A soldier had killed himself at the Marine Corps Second Division near Seoul just a day before Monday’s shooting rampage at his division, military officials said Friday, as investigations continued into the case that killed four soldiers. Authorities said they are investigating whether habitual bullying was rampant among marines at the division in Ganghwa, Gyeonggi Province, leading to the two tr...

The Ministry of National Defense has drawn up a 33.48 trillion won ($32.43 billion) budget plan for next year with a focus on making the military “truly combat-ready.” The ministry submitted its budget proposal to the Finance Ministry on June 30. The planned budget is 6.6 percent higher than the 2011 budget of 31.4 trillion won. “In broad terms, we can say that we have significantly increased t...

The defense military has declared a war on smoking, unveiling a plan to lower its service members’ smoking rate by 3 percentage points this year. Some 47.2 percent of military personnel were smokers as of the end of last year, higher than the average of 39.6 percent for the country’s men, according to government data. “Under the smoking reduction goal, the defense ministry designated 100 non-sm...

A South Korean antipiracy unit operating off the coast of Somalia on Sunday morning repelled three ships suspected of trying to seize a Panamanian-registered chemical freight vessel, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday. The Cheonghae Unit received an emergency satellite call from the 17,000-ton Azalea belonging to South Korea’s major shipping firm STX POS at around 1 a.m., JCS officials said. ...

Some 15,000 men who have delayed their mandatory military service for the last several years will be notified to take another physical checkup next year under a 2007 law, the military recruitment agency said Wednesday. Under the military draft law, young men are to go through another checkup five years after taking the first one. Before the law was enacted in January 2007, men had taken only on...

WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― The incoming top American military commander in Korea said Tuesday that the United States and South Korea should prepare for the possibility of a regime collapse in North Korea. In his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing, Gen. James Thurman, the nominee to lead 28,000 U.S. forces in South Korea, raised doubts over the North’s heir apparent, Kim Jong-un...

Thirteen senior officials of the state weapons acquisition agency will take early retirement later this month as the agency strives to slim-down its organization and improve its efficiency, officials said Tuesday. The personnel reorganization was the largest in scale since the establishment of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration in January 2006, they said. Most of the officials who c...

The Army signed an accord with Korea University on Tuesday to establish a department for nurturing cyber warfare specialists as South Korea strives to bolster its capabilities to deal with North Korean cyber attacks. The ceremony to sign the agreement was attended by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Kim Sang-ki and Korea University President Kim Byung-chul. It is the first time for the military to esta...