South Korea and Japan will hold a biennial joint naval exercise this weekend to promote military exchanges and friendship, the Navy here said Monday. The Navy and Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force will hold their seventh annual Search and Rescue Exercise, or SAREX, this Saturday and Sunday. The exercise will be held off the east coast of Busan, some 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul. The first...

The U.S. air force is cutting hundreds of civilian jobs in South Korea and other parts of the Pacific region, a report showed Sunday. The Stars and Stripes, a U.S. military newspaper, said the air force was cutting 858 civilian jobs in the Pacific as part of its major restructuring. On Wednesday, the air force had announced that it was eliminating 9,000 civilian jobs and another 4,500 in the fu...

Former Navy officer denies all allegations German prosecutors are investigating a Korean weapons broker for alleged corruption in a large-scale submarine acquisition deal with a German engine manufacturer, local and German media reported this week. They are looking into the possibility that broker Jeong Eui-seung used some of the commission he received from MTU, a subsidiary of the engine manuf...

The U.S. Defense Department plans to offer some $5.7 million to North Korea for a project to search for and excavate the remains of the U.S. war dead in the communist country, Washington-based Radio Free Asia reported on Thursday. Citing an email message from Pentagon’s publicity officer Carie Parker, it said that the money will be used to establish base camps for the work in North Pyongan Provi...

One pilot was killed and another wounded after an Army 500MD combat helicopter made an emergency landing for an unverified reason in a mountain in Gangwon Province on Wednesday. The accident occurred at around 2:40 p.m. in Wonju of the province when the helicopter of the Army’s aerial operations command participated in the annual Hoguk Exercise. The 45-year-old warrant officer, the main pilot, ...

The state military recruitment agency is offering counseling on conscription procedures for overseas Korean men during the annual World Korean Business Convention in Busan this week, officials said Wednesday. The Military Manpower Administration is running a booth in BEXCO in the southeastern port city until Friday to introduce a system under which those with foreign permanent residency can appl...

The military has saved costs and improved its productivity in equipment maintenance by hiring civilian workers, the defense ministry said Tuesday. The ministry said that as part of the military’s plan to increase efficiency in defense management, the Army hired 37 civilian technicians to handle maintenance of 27 armored vehicles this year. The ministry said the military could save up to 11.7 bi...

Vice defense ministers of South Korea and Japan will hold talks in Seoul on Tuesday to discuss regional security and ways to enhance bilateral defense cooperation. South Korean Vice Defense Minister Lee Young-geol and his Japanese counterpart Kimito Nakae are also expected to exchange views on issues concerning North Korean military threats. Their talks were arranged after the defense chiefs of...

Four military personnel were arrested this month on charges of hacking into e-mails of a professor at Chosun University in the southeastern city of Gwangju, military investigators said Monday. The Criminal Investigation Command under the Defense Ministry said that security operatives broke into the e-mails of Gi Gwang-seo, political science professor at the university, and downloaded nearly 700 ...

SEOUL, Oct. 28 (Yonhap) -- The following is the full text of the joint communique issued after the 43rd South Korea-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting in Seoul Friday. 1. The 43rd Republic of Korea-United States Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) was held in Seoul on October 28, 2011. ROK Minister of National Defense Kim, Kwan Jin and U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta led their respecti...

SEOUL, Oct. 28 (Yonhap) -- Defense chiefs of South Korea and the U.S. on Friday agreed to pursue a joint operational plan to counter potential provocations by North Korea at their annual bilateral security meeting in Seoul. After the 43rd Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said they "thought highly" of the de...

SEOUL, Oct. 26 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in South Korea Wednesday for the first time for an annual bilateral security meeting. Panetta will meet with his South Korean counterpart Kim Kwan-jin at the 43rd Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) on Friday and will also pay a courtesy call to President Lee Myung-bak during his three-day stay. Later Wednesday, Panetta is s...

The two defense chiefs of South Korea and the U.S. will hold their annual security meeting in Seoul on Friday to discuss regional security and pending bilateral military alliance issues, officials at the Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday. During the 43rd Security Consultative Meeting, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and his U.S. counterpart Leon Panetta will also touch on ways to enhance j...