North Korea appears to be installing loudspeakers on the front lines on Thursday, a day after South Korea resumed the anti-Pyongyang broadcasts from near the border for the first time in six years, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. The JCS said in a message to reporters Monday that North Korea was believed to be preparing for their own broadcasts targeting the South across the border. “We have identified signs of North Korea setting up loudspeakers in the border areas

80 balloons landed in S. Korea, with most found in Seoul and surrounding metropolitan areas

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said late Saturday that North Korea was flying balloons loaded with trash once again, as the wind was forecast to veer south. Following the JCS announcement an alert was issued across Seoul and areas near the border warning residents to beware of falling objects and to report sightings to authorities. The South Korean military has been watching for another wave of the North Korean balloons after a group of activists called Fighters for Free North Korea t

WASHINGTON -- South Korea and the United States will hold their third round of cost sharing negotiations for stationing US Forces Korea (USFK) in Washington next week, the chief US negotiator said Friday. Linda Specht, senior advisor and US lead negotiator for security agreements at the State Department, said that the two sides will have the negotiations over the cost-sharing deal, called the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) from Monday through Wednesday. The South Korean delegation is led by Le

A South Korean fleet of warships and maritime aircraft and around 840 Navy and Marine troops were set to depart for Hawaii on Friday to join a US-led multinational maritime exercise slated to kick off later this month, the Navy said. The fleet will leave a naval base on the southern resort island of Jeju on Friday afternoon to join the biennial Rim of the Pacific Exercise scheduled to run from June 26 through Aug. 2, according to the Navy. The Korean fleet comprises naval ships including the 7,6

Indonesia approved a proposal Thursday to accept a South Korean donation of an aging corvette for its navy, reports showed. Indonesia's parliament passed the proposal to receive the 1,200-ton Bucheon 773 corvette, which retired in 2021 after nearly 30 years in service, from South Korea, Reuters reported. It is estimated that US$85 billion will be needed for maintenance and other costs to make it operational, Deputy Defense Minister Herindra told parliament. The donation came after Indonesia

The United States on Wednesday deployed one B-1B bomber for joint bombing drills in South Korea for the first time in seven years amid heightened tensions over North Korea's trash balloon campaign and GPS jamming attacks. The US heavy bomber from Andersen Air Base in Guam and two South Korean F-15K fighters released live GBU-38, 500-pound joint direct attack munitions, to strike multiple simulated targets at Pilsung Range in Taebaek, Gangwon Province, according to the US 7th Air Force in So

South Korea is set to restart artillery drills near the Military Demarcation Line and the northwestern border islands as early as this month, military sources said Wednesday, after the country effectively suspended a 2018 inter-Korean tension reduction pact. On Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol endorsed a motion calling for the full suspension of the Comprehensive Military Agreement in response to the North's trash-carrying balloon campaign and GPS jamming attacks in recent days. The move en

South Korean spy agency said Tuesday it was forming a consultative body of concerned ministries and other government agencies to enhance satellite cyber security. The consultative body led by the National Intelligence Service is aimed at protecting satellites throughout their lifespan from their design to operation. The NIS explained that the body was created against amid emerging domestic and international space cyber threats, citing the recent cyber attack against the Korea Satellite Operation

South Korea voted in a Cabinet meeting to suspend the September 19 Inter-Korean Military Agreement on Tuesday after a week of North Korea’s unceasing provocations ranging from attempting to launch another spy satellite to sending trash balloons. The Cabinet decision was approved by President Yoon Suk Yeol the same day, making the pact -- reached on September 19, 2018, to minimize front-line tensions -- lose effect entirely for the time being. South Korea earlier halted parts of the pact to

North Korea sent another batch of balloons carrying filth and propaganda to South Korea over the weekend, prompting a stern reaction from the South Korean government, which vowed Sunday to take “unendurable” action. “Dispatching of trash balloons and jamming GPS are despicable and irrational acts of provocation that could not have been imagined by a normal country,” National Security Adviser Chang Ho-jin said after presiding over a National Security Council meeting called

The presidential National Security Council is expected to discuss a plan to resume propaganda campaigns via loudspeakers across the border with North Korea, in response to the North's launch of some 600 balloons carrying trash to the South, a source close to the matter said Sunday. The NSC meeting will be held Sunday afternoon and presided over by National Security Adviser Jang Ho-jin, according to the office of President Yoon Suk Yeol. Earlier in the day, South Korea's military said N

SINGAPORE -- South Korea’s Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik and Japan’s Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara agreed to look to the future in a bilateral meeting held at the Asia Security Summit or the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. At the meeting that lasted for about half an hour, the two ministers agreed to put the maritime row that had frustrated defense negotiations between the countries for the last five years, and pursue reconciliation. In December 2018, Japan accused

North Korea sent around 90 balloons carrying trash to South Korea on Saturday, Seoul's military said, after it launched hundreds of similar balloons across the inter-Korean border earlier this week. As of 11 p.m., the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had detected around 90 balloons that floated across the Military Demarcation Line separating the two Koreas and fell in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. The North appears to have started sending the balloons at around 8 p.m., with the fallen balloons

SINGAPORE -- Seoul’s Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik on Saturday credited the bipartisan support from the US Congress for its role in protecting the US troop presence in South Korea. Shin held a closed-door meeting with the US House of Representatives delegation comprising Reps. Young Kim, Michael McCaul, Gregory Meeks, Joe Wilson and Joe Courtney at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit on this day, according to the minister’s office. The South Korean defense minister was quoted