The US State Department on Monday reiterated its earlier stance opposing a South Korean proposal to separately discuss labor costs for United States Forces Korea. Korean workers at the US military here were notified that they would be put on unpaid leave amid stalled talks on sharing costs for 28,500 US troops. “A separate negotiation based solely on labor cost sharing would greatly detract from...

Seoul, along with other local municipalities, is offering a helping hand to pharmacies struggling with increased workloads as they scramble to hand out government-rationed protective masks. Since Monday a week ago, when nationwide rationing began, pharmacists have juggled the rationing responsibilities and their full-time job of dispensing prescriptions and counseling patients. The rationing sy...

South Korea and the US will resume talks Tuesday in Los Angeles to discuss the upkeep of 28,500 American troops in Korea and 9,000 Koreans working alongside at the US military here, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Friday. Jeong Eun-bo, Korea’s chief negotiator, is expected to push for a partial agreement to address the salaries of those workers in his two-day talks with James DeHart, the top US ne...

Two members of the US House of Representatives on Wednesday called on Washington to find a way to avoid putting South Korean civilians, employed by the US military in Korea, on unpaid leave. On Feb. 28, the US military said it had started notifying nearly 9,000 Korean employees that they could be put on unpaid leave starting April 1, because of Seoul and Washington’s failure to reach consensus o...

The Community Chest of Korea, a local charity, refused donations of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in light of the mounting controversies surrounding the religious sect, the charity said. In an answer to an inquiry from a lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, the charity said that Shincheonji wired a total of 12 billion won ($10.1 million) Thursday to the group’s two donation accoun...

The US military asked the South Korean military to postpone their joint drills in the US because of the novel coronavirus that has killed 32 people and sickened nearly 1,000 there. Korea has reported 60 deaths with about 8,000 infections. Korea’s Army had planned to send 50 officers including intelligence analysts to the Fort Irwin National Training Center in California later this month to obser...

Dozens of diplomats posted in Pyongyang, North Korea shuttered offices and left the country Monday, following weeks of the country’s tight quarantine restrictions on diplomatic missions to contain the novel coronavirus. The North, which has not reported a single infection, is enforcing strong quarantine measures, closing borders with China, where the epidemic started, and confining foreign natio...

North Korea fired multiple short-range projectiles into the East Sea on Monday morning, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Three of them flew approximately 200 kilometers and reached a peak altitude of 50 kilometers, from Sondok in South Hamgyong Province along the North’s eastern coast. “The launches were part of the North’s annual joint strike drills on Feb. 28 and March 2,” the South’s...

The center has not only more beds but comes with more negative pressure rooms, which allow air to flow into isolation rooms housing infected patients and come out safely. The rooms are recommended to prevent the airborne pathogens from spreading. On the sidelines, service members are giving blood after steps to curb COVID-19 prompted a sharp drop in the emergency blood supply. Service members sa...

Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, denounced the South Korean government for its “grave concerns” over the North’s recent rocket launches, saying they were part of routine self-defense exercises. It was the first time she had publicly addressed the South. She called Cheong Wa Dae “mentally challenged” and likened it to a “frightened dog” in a statement carried by the North’s...

“The projectiles flew at a maximum altitude of 35 kilometers as well. South Korea’s anti-missile shield THAAD intercepts missiles flying at least 40 kilometers high or above,” said Shin Jong-woo, a senior researcher at the Korea Defense and Security Forum. Pyongyang’s rockets, world’s largest with a caliber of 600 millimeters, could incapacitate Seoul’s counter-fire systems, Shin noted, adding t...

“Patients come before me,” Lt. Kim Seul-gi said. She was one of the officers attending the graduation ceremony for the Armed Forces Nursing Academy in Daejeon. Lt. Shin Na-mi said, “We part ways now, but we stand as one to carry out our mission.” The ceremony, which was held without outside guests, including family members, was livestreamed in real time on YouTube and Facebook. Defense Minister ...

Public opinion on the introduction of a comprehensive entry ban on travelers from China appears divided along partisan lines, with a slight majority viewing it as necessary to South Korea’s fight against the novel coronavirus. According to the latest survey by local pollster Realmeter, released Monday, 55.6 percent of the respondents supported a wider ban, while 40.9 percent said existing measur...

North Korea fired two short-range projectiles into the East Sea between South Korea and Japan on Monday afternoon, the Ministry of National Defense said. They flew approximately 240 kilometers at a maximum altitude of 35 kilometers from Wonsan, along the North’s eastern coast. Pending further analysis, the projectiles could be ballistic missiles. The launches were an extension of the annual stri...

Twenty-seven members of the South Korean military tested positive for COVID-19 as of Sunday, as 8,880 service members have been quarantined. Infected personnel included soldiers, officers and civilian workers; Fifteen of them were in the Army and 10 were in the Air Force, with one each in the Navy and Marine Corps. The military has taken the precaution of an expanded quarantine to curb COVID-19 ...