About six out of ten North Koreans or the country’s 15.3 million population are estimated to suffer undernutrition this year, as the poor economy has been ravaged by the coronavirus, the US Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service said in its latest report on food security worldwide. Last year, 14.6 million North Koreans, 57 percent of the total, did not have enough food. The food crisis there showed no immediate signs of abating, as 45 percent of the population was f

North Korea Aug. 13, 2020

A British man is facing prosecution in Korea for illegally filming sexual footage of Korean women and selling it online, local authorities said Wednesday. According to police, the man is accused of secretly filming at least 10 women he approached while visiting downtown Seoul for 10 days in early August 2018, and of selling the footage to paid members on his website for $27. He is also alleged to have sexually assaulted some of the women after taking them home. Police launched an investigati

Social Affairs Aug. 12, 2020

Starting Aug. 21, all US military personnel will be required to undergo coronavirus testing before departing for South Korea, a US military newspaper reported Friday. Under the toughened rules, all US soldiers entering Korea will be quarantined for four weeks and must take two virus tests. They must be in a two-week quarantine before departure and again upon arrival here. They will be tested again before their isolated period here ends. The same rules apply to any family members traveling wit

Defense Aug. 11, 2020

The Unification Ministry looks set to approve an inter-Korean barter trade of South Korea’s sugar for North Korea’s liquor and food products. Before taking office late last month, then Unification Minister nominee Lee In-young said small-scale barter exchanges could pave the way for a resumption of stalled inter-Korean exchanges, as they bypass UN sanctions banning cash transfers. A South Korean farmers’ cooperative in June sealed a deal with five North Korean trading firms,

North Korea Aug. 11, 2020

The Defense Ministry said Monday it plans to roll out enhanced submarines in the next five years that will be capable of carrying more ballistic missiles, as part of a long-term initiative to beef up South Korea’s military capabilities. It also plans to develop its own interceptor system like Israel’s Iron Dome to defend the country’s core infrastructure in the capital area against North Korea’s long-range artillery threats. “We have in mind 3,600- and 4,000-ton

Defense Aug. 10, 2020

North Korea is gearing up for another deluge of torrential rain this week, with its houses and rice fields already severely flooded, in another blow to the regime grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic and a flailing economy under international sanctions. “Heavy rain is expected through Sunday and Monday, with mid-level flood warnings issued for the Hwanghae provinces, Kaesong City and Kangwon Province,” the official Korea Central News Agency said Saturday, just a day after reporting

North Korea Aug. 9, 2020

Wang Jung-hong, a state auditor for 29 years, was appointed chief of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration in August 2018, amid hope for fairness, openness and greater accountability in arms procurement deals for the South Korean military, ranked the world’s sixth powerful.   Wang’s mission as the chief weapons buyer for the armed forces, however, went far beyond that. As the country looked to spend more money on buying locally built weapons, he forged a team, includi

Defense Aug. 4, 2020

The 24-year-old North Korean defector who recently returned to the North was detected multiple times by the South Korean military before reaching his destination, an internal investigation revealed Friday. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the defector, identified only by the surname Kim, took a cab to Ganghwado, an island west of Incheon bordering the North, crawled through a drainpipe and cut through rusty barbed-wire fences. It took Kim about two hours to complete the journey,

Defense July 31, 2020

An expanded test site for drone pilot certification is expected to be built in Gimcheon, a city in North Gyeongsang Province, by 2023, a city official said Thursday. Ten other such sites are already in place, but the Gimcheon test ground will be the first to have a drone runaway and other facilities that will for the first time help test applicants’ ability to pilot drones under bad weather or other extreme conditions. The expansion is in response to a hike in the number of drone pilot h

Social Affairs July 30, 2020

With a major hurdle lifted on rocket propellants, South Korea is set to double up its efforts to build a foothold in space, eyeing, above anything else, the country’s first ship to land on the moon and its first spy satellite, experts said Wednesday.  President Moon Jae-in, addressing the revision in a Korea-US missile pact announced the previous day, signaled a push to secure “complete missile sovereignty,” while expressing hopes to see industries affected by the latest

Defense July 29, 2020

Starting next Wednesday, soldiers who break rules while on active duty will not face detention at a guardhouse. The military is putting an end to the 124-year-old practice, which critics say constitutes unlawful confinement. Currently, rule-breaking soldiers can be detained in military lockup facilities for up to 15 days, and time in detention does not count toward their compulsory terms of about two years in the military.  The detention system, in place since 1896, has been called uncon

Defense July 28, 2020

A North Korean defector believed to have swum across a river to return to North Korea earlier this month spoke of a “hopeless life” in the North and his perilous journey to the South on YouTube last month. Appearing in a video posted by a channel run by defectors, the man, presumed to be in his 20s and surnamed Kim, shared his story of fleeing the North for a better life in 2017, a year after the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex was closed over Pyongyang’s long-range m

North Korea July 27, 2020

South Korea’s military said Sunday that an unidentified person may have crossed the inter-Korean border to North Korea, supporting the North’s claim that a defector returned home a week ago with COVID-19 symptoms.  The North’s Korean Central News Agency said earlier in the day that the homecoming had prompted leader Kim Jong-un to chair an emergency Politburo meeting, where he raised the country’s coronavirus alert to the highest level and ordered a complete shutdow

North Korea July 26, 2020

CHANGWON, South Gyeongsang Province -- South Korean defense firm Hanwha Defense said Sunday that it was shipping two Redback infantry fighting vehicles to the Australian Army for testing, part of a project worth roughly 5 trillion won ($4.1 billion). The Australian military will decide whether to make a final offer on the Korean-made vehicles by late 2022, after testing them from November to August next year.　 　 The Redback and Germany’s Rheinmetall Defence are shortlisted for the count

Defense July 26, 2020

Starting in October, conscientious objectors in Korea who pass a thorough screening process will work in jails for three years instead of serving in the military for about two years. The alternative service system is a major departure from the country’s 67-year history of criminalizing people who refused conscription, regardless of whether they did so on religious grounds.  Technically still at war with North Korea, South Korea requires all able-bodied men to serve in the military

Defense July 22, 2020