The Latest Breaking News from South Korea

Seoul (AFP) - North Korea's top army officials have said they will expand and intensify military drills to ensure their readiness for war, state media reported Tuesday, ahead of a massive parade.

Military top brass meets as armed forces continue preparations for parade expected as early as Wednesday.

Derrick Lewis, the UFC's all-time knockout record holder, is on a personal worst losing skid after UFC Fight Night 218.

Nine people were missing on Sunday after a fishing boat capsized off the southwest coast of South Korea, authorities said, with the country's president urging stepped-up search and rescue efforts.

The Ministry of Labour on Saturday urged undocumented Thai workers, or "little ghosts", in South Korea to report to Korean immigration authorities before a Feb 28 deadline so they can have an opportunity to return to the country and work legally under a special programme.

South Korea Foreign Minister Park Jin said after meeting U.S. top diplomat Antony Blinken on Friday that Seoul and Washington were committed to strengthening "extended deterrence" in relation to North Korea.

The United States and South Korea staged drills for the second time in a week on Friday with some of their latest warplanes, despite North Korean complaints that the exercises were increasing tensions on the peninsula.

A disgraced former South Korean politician, Cho Kuk, was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday for forging documents to facilitate his children's school admissions in a scandal that has deepened political divides and frustrated many young voters.

South Korea said Thursday it had staged joint air drills with the United States featuring strategic bombers and stealth fighters, prompting Pyongyang to warn that such exercises could "ignite an all-out showdown". The exercises, the first by the security allies this year, came a day after US Defense Secretary Lloyd…