South Korea has deployed a newly developed anti-aircraft missile system along the maritime border with North Korea in the Yellow Sea, a military official said Thursday."The surface-to-air guided missile system, Cheongung, was placed in the northwest islands area early this year to defend it from North Korean aircraft," the military official said, asking not to be named.The system can intercept North Korean airplanes or other hostile aircraft penetrating into South Korean airspace with almost no

South Korea will push forward measures to beef up security at the country's major airports in the wake of serious breaches that have raised questions about the operational safeguards in place at these critical facilities, the government said Thursday.Security and anti-terrorism measures at international airports across the country will be tightened significantly to prevent any illegal entry into the country, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.In recent months, Incheo

South Korea and the United States are upgrading their command center for combined air operations in a bid to intensify information sharing on North Korea, a military official said Wednesday.The overhaul of the Korean Air and Space Operations Center that kicked off last year will take several years to finish, the official said, asking not to be named."Currently, it is in the initial stages and redesign is underway," he noted. The KAOC, at the United States Force Korea's Osan Air Base, commands an

A U.S. House lawmaker has introduced a resolution calling for stronger trilateral cooperation between the U.S. and its Asian allies, South Korea and Japan, to counter North Korean threats and ensure regional security.Rep. Matt Salmon introduced the bipartisan resolution last week, together with seven co-sponsors, including Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, according to congressional records."The House of Representatives reaffirms the importance of the United States-

South Korea and the United States kicked off their largest-ever annual joint military exercises on Monday with a special focus on bolstering the allies' wartime capability to launch precision strikes on North Korea's top leadership, officials said Monday.The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises, each a command post-based and field training war game, began their weeks-long schedules amid escalating military tensions between South and North Korea following Pyongyang's nuclear and long-range missil

South Korea and the United States will launch their largest-ever joint exercise this week to warn North Korea against further provocations, a South Korean military official said Sunday.The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises running from Monday through April 30 will be the largest in scale since Pyongyang's torpedo attack on the South Korean corvette Cheonan in 2010, which is what triggered these annual drills, the official said on the condition of anonymity.This year's exercise will involve mo

Prosecutors launched an investigation into South Korea's arms procurement agency, suspected of forging documents and obtaining defective devices in the process of purchasing surveillance equipment, legal sources said Friday.The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said it is looking into a Defense Acquisition Program Administration's project to establish a complex surveillance system along the country's seashore, the sources said. The system that helps integrate existing radar and thermal

U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, if elected, would "pick fights" with South Korea and Japan over the cost of American troop presence in the allies, the Washington Post said, warning of foreign policy troubles Trump's presidency could bring about."The Trump foreign policy ... is that the United States' long-standing relationships and alliances are stacked against it, and that they must be downgraded, renegotiated or abandoned," the paper said in an editorial, titled "A Pres

South Korea's parliament passed a revised bill to prescreen airline passengers to keep potential terrorists from flying into the country, the government said Thursday.The National Assembly, led by the ruling Saenuri Party, endorsed the revision to the immigration control law Wednesday, which calls for the checking of passenger manifests before airlines issue boarding passes, the Ministry of Justice said in a press release.South Korea has been running a test operation of the prescreening system i

China voiced opposition Wednesday to the potential deployment of the U.S. THAAD missile defense system to South Korea during a U.N. Security Council meeting held to adopt a new resolution expanding sanctions on North Korea."China opposes the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system on the Korean peninsula because such an action harms the strategic security interests of China and other countries of the region, goes against the goal of maintaining peace, security, and stability of the peninsula