The Ministry of National Defense said Monday it will showcase its latest defense technologies at an intergovernmental innovation expo held online from Tuesday to Dec. 3. Other ministries as well as state-run firms and municipalities are joining the event to share their achievements that have helped better people’s lives. The Army will reveal next-generation military equipment, including advanced combat uniforms. The uniforms are expected to be delivered to soldiers by 2024. The Navy is

North Korea said Monday that self-help is the way to power through the obstacles ahead, like the coronavirus pandemic, and no one should challenge that direction. “Self-help is the way of life we’ve maintained to this day and it’s in our blood. We display that and there is nothing we cannot overcome,” the official state newspaper said, urging Workers’ Party members to be a brigade moving forward to grab victory. The North still claims it has yet to report an infec

United States Forces Korea Commander Gen. Robert Abrams said Friday that it was premature to speculate on a date for South Korea taking wartime operational command from the US. Washington first exercised the role in the 1950-53 Korean War that still leaves the two Koreas technically at war. In a press conference, the US commander said he had seen press speculation about a potential timeline for the transfer, but that he had never been informed of this. “I haven’t had a declarative

An anti-tank missile veered off its intended trajectory and landed in a rice field near an army shooting range during a test Thursday, South Korea’s military said. No one was hurt. The test was embarrassing for the military, as a foreign military commander was observing the drill on the scene in Yangpyeong County, Gyeonggi Province. He made a stop there as part of his trip here to attend a local defense expo. The military said the test was scheduled in advance and it was not a last-minut

At a teleconference Thursday, the top military commanders of South Korea, the US and Japan said they would work for peace in the Indo-Pacific region as they continue addressing security concerns there and expanding their cooperation, Seoul’s Ministry of National Defense said. Gen. Won In-choul, chairman of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, highlighted coordination among the three countries on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and establishing permanent peace here. Gen. Mark Mi

Defense Minister Suh Wook and US acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller reaffirmed the two countries’ commitment to an “exemplary alliance” during their first phone call, the Ministry of National Defense said Wednesday. Miller ascended to the role after President Donald Trump fired Secretary Mark Esper a week earlier. The two defense chiefs confirmed their ironclad mutual defense commitments against North Korea and vowed close cooperation on a range of issues pendi

Defense Minister Suh Wook and US Army Chief of Staff Gen. James C. McConville reaffirmed commitment to alliance, while discussing ways to strengthen it and expand cooperation, the Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday. During a meeting at the ministry’s headquarters in Seoul, Suh asked Gen. McConville to continue coordinating with Seoul on its peace drive on the Korean Peninsula on the back of strong defense readiness. McConville responded saying he would help advance the bilateral t

The number of North Koreans suspected of having contracted the new coronavirus reached 6,173 as of Oct. 29, up by 805 from a week earlier, the World Health Organization said Tuesday in its weekly COVID-19 update. The regime still claims zero cases. The WHO added the North had quarantined 32,182 people and tested 10,272 residents. Meanwhile, Pyongyang again urged people to remain on the highest alert and to obey all precautions to stem the coronavirus outbreak. The state newspaper highlighted p

On Monday, South Korea’s military raised the social distancing rules in Greater Seoul to Level 1.5, a notch higher than its least restrictive level now, as coronavirus cases started rising. The military imposed tougher Level 2 rules in neighboring Gangwon Province.　 Effective Tuesday through Nov. 29, all military personnel are instructed not to visit entertainment facilities and to reduce on-duty travel and meetings. Those living near infection clusters in Seoul and neighboring Gangwon P

North Korea has yet to address the outcome of the US election, let alone engage in anti-US rhetoric, more than a week after Joe Biden became president-elect on Nov. 7. Its silence stands in sharp contrast with its quick responses to past US elections. Previously Pyongyang has responded within a week, except in 2000 when it released a statement only after the US Supreme Court handed former President George W. Bush victory over former Vice President Al Gore in a vote recount dispute. Speculation

US President-elect Joe Biden’s potential national security advisers may recommend ratcheting up pressure on North Korea, but such moves, if pushed to the extreme, could backfire and a new strategy may be necessary. With the new Biden national security team yet to take shape, experts said prospective advisers understand the importance of sanctions to engage Pyongyang in talks. “These advisers believe Trump squandered the reputational weight of the presidency by meeting Kim Jong-un

The incoming Biden administration in the US would seek a bottom-up, step-by-step approach to disarming nuclear North Korea, and the policy could expand into a synergistic alliance with South Korea to bring lasting peace on the peninsula if Seoul adjusts its tune, experts here and abroad said Monday. Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump has employed an unconventional, top-down style, dealing directly with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and often touting a special relationship with Kim th

The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs is hosting two days of events in Busan this week to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Korean War with UN veterans and dignitaries from their home countries. Twenty-two countries joined the US-led UN coalition and South Korea to counter an invasion from China-backed North Korea in the 1950-53 conflict that ended with an armistice, leaving the two Koreas technically still at war. On Tuesday, an international conference comprising delegates fro

US Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden seems to be fully prepared to engage in North Korean denuclearization, Joseph Yun, former US special representative for North Korea policy, said Thursday. Yun told the local Jeju Forum that he was surprised to see Biden addressing Koreans in the US as well as here, adding that it was evidence that Biden’s agenda included Korean issues. But Yun did not detail what exactly his message was. Earlier, Biden sent a contribution to Yonhap News Agency

A North Korean man was captured and taken into custody by South Korea’s military after he crossed the inter-Korean border on foot along the east coast, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday. Late Monday night, military surveillance first picked up the man approaching the northern side of the fortified military demarcation line separating the two Koreas in Goseong County.  At around 7:25 p.m. Tuesday, the man triggered the highest alert here, when he was spotted climbing over barb

North Korea has yet to report a single infection case of the noble coronavirus as of Oct. 29, the World Health Organization said in its latest report released Friday. The country has tested 10,462 people, it added. 　 The WHO said in August it had been informed of zero infections in the North. Only about 3,000 North Koreans had been tested until September, according to Edwin Salvador, WHO representative to Pyongyang. All the rest took the test in October alone, but the WHO report did not offer

South Korea would need no extra American anti-missile defense against North Korea because the existing ones would work in tandem with other missile networks in place, former US Forces Korea Commander Gen. Vincent Brooks told Radio Free Asia on Monday. The retired general referred to the latest simulation test the US Missile Defense Agency conducted on Oct. 1, where a Patriot missile took down incoming fire using the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense radars. Seoul maintains a missile defense

Korean American singer Steve Seung Jun Yoo, known here as Yoo Seung-jun, is waging yet another legal battle to win his way back into South Korea, his birth country. The Korean-born singer has repeatedly appealed to the Korean government to lift the entry ban imposed on him in 2002 after he obtained US citizenship, an action viewed by officials here as an attempt to dodge mandatory military duty required of all capable Korean men. And things still look gloomy for Yoo. In March this year, th

Signing a declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War is the first step toward denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula, Moon Chung-in, President Moon Jae-in’s special security adviser, said Tuesday. “With the end-of-war declaration as a steppingstone for denuclearization, we must play our part to bring about a peace regime here,” security adviser Moon told a forum hosted by the National Unification Advisory Council, a state body offering counsel to the president on in

Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Paraguay will use a coronavirus test kit developed by a South Korean military lab, South Korea’s Armed Forces Medical Command said Wednesday. The command’s medical research lab came up with the technology called the Face Infection Control System in May, and a local firm has commercialized it. The kit is faster and cheaper in screening for the coronavirus than the popular polymerase chain reaction test, which amplifies a small sample of DNA