South Korea - The Korea Times

Korean Navy chief, US Pacific Fleet commander discuss cooperation

Korea's top naval commander and the head of the U.S. navy's largest fleet on Friday discussed enhancing military exchange and defense cooperation, the Navy here said. Adm. Choi Yun-hee, the South Korean Navy's chief of staff, met with U.S. Adm. Cecil D. Haney, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, at the South's Busan Naval Operations Base, about 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul. According to the Navy, the two admirals talked about strengthening exchanges between their navies and also bolstering their readiness posture ahead of major international events scheduled in South Korea this year. "With the Nuclear Security Summit scheduled in March and Yeosu Expo from May to August, it's very important to maintain close cooperation between our navies," Choi was quoted as saying by the Navy. Choi also asked for the Pacific Fleet's continued support for the South's efforts to improve its anti-submarine warfare capabilities and its maintenance skills for Aegis destroyers. Haney, who took the helm of the Pacific Fleet in January this year, arrived in Korea on Thursday. He has pai

Feb 24, 2012

Border town brothels cohabit with military

This is the first of a two-part series that explores the shady relationship between the military and the sex industry in Korea. ㅡ ED. By Lee Tae-hoon PAJU, Gyeonggi Province ㅡ Lee Eun-ju, a loan officer at a savings bank, was shocked to see a huge red light district, known as Yongjugol, right next to a police station and military base at this border town when she came here to check the appraisal of a house. A pimp showed up in place of the owner of a two-story house registered as a residential building as she asked why barely-dressed women in four-inch heels were standing behind a glass window as if on sale at a supermarket. She made it clear that no loan could be approved for the brothel, but wondered how prostitution, which is illegal here, could be so openly practiced. “It seems obvious that the police have turned a blind eye to the local sex industry, especially for servicemen wanting to buy sex, possibly due to bribery or undue pressure from decision-makers,” she said. Yongjugol operates virtually around the clock. About 10 establishments are open for bus

Feb 20, 2012

South Korea conducts live-fire drills despite NK threat

South Korea carried out live-fire drills near its western border islands Monday, despite North Korea's threat of retaliation. "We had our routine maritime firing drills for about two hours starting 9:30 a.m.," an official with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. "These were designed to test our weapons at Marine Corps units on the Yellow Sea and also to maintain our military's combat readiness in the area." The drills took place in waters near Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong islands, located just south of the tense Yellow Sea border with North Korea. They came a day after the North's military vowed to "promptly make merciless retaliatory strikes" if the South violates its territorial waters. The JCS said the North had placed its armed forces on heightened alert during the South's exercises, but that it had detected no unusual movement from north of the border. Military officials said the drills were the second of their kind this year and involved self-propelled howitzers, Vulcans, mortars and Cobra attack helicopters. About 5,000 rounds of shots were fired, all of them falli

Feb 20, 2012

Lee suggests establishing English-learning centers at military bases

President Lee Myung-bak has floated the idea of establishing English-learning centers at military bases to prepare service members for job opportunities in the Middle East, an official said Friday. After a trip through the Middle East last week, Lee has repeatedly said he saw good business opportunities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, countries with large amounts of oil money, and urged Korean companies to take advantage of those opportunities. Referring to a construction boom in the region in the 1970s, Lee has said there will be a "second Middle East boom" as countries there plan massive construction and infrastructure projects. Lee recently raised the English education center idea with Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin, saying such facilities would be helpful for young service members seeking job opportunities in the Middle East after completing their military service, according to the official. "I hope more young people will head to the Middle East and it would be good to create an environment for this," Lee was quoted as saying. (Yonhap)

Feb 17, 2012

Navy revives ‘Ocean-Going‘ slogan

The Navy has revived the use of its slogan "Ocean-Going Navy," signifying its commitment to strengthening open water operational capabilities, a source said Friday. "The Navy is officially using the term 'Ocean-Going Navy,' which hadn't been in use since the sinking of the Cheonan," the source said, referring to the deadly North Korean torpedoing of the warship in March 2010. "The term Korean Ocean-Going Navy has appeared in documents and PR materials." The source also said the Navy is looking to add more Aegis destroyers to its fleet by 2020 and to put its maneuver fleets at the center of the Ocean-Going Navy. Over the next eight years, a 7,600-ton class KDX-III destroyer, a 2,300-ton next-generation convoy and a 5,000-ton next-generation landing craft will be added to the Navy, along with fast attack craft and submarines. The Navy had been using the term 'Ocean-Going' since 1980 in a show of its commitment to protecting sea lanes and executing operations across the deep waters of open seas. But it disappeared from the Navy's papers after the Cheonan sinking, as critics

