South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said late Saturday that North Korea was flying balloons loaded with trash once again, as the wind was forecast to veer south. Following the JCS announcement an alert was issued across Seoul and areas near the border warning residents to beware of falling objects and to report sightings to authorities. The South Korean military has been watching for another wave of the North Korean balloons after a group of activists called Fighters for Free North Korea t

A group of North Korean defectors in Seoul tried to fly giant balloons carrying K-pop and other South Korean popular culture content across the border, with a few appearing to have entered North Korean skies early Thursday, according to the South’s military authorities. The defector group, which calls itself Fighters for Free North Korea, said in a statement on this day they flew the balloons in a tit-for-tat response following the hundreds of North Korean balloons filled with trash and pr

President Yoon Suk Yeol said Thursday in his Memorial Day address to the nation that South Korea must become stronger to change North Korea and free North Koreans. At the ceremony held at the Seoul National Cemetery, the president said that “fellow Korean compatriots living north of the border, just about 50 kilometers from right here, are suffering from starvation, deprived brutally of their freedom and human rights.” “Peace is maintained through strength, not through submissi

The speaker to lead the first half of the National Assembly through its new term was elected Wednesday in a vote that was held in the absence of the ruling People Power Party. The first plenary session of the new Assembly term was convened on this day before a bipartisan agreement could be reached over appointment of committee chairs. The Democratic Party of Korea -- which outnumbers the People Power Party by 171 to 108 -- is pushing to chair all of the 17 committees of the Assembly. The ruling

South Korean spy agency said Tuesday it was forming a consultative body of concerned ministries and other government agencies to enhance satellite cyber security. The consultative body led by the National Intelligence Service is aimed at protecting satellites throughout their lifespan from their design to operation. The NIS explained that the body was created against amid emerging domestic and international space cyber threats, citing the recent cyber attack against the Korea Satellite Operation

South Korea voted in a Cabinet meeting to suspend the September 19 Inter-Korean Military Agreement on Tuesday after a week of North Korea’s unceasing provocations ranging from attempting to launch another spy satellite to sending trash balloons. The Cabinet decision was approved by President Yoon Suk Yeol the same day, making the pact -- reached on September 19, 2018, to minimize front-line tensions -- lose effect entirely for the time being. South Korea earlier halted parts of the pact to

SINGAPORE -- The defense ministers of South Korea, the United States and Japan on Sunday agreed to launch a trilateral exercise under the name "Freedom Edge," starting this summer. The plan for the trilateral exercise was reached at a meeting held on the last day of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue defense summit in Singapore. The trilateral exercise is to build on efforts outlined at the Camp David summit last year, according to the joint statement issued after the Singapore meeting. Ac

North Korea sent another batch of balloons carrying filth and propaganda to South Korea over the weekend, prompting a stern reaction from the South Korean government, which vowed Sunday to take “unendurable” action. “Dispatching of trash balloons and jamming GPS are despicable and irrational acts of provocation that could not have been imagined by a normal country,” National Security Adviser Chang Ho-jin said after presiding over a National Security Council meeting called

SINGAPORE -- South Korea’s Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik and Japan’s Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara agreed to look to the future in a bilateral meeting held at the Asia Security Summit or the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. At the meeting that lasted for about half an hour, the two ministers agreed to put the maritime row that had frustrated defense negotiations between the countries for the last five years, and pursue reconciliation. In December 2018, Japan accused

SINGAPORE -- Seoul’s Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik on Saturday credited the bipartisan support from the US Congress for its role in protecting the US troop presence in South Korea. Shin held a closed-door meeting with the US House of Representatives delegation comprising Reps. Young Kim, Michael McCaul, Gregory Meeks, Joe Wilson and Joe Courtney at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit on this day, according to the minister’s office. The South Korean defense minister was quoted

SINGAPORE -- South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said Saturday growing evidence pointed to Russia getting weapons from North Korea to attack Ukraine and aiding the Kim Jong-un regime’s military program. “Today we see more evidence that the weapons used by Russia to attack Ukraine were illegally imported from North Korea,” the South Korean minister of national defense said in his remarks delivered at the plenary session of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Russia, des

