After former US President Donald Trump called South Korea a "money machine," Korean news outlets on Wednesday grappled with how to best capture the nuance of his words for the Korean audience through translation. Trump made the remarks during an interview with Bloomberg News at the Economic Club of Chicago while discussing the costs of maintaining US troops in South Korea. "If I were there (in the White House) now, they (South Korea)’d be paying us $10 billion a year. And

Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun apologized Tuesday over the fate of members of a past secret unit that trained commandos to infiltrate into North Korea for the first time since they were killed more than a half century ago. Kim's apology was read on his behalf during a ceremony to mark the beginning of an excavation project to find the yet-recovered remains of four Silmido unit members who were executed and secretly buried in 1972. "May those who were sacrificed during the Silmido inc

“Pyongyang signaling to UN Command to mediate tensions with Seoul”

The head of the South Korean government agency for defense research and development said Tuesday the uncrewed aerial vehicles seen in footage released by North Korean state media do not seem to be South Korean. “These UAVs do not seem distinctly South Korean, although there are similar-looking ones among commercial kinds as well as those developed (by the military),” Lt. Gen. Lee Kun-wan, president of the Agency for Defense Development, said in response to questions from lawmakers. &

Seoul won’t confirm Pyongyang’s account of drone crossing border

The South Korean military said Sunday it has “nothing to confirm” regarding North Korea claiming to have ordered its artillery corps near the shared border to fully prepare to shoot. “The military has nothing to confirm,” a South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff official told The Korea Herald. North Korea’s defense ministry said in a statement releases through the state Korean Central News Agency that it has put “fully armed” artillery corps along the border

South Korea maintains ambiguous stance, while North Korea fails to provide clear evidence

No South Korean military unmanned aerial vehicle has entered North Korean skies, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday in response to North Korean Foreign Ministry claims of such infiltration into Pyongyang. “The South Korean military has not sent any UAVs or flyers. We don’t know yet if a civilian drone flew in,” an official from the South’s JCS told The Korea Herald. In a statement, the North’s Foreign Ministry claimed that South Korean UAVs had flown

The Air Force has conducted live-fire drills involving the long-range air-to-surface Taurus missile, officials said Friday, in the first such exercise in seven years amid North Korea's persistent nuclear and missile threats. In the tests conducted on Tuesday and Thursday, F-15K fighter jets fired the Taurus missile, which flew 400 kilometers and successfully hit pre-designated targets in the Yellow Sea, according to the Air Force officials. In 2017, South Korea conducted a live-fire test in

Pyongyang unlikely to wage war based on Seoul military intelligence

South Korea’s national defense minister on Tuesday said North Korean troops appear to have been killed or wounded in Russia’s war on Ukraine. Minister of National Defense Kim Yong-hyun told lawmakers on this day that reports of North Korean troop casualties in the Ukraine war are believed to be true based on the ministry’s findings. He was speaking about a report in the Ukrainian news agency Kyiv Post that six North Korean officers were among those killed by a missile strike in

South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration is falling behind legal standards for gender equality in all of its policy committees, according to agency data seen by The Korea Herald. According to the data submitted to Democratic Party of Korea Rep. Boo Seung-chan’s office, two of the agency’s three committees -- the committees for defense acquisition program promotion and airworthiness certificate review -- had no women in 2023. In the same year, the committee for d

Two US B-1B heavy bombers conducted a joint drill with the South Korean Air Force on Oct. 1 Armed Forces Day, before one of them participated in a national ceremony, the US Indo-Pacific Command said Saturday. In a show of force, a US B-1B bomber flew over Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, just south of the capital, alongside two F-15K jets during the ceremony marking Armed Forces Day, demonstrating the US security commitment to South Korea. According to the US Indo-Pacific Command, two US B-1B bombers

A South Korean military aircraft evacuating Korean nationals and their families from Lebanon returned home Saturday, as Israel intensifies ground operations against the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah inside Lebanon, the South Korean government said Saturday. A total of 96 South Korean nationals and one foreign family member who had been residing in Lebanon arrived at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, at 12:50 p.m. local time aboard a South Korean Air Force KC-330 Cygnus transp

Allies restore use of South Korean inflation rate to adjust defense contributions