South Korea plans to conduct a field survey next week in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) bisecting the Koreas to select a site for a "peace park," an official said Thursday.The Park Geun-hye administration has pushed for the ambitious project to create an ecological park in the heavily-armed DMZ as part of efforts to reduce military tensions on the peninsula."A government-civilian survey team has been created. Around 20 members will look around several candidate sites from Dec. 10-12," the unificat

The South Korean military kicked off a large-scale airlift exercise on Thursday to boost air transportation capacity for enhanced wartime capabilities, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.The two-day exercise took place in the city of Yangju, north of Seoul, involving some 1,300 service personnel from 15 units of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Marine Corps. It also mobilized around 900 units of equipment and vehicles includingC-130 transport aircraft and CH-47 helicopters, according

The U.S. special representative for North Korea policy will visit South Korea this week, the State Department announced Tuesday, his first trip to the region since taking office last month.Ambassador Sung Kim will be in Seoul on Thursday for meetings with Seoul’s special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs, Hwang Joon-kook, and other officials. Kim will be accompanied by his deputy, Sydney Seiler, special envoy for the six-party talks, and Allison Hooker, director for Korea at the Nation

An ombudsman bureau to investigate human rights abuses in the military will be installed at the state-run Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission, military sources said Wednesday.In response to repeated reports of abuse in the barracks, military officials have worked to establish an ombudsman system to deal regularly with such cases. Amid growing public concern over soldiers’ well-being, the Defense Ministry in August launched a committee dedicated to stamping out abuses in the military, compr

South Korea has finalized its 2015 defense budget that calls for a 4.9 percent increase from this year to improve the welfare of servicemen and enhance combat capabilities, the defense ministry said Wednesday.Next year's defense spending has been set at 37.4 trillion won (US$33.6 billion), accounting for some 9.9 percent of the nation's total budget of 375.4 trillion won passed Tuesday by the National Assembly. The ministry had originally sought a 5.2 percent rise.Of the total defense budget, 26

The South Korean Navy took delivery Friday of the country's first indigenous next-generation amphibious landing ship expected to boost the military's landing and transportation capabilities, the state arms procurer said.  The 4,500-ton LTS-II ship Cheonwangbong, named after the country's second-highest peak of Mount Jiri in the southern region, had been built with the country's own technology by shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Co. since 2011.   Capable of accommodating 300 ful

A bullet, thought to have been fired by an attack helicopter of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, penetrated the roof of a civilian office last Friday, raising questions about whether the military training was being conducted in due consideration of residents’ safety.After a complaint was filed about the stray bullet in Yeongbuk in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, near the Rodriguez Firing Range, the U.S. division and South Korea’s 8th Division set up a probe team to look into the incident, the 2ID tol

China's top diplomat to Seoul said Wednesday he is opposed to the possible U.S. deployment of an advanced missile-defense (MD) system in South Korea as it would hurt Sino-Korean ties, a lawmaker said.   The United States has said it is considering deploying a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, an integral part of its MD system, to South Korea, citing evolving threats from North Korea. It is designed to shoot down short, medium and intermediate ballistic missiles at a higher alt

Korean researchers managed to identify the cause behind an early childhood disease that degrades the nervous system, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said Tuesday.According to the ministry, researchers from Kyungpook National University discovered the mechanism behind Niemann―Pick Type C disease, an inherited lipid storage disorder that affects the central nervous system.The symptoms for NP-C ― which is found in 1 in 150,000 people and usually appears in early childhood ― include

The Defense Ministry is seeking to put its cyberwarfare operations under the control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman in a bid to broaden the scope of the operations to include full-scale wartime procedures.The decision comes as the ministry is struggling to shore up public trust in its cyberwarfare command, which has come under fire for political interference amid North Korea’s escalating security challenges in the increasingly militarized cyberdomain.“We are working on a legal revision to