Feb 17, 2012

Korea, U.S. to hold anti-submarine drill next week

Korea and the U.S. will conduct a joint exercise next week to counter North Korean submarines off the west coast, officials said Thursday. "For five days starting next Monday, the navies of the two countries will hold a joint anti-submarine exercise in the Yellow Sea," a military official said. "It's designed to help strengthen the allies' combined readiness posture and their tactical and operational capabilities to respond to North Korean submarines." Seoul and Washington had agreed in December last year to stage two joint anti-submarine exercises per year. According to the official, this upcoming exercise will involve a 7,600-ton Aegis destroyer "Yulgok Yi I," which was deployed last year, plus about 20 other vessels, Lynx helicopters and P3-C anti-submarine surveillance aircraft. In a related development, the government has given the Navy the green light to set up a new command for submarines by year 2015. The National Assembly has earmarked a budget of 639 million won (US$569,520) for preparations this year. The Navy had earlier eyed the year 2012 to launch the com

Feb 16, 2012

Exclusive Boeing backtracks on stealthy jet offer

By Lee Tae-hoon Boeing is mulling changing its plan to propose the F-15 Silent Eagle (F-15SE), a semi-stealth version of the F-15 Strike Eagle, to Korea as pricing emerges as a key factor in determining the winner of the country’s largest arms procurement deal ever. “Whether you want to add additional elements or remove elements, we will have that flexibility on our proposal to the customer,” Howard Berry, Boeing’s campaign manager for Seoul’s latest jet acquisition project, said in a recent interview. “We recognize how critical affordability will be. It will be very difficult to win this competition if you are not putting the most affordable solution on the table.” Boeing is competing with its U.S. rival Lockheed Martin and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) for the FX-III project, under which Korea plans to buy 60 high-end fighters with a budget of 8.29 trillion won ($7.3 billion). Some experts point out that the cost of Boeing’s F-15SE will likely surpass that of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 and EADS’s Typhoon as Korea is the only country to shou

Feb 14, 2012

Korean officer caught in UAE after going AWOL

A Korean non-commissioned officer stationed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was caught less than 24 hours after he'd gone missing from his unit in the eastern part of the Middle East country, officials here said Monday. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Seoul, the officer, an Army Staff Sergeant surnamed Kim, was nabbed by a fellow soldier at a shopping mall in Al Ain, around 1 p.m., Korean Standard Time. Kim had left the base without permission around 6:40 p.m. on Sunday. JCS officials said Kim, 21, was in his track suit and was not armed when he was caught. He was dispatched to the UAE on Jan. 10, they added. Kim was part of the Akh unit, a contingent tasked with training UAE's special forces and conducting combined exercises. The word "Akh" means brother in Arabic. The first batch of South Korean troops traveled to the UAE in January last year. Officials said Akh troops and local police had searched downtown Al Ain, after obtaining evidence of Kim's debit card use in the city. "A military police investigator who has been sent to the UAE is trying to fi

Feb 13, 2012

Korea seeks to build T-50 jet training center in Portugal

Korea is seeking to build a pilot training center in Portugal that will be equipped with the Korean Aerospace Industries' (KAI) T-50 supersonic military jet trainer, a government source said Saturday. The defense ministry source, who declined to be identified, said Portugal was tapped as the primary negotiation partner for the International Military Flight Training Center Consortium (IMFACC) last year. He said final negotiations are underway to sort out details that may lead to a memorandum of understanding being reached as early as next month. The IMFACC plan calls for South Korea to inject 300 billion won (US$267 million) over 30 years to set up a jet pilot training facility. The center will be manned by South Korean military instructors who will be tasked with training foreign pilots on the KAI aircraft. The mach 1.5-capable T-50 Golden Eagle is already in service with the South Korean Air Force and is a trainer with flight characteristics on par with many of today's frontline fighters and attack aircraft. Seoul had been examining candidate sites for an IMFACC in the U

Feb 11, 2012

Defense ministry to restructure for stronger defense against WMD

The defense ministry is set to undergo restructuring to bolster the military's defense against weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and cyber warfare, officials said Thursday. Under the proposed change, the ministry's department of non-proliferation will be renamed the "department of WMD response," they said. Officials in that department will be tasked with forming defense policy against North Korea's potential WMD attacks and providing necessary guidelines, they added. The newly-named department will also oversee non-proliferation and nuclear policies, missile defense, and response to chemical and biological weapons, officials said. In another change, the information protection team will be renamed the "cyber protection policy team" and will formulate Korea's response to North Korea's cyber warfare threats. "North Korea has continuously developed missiles, nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons," a defense ministry official said. "We're also aware of actual cyber attacks by North Korea. We need to develop policies to actively respond to such instances, and to s

Feb 9, 2012

Defense