This month's rocket launch by reclusive North Korea shows it has likely developed the technology, long suspected in the West, to fire a warhead more than 10,000 km, South Korean officials said, putting the US West Coast in range.
The UN Security Council is united on North Korea's nuclear arms program and will undoubtedly approve tough measures against Pyongyang if it carries out a new atomic test as expected, South Korean UN Ambassador Kim Sook said today.
North Korea stepped up its bellicose rhetoric threatening to go beyond carrying out a promised third nuclear test in response to what it believes are "hostile" sanctions imposed after a December rocket launch.
Impoverished North Korea rejected international protests over its planned long-range rocket launch and said today that it was injecting fuel "as we speak", meaning it could blast off as early as tomorrow.
North Korea's much hyped long-range rocket apparently crashed into the sea a few minutes after launch, South Korean and other officials said, dealing a blow to the prestige of the reclusive and impoverished state.
Impoverished North Korea threatened today to open fire on South Korea if it allows activists to go ahead with plans to drop anti-North leaflets on its territory, its most strident warning against its long-time foe in months.
North Korea sounded a bellicose note in its first communication with the outside world since the death of leader Kim Jong-il, saying its confrontational stance against South Korea would not change and labeling its opponents "foolish."
President Barack Obama visited South Korea's tense border with the North on Sunday in a show of solidarity with US ally Seoul and a message of resolve to Pyongyang's new young ruler in his country's nuclear standoff with the West.
The United States urged North Korea not conduct a nuclear test or launch a satellite and called on China to exert its influence over its neighbour to try to ward off such "provocative actions."
South Korea has dismissed a North Korean call for unconditional talks to ease tensions, saying the offer was "propaganda" it does not take seriously.
South and North Korea held high-level talks for the first time in two years in Indonesia and said they would work to resume the stalled six-party dialogue for nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula.
North Korea agreed today to a third round of talks with South Korea aimed at resolving a long-running row over a shuttered joint tourist resort in the North. A rush of diplomatic contacts between the two Koreas and the United States, plus a shipment of food aid from the South today, raised hopes for a resumption of long-delayed aid-for-denuclearization talks.
Brazil's dream of winning an elusive Olympic football gold came a step closer to reality when they beat South Korea 3-0 in a one-sided semi-final at Old Trafford.
South Korea's Olympic badminton coach Sung Han-kook has had a lifetime suspension cut to two years, while four players sent home from the London Games for throwing matches also had their bans reduced.
North Korea women's football team delayed the beginning of the match against Colombia after the South Korean flag was incorrectly displayed on a giant screen before kickoff at Glasgow's Hampden Park stadium.
A diplomatic incident when the North Korea Olympic women's football team walked off the field after the South Korea flag had been displayed was a "simple human mistake", International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge said.
Already-qualified title favourites Brazil and Japan were joined by hosts Britain, surprise qualifiers Egypt, Mexico, Senegal, South Korea and Honduras in the quarter-finals of the Olympic football tournament.
Stiff competition from drought hit Brazil and energy hungry Asia is posing difficulties for Argentina in its hunt for vital supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for 2013, trade sources said.