Key instruments and performances of the three fighter jets competing for Korea’s FX-III fighter jet procurement program will be tested using simulators, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said Wednesday. According to DAPA, all three models have some aspects that are still under development, limiting tests using the actual aircraft. The revelation comes less than a week since the DAP...

Over 1,000 schools in Seoul will get solar panels installed on their roofs by 2014, under a campaign led by the municipal government, city education authority and a civic group. Mayor Park Won-soon, Educational Superintendent Kwak No-hyun and representatives of a group called Seoul Citizens’ Solar Power Plant kicked off the campaign at a ceremony in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, on Wednesday. The...

WASHINGTON ― Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that he would not take issue with South Korea’s development of longer-range missiles if they are deployed in a “defensive and non-threatening” way. “If they want to do it in a non-threatening way, totally defensive way at its own expense, I don’t have any problem going on,” he said at the Nationa...

A group of Korean scientists said they have succeeded in temporarily suppressing autistic behavior in mice in experiments, which may raise hopes for treating the developmental brain disorder. Researchers from the Seoul National University, Yonsei University and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology studied mice with human genes. They deleted some parts of a gene called SHANK2, ...

Standoff over how to select presidential candidate overshadows panel meeting The ruling Saenuri Party officially entered nomination mode Wednesday by holding its first preparatory committee meeting, but the mood was overcast by stubborn demands from dissenting presidential hopefuls to change the primary rules. The trio ― Reps. Chung Mong-joon and Lee Jae-oh and Gyeonggi Gov. Kim Moon-soo ― refu...

DANDONG, China (Yonhap News) -- More than 100 Chinese soldiers took part in a river-crossing exercise on its Yalu River border with North Korea Tuesday, renewing speculation the Chinese military is preparing to defend against any influx of North Korean refugees following possible regime collapse in Pyongyang. Uniformed soldiers wearing orange life vests could be seen building and rebuilding abou...

North Korea’s western coastal area has been seriously affected by lingering drought that started in late April, its official media reported, citing the lowest precipitation in a century. In a dispatch from Pyongyang on Tuesday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that 1 to 5 mm of rainfall has been reported in some parts of Pyongyang City, South Phyongan Province and North and South Hwang...

China shipped missile launch vehicles to North Korea last year in breach of U.N. resolutions, but was never rebuked because the U.S. did not want to embarrass Beijing, a Japanese newspaper said Wednesday. The report, based on Japanese government sources, is the most strident of recent claims that China has been involved in helping to arm its wayward ally after earlier allegations Beijing supplie...

North Korea has interjected in an intensifying ideological dispute in Seoul, threatening to disclose “pro-North” remarks that conservative politicians allegedly made in the past. Political pundits say its interjection is likely to make the row even muddier. On Monday, Pyongyang’s mouthpiece on South Korean affairs said the ruling Saenuri Party’s former chairwoman and presidential frontrunner Pa...

Canadian volunteers are being invited to join a program to help North Korean defectors this summer. The Canadian Embassy is hosting the Inside Canada Defector Program to give English teachers the chance to help North Koreans adapt to their new lives in the South. Volunteers are being sought for one or both of the intensive two-week sessions to be held at the embassy in Seoul. The first will be ...