South Korea and the US have been discussing the resumption of yearslong suspended field training exercises in the second half of the year, the South Korean military said Monday. The discussion has been underway as the South Korean and US military tentatively agree to conduct their annual combined military exercises between Aug. 22 and Sept. 1, according to military sources who wished to remain anonymous. Regular Combined Command Post Training has been carried out based on a computer simulati

China and North Korea will constantly strengthen and develop their bilateral relations to a new and higher level in “unprecedented harsh circumstances,” including the US-led campaign to encircle China, the North Korean media said Monday. It also highlighted the significance of the close bond between North Korea and China. The Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, published an article commemorating the 61st anniversary of the “Treaty of Friendshi

ANSEONG, Gyeonggi Province – With high walls and barbed-wire fences, the Hanawon resettlement center has the country’s top security level, but for thousands of people it has also offered a step toward freedom. Hanawon is where North Korean defectors prepare to start a new life and fend for themselves in South Korea before integrating into an unfamiliar world that they desired to live in. A total of 33,815 North Korean defectors have arrived in South Korea as of 2021. Among them, wo

SACHEON, South Gyeongsang Province — South Korea’s first homegrown KF-21 fighter jet is gearing up for its inaugural flight test scheduled for late July. But a maiden flight is just the beginning of 2200 rounds of planned flight tests that will be continued by 2026. KF-21 Boramae fighter prototypes have been undergoing low, medium and high-speed taxi tests since June 25 and will continue until July 13, Korea Aerospace Industries confirmed to The Korea Herald. A taxi test examines

North Korea’s state-sponsored hackers have targeted hospitals and other health care facilities with ransomware, the US government agencies said Wednesday, warning of potential ransomware cyberattacks. The FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the US Treasury Department issued a joint cybersecurity advisory to raise the alarm about ransomware threats against the US health care and public health sector organizations and suggest ways to mitigate and prevent ransomware a

The United States Air Force has dispatched its F-35 stealth fighters to the Korean Peninsula for the first time in around five years to conduct combined aerial exercises with its South Korean counterpart. A total of six F-35A stealth fighter jets flew from Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska and arrived here Tuesday to stage drills with South Korea’s Air Force until July 14, the Ministry of National Defense announced the same day, without further details. “The deployment simultaneou

The new South Korean government has hit a roadblock with its plans to expeditiously normalize the operation of the military base that hosts the US-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system. The Yoon Suk-yeol government has not yet taken the first step to begin a long-postponed environmental impact assessment, which is legally required to repair and refurbish the THAAD base to ensure its full capacity, South Korea’s Defense Ministry confirmed to The Korea Herald on Tuesday. The US

North Korea has tightened vigilance on “alien things” falling near the inter-Korean border and stepped up border controls and restrictions to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to state media reports. North Korea has taken follow-up measures in response to the recent investigation findings on the origins and inflow of COVID-19, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said Monday in a Korean-language report. The emergency anti-epidemic units at all levels have f

North Korea has claimed that a COVID-19 outbreak began from people touching “alien things” in an area near the eastern Inter-Korean border, which experts view as a potential move to shift the blame to South Korea and set the tone for launching an offensive campaign. The North’s State Emergency Epidemic Prevention Headquarters on Thursday announced the outcomes of its investigation on the origin and inflow of COVID-19, which began to rapidly spread across the country in late Ap

North Korea has been discharging water from Hwanggang Dam near the inter-Korean border without any prior notice, after heavy rains lashed the country, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said Thursday, expressing regret at the decision. “North Korea is presumed to have opened the floodgates of Hwanggang Dam as heavy rain continues to pound North Korea since the weekend,” said an official at the Unification Ministry who wished to remain anonymous. The official said chances that

North Korea’s state-sponsored Lazarus Group is believed to be behind the recent $100 million cryptocurrency theft from a US blockchain company, the latest in a spate of high-profile cyber heists from the Kim Jong-un regime, London-based blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said Wednesday. The analysis came out a week after California-based crypto firm Harmony on June 24 publicly confirmed that unidentified hackers had stolen cryptocurrencies amounting to around $100 million from the key se

North Korea on Wednesday accused South Korea, the United States and Japan of gearing up to establish an “Asian version of NATO,” claiming that the recent move to step up trilateral military exercises is a “dangerous prelude” to that end. North Korea denounced the US for “heating up military cooperation with its puppets while neglecting the fundamental security demand and concerns in the Asia-Pacific region,” in a Korean-language article carried by the extern

The South Korean police on Tuesday found the car of the three-person family who mysteriously went missing almost a month ago on a remote island. Ten-year-old Cho Yu-na and her parents, both in their 30s, went missing on the southwestern island of Wando County, South Jeolla Province, on May 31 after they entered the island in a silver-colored Audi sedan on May 23. An Audi sedan with a matching license plate was discovered off the coast of Sinji Myeon in the region at 05:12 p.m., according to

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un convened a key party meeting to discuss how to reorganize party departments and strengthen party control over intelligence, surveillance and judicial apparatus, the state media reported on Tuesday. Kim on Monday presided over an enlarged meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea at the party headquarters in Pyongyang, the Rodong Sinmun, a party organ, said. The secretariat discussed reorganizing some departments of

South Korea plans to participate in the US-led multilateral cyber defense exercise this year for the first time, in a bid to step up cyber cooperation with the US. The South Korean military will dispatch more than 20 personnel to the Cyber Flag exercise scheduled to be held this October in Virginia, South Korea’s Defense Ministry and Rep. Kang Dae-sik of the ruling People Power Party confirmed Monday. Cyber Flag is the US Cyber Command’s major annual training event. The cyber field

The leaders of South Korea, the United States and Japan will meet together for the first time in around five years on the sidelines of the upcoming NATO summit to discuss coordinated ways to address North Korea’s mounting threats, the South Korean presidential office announced Sunday. But President Yoon Suk-yeol will not have bilateral face-to-face talks with his Japanese counterpart, although he plans to participate in a total of 14 meetings during the multilateral summit. Yoon is sch

The North Korean military on Wednesday discussed how to revise an operational plan and missions of front-line units at a key meeting, which experts view as preparations that would allow tactical nuclear weapons to be deployed along the inter-Korean border. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un convened the multiday meeting of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea, which continued after kicking off Tuesday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday. &

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un convened the first meeting of the Central Military Commission in one year to discuss and decide on “crucial and urgent tasks” to bolster its military, the state media reported Wednesday. The third enlarged meeting of the eighth Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea kicked off Tuesday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said. The first and second meetings were held respectively in February and June 2021. Members of t

South Korea’s Unification Minister will push to expeditiously establish a North Korean human rights foundation which has been postponed for more than six years, but he also clarified that the government will not use the human rights issue as a means to apply pressure on the Kim Jong-un regime. Unification Minister Kwon Young-se on Tuesday proposed the priority issues he aims to resolve during his term, speaking at his first news conference since his inauguration in May. Kwon’s go

South Korea’s air force on Monday kicked off a large-scale aerial military exercise to enhance combat readiness and prepare for possible “enemy provocations,” including a surprise invasion. The theater-level “Soaring Eagle” combat training exercise is being staged over five days through Friday at the 29th Tactical Fighter Weapons Group located at an air base in the central city of Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province. South Korea’s air force has conducted