Kim Jong-un guiding Air Force MiG-21 during flight training

North Korean military exercises

Photos
AFP/Getty Images/KCNA

S. Korea test-fires ballistic missile capable of striking North Korea

South Korea has successfully test-fired an extended range ballistic missile and will develop a longer range missile capable of striking all parts of North Korea, Seoul's defense ministry said Friday.

South Korea currently operates Hyunmoo ballistic missiles with a range of 300 kilometers, and has been developing longer range missiles to beef up its defense against Pyongyang under a new missile deal with the United States.The guidelines revised in October 2012 allow Seoul to extend the maximum range of its ballistic missiles from 300 km to 800 km. It limits the maximum payload to 500 kg for 800-km range missiles, while allowing heavier payloads for missiles with shorter ranges.

"The missile development is part of follow-up measures after South Korea and the United States revised the missile guidelines," ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said in a briefing. "We are now developing 500-km ballistic missiles and plan to make 800-km missiles in the future." He didn't elaborate on the deployment schedule.The state-funded Agency for Defense Development on March 23 tested a ballistic missile with a range of 500 km and a payload of 1 ton at a firing range in Taean, South Chungcheong Province, and it hit the intended target, a senior official said.

Following the deployment of the 500-km range missile next year, the military plans to develop an 800-km missile with a payload of 500 kg and test-fire it the same year, the official said.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/yonhap-news-agency/140404/s-korea-test-fires-ballistic-missile-capable-striking-north

South Korea to purchase advanced surveillance radar to detect drone launched by North Korea

A drone of North Korean army was displayed during a military parade in Pyongyang

South Korea was reportedly considering purchasing advanced surveillance radar to spot small- sized, low-flying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) dispatched from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The South Korean news agency Yonhap, citing a military official, reported that the military was mulling acquiring the low-altitude surveillance radar from overseas as it failed to detect several unmanned aircrafts deployed by the DPRK recently.

The DPRK has flew several pilotless airplanes for the reconnaissance purpose to South Korea, which were spotted by the naked eye in frontline areas, but were depicted as birds on the radar screen due to their small size.The South Korean Army was operating the low-altitude surveillance radars called TPS-830K, but it rarely detected the small, unmanned aircrafts believed to be flown by the DPRK.

An official at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, the country's arms procurement agency, said over phone that he hasn't heard of whether the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) has decided to buy it, noting that the JCS should make a decision to purchase any military devices.The South Korean military came to a tentative conclusion that two drones, discovered in inter-Korean border areas recently, came from the DPRK, according to government sources cited by Yonhap.

Seoul's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that it collected debris of an UAV, which is 1.8 meters long and 2.4 meters wide, on the Baengnyeong Island just south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), or the disputed sea border with the DPRK.The unmanned aircraft was discovered by an islander Monday when the DPRK fired about 500 hundreds of shells, around 100 of which fell into South Korean waters. In response, the South Korean military fired some 300 rounds of artillery across the maritime border into the DPRK waters.

The UAV, found in the border island, was the same kind of the one spotted on March 24 in Paju, close to the land border between the two Koreas.Presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook told reporters that he was briefed on interim investigation findings from the presidential office of national security, which was looking into the case with a view that the drones came from the DPRK.Min said a final result of the probe had yet to come, but he noted that regardless of where the UAVs came from, Seoul will have to draw up countermeasures against such spy drone which is hard to detect by radar.

An official at the Defense Ministry told Xinhua that the drones were taking aerial shots of areas near Seoul and its nearby Gyeonggi Province, noting they were too small to detect by radar.The drones, which crashed on the border areas recently, reportedly carried cameras, which took photographs of military installations and even the presidential office Blue House.

South Korea finds crashed UAVs on border island

These are the North Korean UAV's that crashed

http://www.asiandefencenews.com/2014/03/pentagon-says-north-korea-developed.html

An unidentified unmanned airplane fell on one of the five South Korean islands near the inter-Korean western sea border, the official Yonhap News Agency reported on Tuesday, citing a government source.The unmanned aerial vehicle crashed at around 4pm on Monday local time on Baengnyeong Island, just south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), or the disputed maritime border between the two Koreas, said the source.

The South Korean military took the pilotless airplane from the border island to identify where the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) came from.The UAV, detected Monday, was the same kind as the one found on March 24 in Paju, 50km northwest of Seoul.

The source said that South Korea's intelligence and military officials were probing whether the two airplanes came from North Korea.North Korea conducted its live-fire drill Monday afternoon, firing around 500 rounds of shells and projectiles with its artillery and multiple-rocket launchers from its shoreline gun positions in the country's southeastern region near the NLL.

Some 100 of them landed in South Korean waters 2-3 km south of the NLL, the scene of the recent inter-Korean naval skirmishes. In November 2010, Pyongyang shelled Yeonpyeong Island, one of the five border islands near the NLL, with its shoreline artillery, killing four people.

North and South Korea exchange fire with hundreds of artillery shells over disputed border

North and South Korea traded hundreds of rounds of live artillery fire across their disputed Yellow Sea boundary today. It forced South Korean islanders to take shelter the day after the North raised tensions by threatening a new nuclear test. The South said it had fired more than 300 shells in response to the North firing more than 500 shells during its three-hour military exercise.

