cyberattacks.She also called for technology development in cybersecurity to make South Korea's cyberspace safer.She made the comments in a video message to mark Information Protection Day. She did not elaborate on details of the proposed expansion of investment.South Korea has been hit by a series of cyberattacks in recent years that offi

July 8, 2015

South Korea launched the country's first center for space monitoring on Wednesday as it aims to better prepare against emergency situations in space and track the passing of enemy satellites, the Air Force said.The space information operation center, opened at the Air Force headquarters in Gyeryong, South Chungcheong Province, located some 176 kilometers south of Seoul, will enable the military to better guard the country against accidents in space, such as the breakdown of the Russian cargo spa

July 8, 2015

Favorable prices and terms should take priority in South Korea's defense acquisition deals, the head of the military equipment acquisition agency said Tuesday following the country's surprise choice of Europe-based Airbus Defense and Space last week for its $1.3 billion project to supply aerial refueling tankers."Choosing arms systems that are cheap and in better terms is fundamental," Minister Chang Myoung-jin of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said in an interview with Yonhap Ne

July 7, 2015

A military officer is under a probe by military prosecutors over accusations that he leaked sensitive defense information to China, a source said Tuesday.The officer affiliated with the Defense Security Command allegedly handed over military intelligence information to a Chinese security agent, including intelligence on the latest activities of neighboring countries, which was filed by other military officers stationed abroad, the military source noted. DSC is a counter-espionage agency tasked w

July 7, 2015

South Korea will step up its participation in global peace-keeping operations, the military official in charge of foreign troops dispatch said Friday, as the country marks the three-year anniversary of PKO deployment in the violence-hit South Sudan.With the 5th rotation of forces of the 290-strong "Hanbit" unit arriving in the South Sudanese town of Bor this week, South Korea marks three years since the dispatch of the rebuilding forces.The Hanbit unit was dispatched to the town, located some 17

July 3, 2015

A retired Navy admiral was indicted Wednesday on charges of helping the world's top shipbuilder win a bid to build submarines in exchange for a high-ranking post at the company, prosecutors said.  The 45-year-old, only identified by his surname Seong, allegedly overlooked faulty parts in the 1,800-ton submarines built by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. while working for the project evaluators at the submarine command between 2008 and 2009, they said.  Seong was hired at Hyundai Heavy Industries in

July 1, 2015

South Korea's Navy launched new rescue teams Wednesday to beef up its emergency response to maritime accidents after the sinking of the ferry Sewol killed more than 300 people last year.  Three rescue operation teams, each composed of about 15 deep-sea divers, will kick off their operations under three Navy fleets covering the eastern, western and southern waters, the Navy said in a statement.  The new teams are mainly tasked with initial-stage response and rescue operations in maritime disaster

July 1, 2015

The U.S. Army has completed two public hearings on its proposal to change the deployment of a THAAD missile defense battery on the island of Guam from temporary to permanent to cope with threats from North Korea.  The hearings, held on Thursday and Saturday, came after an environmental assessment found earlier this month that a permanent THAAD deployment on Guam won't have any significant environmental impact on the human and natural environment.  Lt. Col. Jeff Slown, commander of the THAAD unit

July 1, 2015