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A South Korean court has sentenced former President Lee Myung-bak to 15 years in prison over a slew of corruption charges. His conviction is yet another blow to conservatives in South Korea. His conservative successor Park Geun-hye is serving a 33-year prison term over a separate corruption scandal. The Seoul Central District Court issued the sentence on Friday after convicting Lee of bribery, embezzlement and other charges. Lee, who has denied most of the charges leveled on him, has one week to appeal. Lee, who served as president from 2008-2013, has been held at a detention center in Seoul since...

Pres Lee Myungbak of S. Korea is being condemned in so many ways: His caricature drawings are: burned attacked by kids at elementary school His effigy is mauled by attack dogs

Chinese in Series of Diplomatic Gaffes in Seoul A Chinese delegation led by Dai Bingguo, the Chinese state councilor in charge of foreign affairs who visited South Korea on Nov. 27 and met with President Lee Myung-bak to discuss North Korea's attack on Yeonpyeong Island, has become the talk of the town among diplomats in Seoul. A diplomatic source in Seoul on Monday said the Chinese suddenly notified the South Korean Foreign Ministry at 3 p.m. on Nov. 27 that a delegation led by Dai will leave in 15 minutes and hopes to land at Seoul Airport. The airport in...

The planned creation of the U.S. Korea Command has been delayed to October or later, according to a source at the Ministry of Defense yesterday. The source told the JoongAng Ilbo that the new command structure was supposed to be created on June 1, but Seoul and Washington agreed to push back its creation to October or later, because of the delay of the transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean soldiers from the U.S. to South Korea. The U.S. Korea Command will be a new organization of the U.S. military forces here to be used after Korea is...

Leaders of South Korea and the United States have delayed Seoul’s scheduled takeover of wartime operational control of its troops to Dec. 1, 2015, pushing back the transfer date three years and seven months. The decision was made at a meeting between Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Barack Obama before the Group of 20 financial summit here on Saturday. The two leaders also discussed security issues and North Korea’s recent provocation, government officials said. When the 1950-53 Korean War began, South Korea handed over peacetime and wartime operational control of its soldiers to the U.S.-led United Nations Command, after which the...

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan are expected to ratchet up diplomatic efforts to garner international support for a UN reprimand of North Korea during this weekend’s G-20 Summit in Toronto. Seoul has asked the UN Security Council to officially condemn Pyongyang for the fatal March 26 attack on South Korean warship Cheonan, an accusation Pyongyang has furiously denied. After two Koreas held dueling briefings to push their own versions of the story to member countries at the UN Security Council, negotiations came to a temporary halt this week as the ambassadors of the member countries...

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his American counterpart Barack Obama announced a three-year delay in Washington's transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) to Seoul, citing the volatile atmosphere on the Korean Peninsula with North Korea's continued military provocations, most recently a deadly naval attack on a warship. The leaders also agreed to make concrete efforts to revive their long-stalled free trade agreement talks, as Obama set November as the deadline for completing necessary discussions. Obama began the summit with Lee with a show of his resolve to make North Korea pay a price for sinking a South Korean warship,...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday called for a "thorough investigation" of the sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan before taking any action against North Korea. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Medvedev said, "Although only one version has been broadly circulated, we should not take it immediately for granted. A thorough investigation is needed." The sinking, which claimed the lives of 46 South Korean sailors, was "tragic," he said, adding that the "hypothesis" that it was torpedoed by "a neighboring country" -- i.e. North Korea -- is one of the possible scenarios. "As soon as the results...

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak assured Singaporean business leaders Saturday that there will never be a full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula despite rising tensions between the two Koreas in the wake of the March sinking of a South Korean warship. "The South-North Korean issue should be resolved by all means but it is clearly not an easy task," Lee said in a meeting with a dozen Singaporean business leaders, including Tony Chew, chairman of Singapore Business Federation, according to presidential spokesman Park Sun-kyoo. "But there is no chance of a full-scale war at all," the president was quoted as...

South Korea is reviewing its defense policy following North Korea's alleged sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, a process that could significantly change Seoul's military alliance with Washington, according to officials engaged in the process. Over the past week, U.S. and South Korean leaders have outlined plans to conduct war games and strategy sessions to better equip the South for combating the type of submarine attack Pyongyang is accused by international investigators to have staged in March, killing 46 South Korean sailors. For the longer term, President Lee Myung-bak's conservative government could seek to alter the alliance's command structure...