North Korea stages live-fire military drill prompts South to return fire

North Korea has fired artillery shells into South Korean waters, apparently in reaction to military exercises being conducted between the U.S. and South Korea.Seoul responded immediately on Monday by shelling North Korean waters. Officials say no shells hit any land areas on either side and no one was injured. South Korean officials said some residents of border islands were evacuated to shelters as a precaution.

The North in recent weeks has increased threatening rhetoric and conducted a series of rocket and ballistic missile launches into waters off the west coast of the Korean peninsula.Pyongyang threatened on Sunday to conduct what it called "a new form of nuclear test" after the U.N. Security Council condemned the North's recent ballistic missile launches.

A statement Sunday from the North's Foreign Ministry said it was intolerable that the Security Council would "turn a blind eye" to U.S. nuclear war exercises while denouncing the North Korean army's self-defensive rocket launch exercises.After North Korea fired two medium-range ballistic missiles into the sea off the east coast of the Korean peninsula Wednesday, the Security Council condemned the launches the next day, saying they violated U.N. resolutions.

Pyongyang routinely calls military drills between South Korea and the U.S. a rehearsal for invasion.

North Korea: Students required to get Kim Jong-un haircut

Other approved haircuts

Male university students in North Korea are now required to get the same haircut as their leader Kim Jong-un, it is reported.

The state-sanctioned guideline was introduced in the capital Pyongyang about two weeks ago, Radio Free Asia reports. It is now being rolled out across the country - although some people have expressed reservations about getting the look.

"Our leader's haircut is very particular, if you will," one source tells Radio Free Asia. "It doesn't always go with everyone since everyone has different face and head shapes." Meanwhile, a North Korean now living in China says the look is actually unpopular at home because people think it resembles Chinese smugglers. "Until the mid-2000s, we called it the 'Chinese smuggler haircut'," the Korea Times reports.

It seems that haircuts have been state-approved in North Korea for some time - until now people were reportedly only allowed to choose from 18 styles for women and 10 for men. Earlier, North Korea's state TV launched a campaign against long hair, called "Let us trim our hair in accordance with the Socialist lifestyle".

However, there are conflicting reports over the haircut mandate, with the NK News website reporting that recent visitors to Pyongyang did not notice a change in hair styles.

Late leader Kim Jong-il, who ruled North Korea for 17 years, sported a bouffant hairstyle, reportedly in order to look taller.

Pentagon says North Korea developed unmanned strike aircraft from stolen US drone - the Raytheon MQM-107 Streaker

Iran too has developed a stealth fighter after the RQ Sentinel spy drone crashed in Iran on 4 th December 2011. The US is dishing out latest technology to the 'Axis of Evil' powers.

Here is the drone taken from a video grab:

North Korea has deployed an indigenous unmanned aerial vehicle capable of attacking ground targets based on stolen U.S. target drones, the Pentagon revealed in a report to Congress. Images of the North Korean drone in flight were shown as part of a March 2013 military drill, the Pentagon report said. "The drone appeared to be a North Korean copy of a Raytheon MQM-107 Streaker target drone," the report said.

"North Korean press coverage of the event described the UAV as being capable of precision strikes by crashing into the target."

Korea Aerospace Industries - T 50 aircraft

The T-50 was developed by Korea Aerospace Industries, Ltd., with cooperation and global marketing support from Lockheed Martin. Both firms were aware that many training aircraft fleets are aging, even as higher-performance fighters demand trainer aircraft that can keep up. The Korean government needed a fleet of trainers, and saw an opportunity to give their aerospace sector a strong boost in the process. Total investment in the T-50’s RDT&E program amounted to more than $2 billion: 70% from the Korean government, 17% from KAI, and 13% from Lockheed Martin.

With a length of 43 feet and a wingspan of 30 feet, the 2-seat T-50 is about 4 feet shorter than the F-16; overall, it’s only about 80% of the F-16’s size. The relative size of the control surfaces and tails are larger, however, to improve handling characteristics at lower speeds and make the aircraft easier to land. Larger landing gear is also fitted, to absorb harder landings, which is to be expected from student pilots. Its form’s resemblances to Lockheed Martin’s F-16 are suggestive, and include the blended mid-set wing, complete with leading-edge root extensions and rear ‘shelf’ fairings ending in F-16-style split airbrakes.



The air intake layout on the sides is somewhat similar to the F/A-18 Hornet or Northrop’s excellent but ill-fated F-20A Tigershark, and the aircraft is powered by the same engine: GE’s popular, reliable and fuel-efficient F404, with slight improvements over the F404-GE-402 to enhance single-engine redundancy and reliability.

The T-50 trainer carries a basic navigation / attack system, which gives it some multi-role capability. The aircraft can carry Sidewinder missiles on the wingtips, as well as fuel, rockets, or qualified bombs on its 5 underwing and center pylons. the center pylon and 2 inner underwing pylons are “wet,” and can accommodate 150 gallon fuel drop tanks.

The T-50 family’s empty weight is 14,000 pounds, and maximum takeoff gross weight is 29,700 pounds; the F404-GE-102 engine produces 17,700 pounds of thrust. Maximum rate of climb is 39,000 feet per minute; and the maximum speed is Mach 1.5. Service ceiling is 48,500 feet, the design load factor is 8gs, and the trainer airframe is designed for up to 10,000-hour service life