Representatives of the North Korean administration issued a statement saying that the United States and its allies have lost the "political and military confrontation" to the DPRK. A press release issued by the Permanent Mission of the DPRK to the United Nations says that the meeting of the Council, held at the initiative of the United States and Japan, not only disregarded the Charter of the Organization, but also serves as an act against the will of the majority of UN member states.

The United States, Japan and South Korea will hold two days of missile tracking drills starting on Monday, Japan's Maritime Self-Defence Force said, as tensions rise in the region over North Korea's fast-developing weapons programmes. The United States and South Korea conducted large-scale military drills last week, which the North said made the outbreak of war "an established fact".

In one all-too-plausible worst-case scenario, millions die from mistakes and a tweet.

At a time when the United States is calling for more restrictions on fuel exports to North Korea, Russia may be attempting to avoid the total collapse of the regime in Pyongyang. Julian Ryall reports from Tokyo.

The potential of a US war with North Korea is growing each day, Donald Trump’s national security adviser said on Saturday. Speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, HR McMaster said North Korea is “the greatest immediate threat to the United States”. “I think it’s increasing every day, which means that we are in a race, really, we are in a race to be able to solve this problem,” he said.

North Korea Sunday blasted the United States and South Korea as "warmongers" on the eve of their largest-ever joint air exercise, saying it could trigger a nuclear war. The comments came as White House National Security Advisor H.R McMaster warned of the "increasing" possibility of war with the impoverished but nuclear-armed North.

(CNN)An intercontinental ballistic missile that North Korea said could reach the "whole" mainland of the United States likely broke up upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, a US official said Saturday. North Korea on Tuesday broke a two-month lull in weapons testing. It launched an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-15, that state-controlled media described as the "most powerful ICBM" carrying a "super-large heavy warhead" to unprecedented heights of almost 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles).

Japanese authorities are trying to identify eight people whose badly decomposed remains were found on a wooden boat that washed up on a beach. The discovery took place in the northern Akita prefecture. It comes days after a group of men claiming to be North Korean fishermen washed onshore in the same area.

North Korea shattered a two-month period of relative quiet by test-firing a missile that analysts say may put the U.S. east coast in range. Japan said the intercontinental ballistic missile flew for 53 minutes on a lofted trajectory and may have reached an altitude of more than 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) before landing in waters about 250 kilometers from its northwest coast. U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that it flew higher than any previous North Korean launch.

Ted Tsukiyama still recalls how quickly life changed when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. “It was quite traumatic and totally unexpected,” said the 96-year-old World War II veteran, who was a student at the University of Hawaii at the time. “That morning the radio called for all University ROTC [Reserved Officers’ Training Corps] to report to the university armory. We were issued rifles to help guard the city and our regiment was converted into the Hawaii Territorial Guard.”

North Korea reportedly replaced all border security guards after a North Korean soldier dashed across the demarcation line at the heavily guarded Joint Security Area in the demilitarized zone (DMZ). It was a rare and dramatic defection, an intelligence source told South Korean news agency Yonhap.

A wooden boat carrying eight men claiming to be from North Korea has been washed up on the coast of northern Japan. Police found the eight men on a marina in the city of Yurihonjo, after they received a call from a local resident late yesterday, broadcaster NHK reported today. The eight men had no life-threatening injuries and appeared to speak Korean, the Kyodo News agency reported, citing police.

Doctor says 24-year-old known as Oh needed two bodies’ worth of blood transfusions to save him and has nightmares about being sent back over border. North Korea’s latest defector, a young soldier being identified only by his family name Oh, is a quiet, pleasant man who has nightmares about being returned to the North, his surgeon has said. “He’s a pretty nice guy,” said lead surgeon John Cook-Jong Lee, who has been operating and caring for the 24-year-old. Oh has become a focus of worldwide attention after he was shot and badly wounded by fellow North Korean soldiers as he...

State-owned airline Air China suspended flights Tuesday between Beijing and North Korea due to a lack of demand, deepening the North’s isolation amid mounting U.N. sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs. The move followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to add Pyongyang to a list of governments that support terrorism but there was no indication that prompted Air China’s decision. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said he had no information.

North Korean women are deprived of education and job opportunities and are often subjected to violence at home and sexual assault in the workplace, a U.N. human rights panel said on Monday.

Doctors say they have "never seen anything like this" - with the longest worm 27cm (11in) long.

The prevalence of parasitic worms causing health problems in North Korea may be the result of a personal intervention by Kim Jong Un, who urged farmers to spread human excrement on their fields to fertilize crops. The hermit nation’s leader issued an instruction to farmers in 2014 telling them to use human faeces with animal waste and organic compost on their fields. With a lack of livestock to provide animal fertilizer, agriculturists poured the human excrement, also known as “night soil”, on their fields.

South Korean authorities arrested a 58-year-old man trying to cross the demilitarized border zone to defect into North Korea, The Washington Post reported on Monday. The man, who hails from Louisiana, tried to defect "for political reasons," authorities told The Post. Coincidentally, on the same day as the US man failed to make his political statement, a North Korean soldier was shot twice by his own military as he ran through the DMZ so he could defect into South Korea.

A North Korean soldier defected to the South on Monday after being shot and wounded by the North Korean military, South Korea said. The soldier was found on the south side of the border village of Panmunjom, about 50 meters south of the Military Demarcation Line, wounded in his shoulder and elbow, according to a South Korean defense ministry official. He defected from a North Korean guard post nearby and was being treated in hospital.