South Korea's ban on trade with North Korea would deliver a "direct blow" to the country's already destitute economy and could jeopardize the struggling Kim Jong-Il regime if China joins sanctions, a think tank here said. The report came after President Lee Myung-Bak announced that his country would cut all trade links and aid with North Korea and block its commercial ships from sailing through the South's waters as part of countermeasures to the North's submarine attack on the South's warship in March that killed 46 sailors. The North has consistently achieved a surplus in commercial trade with the South,...

In the duel between North and South Korea, the question now is who will pull the trigger first? The answer may be neither, but don't count on it. The dueling now focuses on two quite different flashpoints. The first is the West or Yellow Sea, where North Korea has vowed to open fire against any South Korean vessel intruding in its waters. One issue there is how to define which waters are North Korean. The North refuses to recognize the Northern Limit Line, set by the United Nations Command after the Korean War (1950-1953) and challenged by North Korea in...

South Korea will continue to carry out its retaliatory measures against North Korea for the sinking of its warship, despite Pyongyang's announcement that the communist state will sever all ties with Seoul, an official here said Wednesday. Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung also said in a briefing that Pyongyang notified the South it was cutting off its hotline with South Korea at their truce village as well as their maritime communication links. North Korea said late Tuesday it would end dialogue with Seoul for the remainder of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's tenure and expel personnel from a joint consultative...

Fellow Koreans, I am standing here today, keenly aware that the Korean Peninsula is facing a critical turning point. My fellow citizens, The Cheonan was sunk by a surprise North Korean torpedo attack. Again, the perpetrator was North Korea. Their attack came at a time when the people of the Republic of Korea were enjoying their well-earned rest after a hard day’s work. Once again, North Korea violently shattered our peace. The sinking of the Cheonan constitutes a military provocation against the Republic of Korea by North Korea. Since the end of the Korean War, the North has perpetrated incessant...

South Korea said Monday it will unhesitatingly exercise its right of self-defense in the event of future armed provocation by North Korea and freeze all of its remaining exchanges with the communist neighbor, except for Kaesong industrial park. Announcing a set of tough punitive steps against Pyongyang for its fatal attack on one of its warships in March, President Lee Myung-bak said his government will request the U.N. Security Council take up the case."From now on, the Republic of Korea will not tolerate any provocative act by the North and will maintain a principle of proactive deterrence," the president said...

President Barack Obama has directed the U.S. military to coordinate with South Korea to "ensure readiness" and deter future aggression from North Korea, the White House said on Monday. The United States gave strong backing to plans by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to punish North Korea for sinking one of its naval ships, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement. The White House urged North Korea to apologize and change its behavior, he said. "We endorse President Lee's demand that North Korea immediately apologize and punish those responsible for the attack, and, most importantly, stop its belligerent...

President Lee Myung-Bak will Monday outline South Korea's resposnse to the sinking of a warship that Seoul said was torpedoed by a North Korean submarine, claiming 46 lives, his spokesman said. The attack on the Cheonan near the disputed border with the North on March 26 sparked outrage and grief in South Korea, but Seoul has apparently ruled out any military counterstrike for fear of triggering full-scale war. As international anger grows over the attack, Lee, in an address to the nation, will also outline his planned appeal to the UN Security Council over the sinking of the corvette. "The...

South Korea's conservative government is expected to drop the Defense Reform 2020, a long-term military project crafted by the previous liberal leadership. In the first meeting of the Commission for National Security Review, organized following the sinking of the warship Cheonan in march, President Lee Myung-Bak ordered his Cabinet to review Defense Reform 2020 to better counter threats from the hostile communist neighbor. Defense Reform 2020 was adopted by former President Roh Moo-Hyun, who pushed for reconciliation with the North. It was designed to make South Korea's military less dependent on the United States and called for a reduction of...

So now it's official: North Korea did it. In the early morning hours of March 26 an explosion tore through the hull of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, which was sailing in waters not far from the disputed maritime boundary with the North. The 1,200-ton patrol boat split in two and sank, and 46 sailors lost their lives. The cause of the disaster wasn't immediately obvious. No one claimed responsibility for an attack, and some sort of accident was, of course, within the realm of possibility. So the South Korean government launched a probe to figure out what happened....

– South Korea's president said Friday his country was caught in a "perfect military ambush" when a North Korean torpedo sank a naval warship, but called for a cautious response to the disaster that left 46 sailors dead. President Lee Myung-bak made the comments at an emergency national security meeting convened one day after an official report concluded that North Korea was responsible for the deadly sinking of the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan. North Korea has denied involvement and vowed "all-out war" in case of any moves to retaliate over the sinking. An international team of civilian and military...