A top Chinese official in charge of foreign affairs said Beijing supports Seoul's push for the declaration of a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korea's embassy Friday. Yang Jiechi, a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, delivered the message during a meeting with Suh Hoon, director of national security at Cheong Wa Dae who serves as President Moon Jae-in's national security adviser, in China's eastern city of Tianjin the previous day, the embassy in B

South Korea and the United States are set to hold their annual defense ministerial talks in Seoul on Thursday to discuss the envisioned wartime operational control (OPCON) transfer, North Korean threats and bilateral alliance issues, officials here said. Defense Minister Suh Wook and his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, will lead the 53rd Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), as the allies are stepping up cooperation for regional stability amid North Korea's evolving nuclear and missile threats and

South Korea has decided to host a major UN peacekeeping conference via video link next week, instead of an originally planned face-to-face session, due to concerns over the spread of the omicron coronavirus variant, according to Seoul officials Wednesday. The 2021 Seoul UN Peacekeeping Ministerial will be held in the form of a "full-fledged online conference" on Dec. 7-8 as scheduled, a foreign ministry official told reporters. Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong and Defense Minister S

Top diplomats of South Korea and five Central Asian nations gathered at a regional forum held in Tajikistan to explore ways on expanding cooperation for the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, Seoul's foreign ministry said Wednesday. Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong attended the 14th Korea-Central Asia Forum held in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe on Tuesday, which was joined by representatives from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. In a key note speech, C

South Korea has shipped 539,000 doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine to the Philippines to help the Southeast Asian nation address its vaccine shortages, Seoul's foreign ministry said Tuesday. An airplane carrying the jabs departed from Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, earlier in the day and will arrive in the Philippines on the same day, the ministry said. South Korea has already shared coronavirus vaccine shots with three other countries -- Vietnam, Thailand and Iran -- as it

The education ministry has launched an assistance project to build a smart classroom in Cambodia to help the country experiment with teaching and learning through up-to-date information and communications technology (ICT) devices, officials said Tuesday. Under the joint project launched with the Busan city education office and the APEC Learning Community Builders, the Ministry of Education installed an ICT-equipped experimental classroom in Wat Bo Primary School in Cambodia's Siem Reap, accordi

North Korea has criticized a new trilateral security partnership among Australia, Britain and the United States as an American "tool for war" that poses "serious threats" to world peace. In a commentary posted on the North's foreign ministry website Monday, the Korea-Asia Association said the international community should be wary of the initiative, called AUKUS, that "brings dark clouds of a nuclear war to the world." "(The concerns) come from the fact that

The US Department of Defense has concluded its review of the global defense posture, calling for cooperation with allies and partner countries to deter North Korean threats and potential Chinese aggression. Following months of analysis, the Pentagon released the results of the 2021 Global Posture Review (GPR) on Monday (US time) at a time when Washington has been striving to reinforce cooperation with friendly nations against an increasingly assertive China and a nuclear-ambitious North Korea.

Starting Saturday, some 260 Sakhalin Koreans -- ethnic Koreans who were forced to relocate to the far-eastern Russian island by their Japanese colonizers during World War II -- are set to arrive in their ancestral homeland, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.  The repatriation is in accordance with legislation that took effect in January, which expanded the eligibility criteria for relocation and financial support from the South Korean government for Sakhalin Koreans.  Previously,

The following article was contributed by the Embassy of Oman in Seoul. — Ed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Sultanate of Oman will mark the 51st National Day of the Renaissance, Nov. 18. The event comes around at a time when Omanis ponder about the achievements made so far and brace for further accomplishments, with firm resolve, under the astute leadership of His Majesty Sultan Haitham Bin Tarik who pledged to hold high the banner of the Rene

There’s no free lunch in China’s “vaccine diplomacy”

WASHINGTON -- The press secretary for the US Department of State reiterated the importance of trilateral cooperation between the US, South Korea and Japan on Monday, saying the countries will be more successful when working together. The remarks from Ned Price came after Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Takeo Mori boycotted a joint press event with his South Korean and US counterparts -- Choi Jong-kun and Wendy Sherman -- following their three-way talks in Washington last week. "When it com

South Korea and Japan held working-level diplomatic talks in Seoul on Monday amid a renewed spat over the former's easternmost islets of Dokdo. The talks between Lee Sang-ryol, the foreign ministry's director general for Asian and Pacific affairs, and his Japanese counterpart, Takehiro Funakoshi, came after tensions resurfaced following Japan's protest over the recent visit to Dokdo by South Korea's police chief.    Lee said that Seoul can never accept any Japanese claim to Dokdo, a

The evolution of technologies is changing the character of warfare. In any future war, the battle will be determined long before any bullets are fired or missiles flown. Wars may be won through cyberattacks that crash countries’ networks, causing power outages and severing military communication, says former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. 　 The changing face of war requires countries around the world to “rethink” the entire approach to security and defense, Ilves sa

Every year, millions of red crabs migrate from the forest toward the ocean to mate in preparation for winter. On Australia’s Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, red crab migration season has already begun, as can be seen from the streets literally covered in crabs. A female crab can produce up to 100,000 eggs, and in some areas there can be up to 100 crabs per square meter of beach or rock.  Migration usually begins after the first rainfall. According to the Parks Australia websi