SINGAPORE -- Seoul’s Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik said Friday a delegation of US senators agreed to help raise bipartisan support on expanding the two countries’ cooperation in defense-related science and technology. The minister and the three US senators -- Sens. Tammy Duckworth, Laphonza Butler and Dan Sullivan -- held a closed-door meeting held at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore for about half an hour. “The bipartisan US senate delegation, one Republican an

[코리아헤럴드=조정은· 정민경· 김아린 기자] “국회의원이 선거에서 얻은 득표 중 90~95%는 당원도, 팬덤도 아닌 일반 국민에 의한 것입니다. 장관도 나이 어린 의원에게 ‘존경하는 의원님’이라고 높여 부르는 이유가 있습니다. 의원은 국민의 대표자이기 때문입니다. 22대 국회가 이를 기억하고 국민 눈높이를 최우선으로 두길 바랍니다.” 김진표 국회의장은 21대 국회 마지막 날인 29일 코리아헤럴드와 만나 이렇게 말했다. 김 의장은 진영·팬덤 정치가 국회를 “지지층을 결집시키고 상대당을 악마화하는 선전장으로 전락시켰다”며 국회의원들이 “당심이 아닌 민심을 듣기를 바란다”고 당부했다. 마지막 본회의가 파행으로 끝난 것에 대해 김 의장은 여야가 “대화와 타협 없이 각자의 입장만 고집하며 목숨을 건 싸움의 정치를 하고 있다”고 했다. 그러면서 김

SINGAPORE -- South Korea and Japan are in the final stages of arranging a bilateral defense ministers dialogue in Singapore, according to Seoul military sources on Friday. South Korea’s Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik will likely meet his Japanese counterpart Minoru Kihara on Saturday on the sidelines of the Asia Security Summit, also known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, according to officials. If it proceeds, the bilateral meeting would precede a trilateral meeting of South Korea,

Shin Won-sik, South Korea’s Minister of National Defense, will attend this year’s Asia Security Summit in Singapore — also known as the Shangri-La Dialogue — where he is scheduled to meet with his counterparts from the US, Japan and other key partner countries. The annual summit hosted by the UK think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies gathers leaders and experts in defense and diplomacy. Held since 2002, this year’s summit marks the 21st anniversary

Article 1 of South Korea’s National Assembly Act states that the parliament is a representative body of the people. However, Kim Jin-pyo, the speaker of the 21st National Assembly and a political heavyweight with 50 years in public service, views the widespread phenomenon of fandom politics as a major obstacle to the country's representative democracy. He believes this trend is the primary cause of increasing political confrontations, which continue to undermine the spirit of compro

The 21st legislative session of the National Assembly ended Wednesday amid an unceasing partisan gridlock. On the last day of the four-year session, the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea staged a rally outside the Yoon Suk Yeol presidential office to protest a contentious special counsel investigation bill failing to pass the Assembly in a vote held Tuesday. The Democratic Party-led bill seeking the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the on-duty death of a marine in July las

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said a projectile believed to be a North Korean spy satellite was fired toward the west of the Korean Peninsula and landed in the sea after exploding midair late Monday. The projectile, which the JCS identified as “North Korea’s so-called military reconnaissance satellite,” was fired from the North Pyongan Province in a southwesterly direction at around 10:44 p.m. The JCS said some debris from the satellite’s explosion could be ob

South Korea on Monday staged an air exercise near the inter-Korean border in response to an announcement from North Korea that it would launch a military reconnaissance satellite within the next seven days. According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the drills involving some 20 fighter jets -- including F-15Ks, KF-16s and the stealth F-35As -- were carried out in the skies south of the no-fly zone from around 1 p.m. Col. Lee Sung-jun, the South Korean JCS spokesperson, said in a pre

South Korea and China have agreed to create a communication channel for diplomacy and security and resume negotiations on an expanded free trade agreement, the Yoon Suk Yeol presidential office said Sunday. The two sides have decided to “establish a new high-level dialogue on diplomacy and security, with the first meeting to take place mid-June” and to “open up our markets beyond the trade of goods to include services such as culture and tourism,” a senior Yoon official t