South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported Tuesday the first coronavirus case at its headquarters in Seoul. A civilian office worker tested positive the previous day, pushing about 20 workers into a two-week quarantine and about 200 employees to take COVID-19 tests. “The infected employee did not make a trip to the ministry headquarters,” a Defense Ministry official said. The JCS and ministry headquarters sit side by side at the Yongsan compound that houses

Defense Feb. 16, 2021

South Korea and the US will begin their biannual joint military exercises in the second week of March, carrying out computer simulations of war against North Korea for nine days, sources said Sunday. Seoul and Washington, which have held them to deter aggression from Pyongyang since the 1953 Korean War armistice, now take part in computer-based war games rather than all-out field exercises. The two allies still do not see eye to eye on testing Korea’s readiness to take over the wartime

Defense Feb. 14, 2021

Byun Hee-soo, South Korea’s first transgender soldier, who was discharged from the military last year after undergoing sex reassignment surgery, is battling her way back into the Army. In January 2020, the Army fired the former staff sergeant, a tank gunner who served at an armored unit in Gyeonggi Province, saying the surgery rendered her mentally and physically unfit to be on active duty. Byun wanted to remain in the military as a female. In August, Byun petitioned the court to reverse

Defense Feb. 12, 2021

Mandatory military service is a rite of passage for every able-bodied man in South Korea, which technically remains at war with North Korea since the 1953 Korean War armistice. A military made up of volunteers seeking lifetime jobs as career soldiers was once unimaginable, but that has changed. “Everything -- including plans to shift to an all-volunteer military -- is on the table to restructure our armed forces by 2040,” Defense Minister Suh Wook told a New Year’s press brief

Defense Feb. 11, 2021

Wolhwawon -- a traditional Chinese garden located in the center of Suwon, the largest city of Gyeonggi Province -- is open to the surrounding landscape, erasing boundaries between indoors and outdoors and offering visitors a taste of the Chinese way of life. Open since 2006, the garden, which is typical of 17th-century architecture in China’s southern Guangdong province, attracts residents looking to be with nature in the city and tourists searching for exotic experiences. Walls,

Travel Feb. 6, 2021

North Korea will be provided with 1.99 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine by June this year to inoculate nearly 1 million people, COVAX said Wednesday. COVAX is an international group that helps less wealthy countries with vaccination efforts. The North will start receiving vaccines in late February at the earliest. But the program could face delays as the AstraZeneca vaccine has yet to be approved by the World Health Organization, which expects to discuss the matter later

North Korea Feb. 4, 2021

The UN secretary-general’s office said Monday that it believes South Korea will respect human rights when it implements the ban on the cross-border launching of anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets. The leafleting is set to become a felony in March under legislation introduced by Seoul to protect residents near the border, in fear of retaliation by Pyongyang, which fired at balloons carrying leaflets, food and medicine in 2014. The two countries exchanged gunfire at the border. “W

North Korea Feb. 3, 2021

South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense did not single out North Korea as “the enemy” in this year’s white paper, revealed Tuesday. That is the second time since 2019, when it removed the designation amid a flurry of diplomatic activity to build an inter-Korean detente. The Moon Jae-in government is seen as trying not to upset North Korea while working to repair inter-Korean ties frayed over disagreement on denuclearization and sanctions relief. In the paper, an enem

Defense Feb. 2, 2021

A prolonged pause in South Korea-US joint military exercises involving full-scale field training will diminish Seoul’s capability to mount a defense against North Korea, military experts said ahead of March drills. They are expected to be conducted indoors through computer-based war games. Last week, Defense Minister Suh Wook confirmed that the March drills will not involve troops on the ground. Seoul and Washington, which have held drills annually to deter aggression from Pyongyang sinc

Defense Feb. 2, 2021

US Rep. Chris Smith, who until recently co-chaired the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, said the commission will open a hearing in early March at the latest to discuss South Korea’s ban on the cross-border launching of anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets. The leafleting is set to become a felony in March under legislation introduced by Seoul to protect residents near the border, in fear of retaliation by Pyongyang. “I think appointments to commissions -- such as the Tom Lantos

North Korea Jan. 31, 2021

South Korea stands fully capable of countering the latest short-range missiles that North Korea has test-fired, South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook said Wednesday. Speaking at a New Year’s press conference, Suh highlighted Seoul’s missile defense, saying it could bring down even some of Pyongyang’s untested new missiles. The military is seeking a foolproof shield against the remaining missiles, Suh said. “Our defense is airtight and we’re superior. We hav

Defense Jan. 28, 2021

North Korea, which has often been criticized by the United Nations for recurring human rights abuses, condemned Australia at a UN meeting for committing human rights violations, UN Watch said Tuesday. The group is a Geneva-based organization that follows UN activities. “The deep-rooted racial discrimination and xenophobia rampant in the Australian public sector must come to an end,” North Korea’s UN ambassador said at a United Nations Human Rights Council session Jan. 20. He

North Korea Jan. 26, 2021

North Korea’s former acting ambassador to Kuwait has been living with his family in South Korea for at least a year, a local newspaper reported Monday. The diplomat, Ryu Hyun-woo, was the North’s acting chief of mission in Kuwait in 2019, when he defected to the South with his family, who the source said had motivated him to defect in hopes of a “better future.” If true, it is the third time a ranking official from Pyongyang has defected to Seoul since 2012, when leade

North Korea Jan. 25, 2021

It all began in June. North Korea threatened retaliation over the cross-border launch of anti-North propaganda leaflets. Municipal leaders representing residents of border towns demanded a halt to the leafleting. A lawmaker drafted legislation that would ban the practice. The fate of the law, which was approved in the National Assembly in December and is set to take effect in late March, is hanging in the balance as critics have petitioned the Constitutional Court to review it, saying it infrin

North Korea Jan. 23, 2021

Nearly five out of ten North Koreans were undernourished from 2017 to 2019, the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, the UN said in an inter-agency report. East Timor and Afghanistan followed. In the same period, seven out of ten North Korean children aged two or below did not have minimum acceptable diet. In the report released Wednesday by the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food Program, World Health Organization and UNICEF, seven out of ten infants younger than six months old i

North Korea Jan. 22, 2021