A soldier in South Korea’s reserves yesterday went on a shooting spree, killing a fellow soldier and injuring three comrades before shooting himself dead, a military official said.
The incident is likely to spur questions over the nation’s rules on compulsory military service at a time when its military faces criticism of lax discipline in some units, leading to attacks on soldiers by colleagues suffering from psychological problems.
The military official said the reservist turned his K-2 assault rifle on fellow soldiers during mandatory training at a reserve forces site in the capital, Seoul.
Photo: EPA
He was 24 years old, South Korean television network YTN said.
“The army is investigating the incident,” said the military official, who declined to be identified because the topic is sensitive.
South Korea has a system of two years of compulsory military service for all able-bodied men, since it is still technically at war with North Korea after the 1950-1953 war between the neighbors ended in a truce and not a peace treaty.
They must then participate in annual military training as reservists for eight years.
South Korea’s military has about 630,000 soldiers on active duty, more than 300,000 of them conscripts, aimed at deterring aggression from North Korea, one of the world’s most militarized states.
However, the nation’s declining birth rate and small families have prompted concerns its armed forces have become too slow to deal with social changes.
Rights group Amnesty International yesterday urged South Korea to end the imprisonment of hundreds of young men who object to military service on grounds of conscience.
The most recent outcry concerned continuing physical and emotional abuse that led to the death of a conscript at the hands of his barrack mates last year.
Last year, a conscript soldier threw a grenade and shot dead five comrades near the North Korean border.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
RSS