With Washington taking a North Korea policy overhaul, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday declared that the existing “strategic patience” approach is over, saying all options including military action are on the table. At a joint news conference with Seoul’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, Tillerson also urged China to cease its economic retaliation against South Korea over its plan to host a US missile shield here, calling it “unnecessary, inappropriate and troubling.”

Donald Trump has accused North Korea of “behaving very badly” – and said that China has done “little to help”. The US President said on Twitter: “North Korea is behaving very badly. They have been ‘playing’ the United States for years. China has done little to help!” His words came as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said military action against North Korea was an “option on the table”.

Amid a growing missile threat from North Korea, the northern city of Oga, Akita Prefecture, held Japan’s first-ever evacuation drill for local residents, gaming out a scenario in which Pyongyang lobs a ballistic missile into the waters nearby.

The US Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden is reportedly set to join military training drills against North Korea for the first time. Along with other elite US units including the Army Rangers, Delta Force and the Green Berets, SEAL Team Six will take part in annual training exercises alongside South Korean forces, according to Yonhap News.

The US has declared it will permanently station missile-capable drones in South Korea in the latest round of military escalation in north-eastern Asia. The drone deployment comes a week after North Korea carried out a test salvo of four missiles that landed off the coast of Japan, and a day before the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, embarks on a tour of a region widely regarded as the most dangerous corner of the world.

A North Korean cargo vessel called Kum San sank off the east coast of China early on March 9 after colliding with a Chinese fuel tanker, which rescued 27 crew members, the Ministry of Transport said in a statement on Monday. The collision took place near the port of Lianyuanhang in Jiangsu province at 4 a.m., the government said in the statement. The boat sank by 6 a.m. This is the second reported sinking of a North Korea cargo ship since January.

Kim Jong-un has the munchies.

The United States and North Korea are racing towards a catastrophic “head-on collision”, China’s foreign minister has warned, amid Chinese fury at America’s deployment of a controversial anti-missile system. Speaking in Beijing on Wednesday, Wang Yi said a “looming crisis” was brewing on the Korean peninsular.

South Korea is getting closer to hosting the controversial Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, with equipment arriving on its soil recently for the aim of shooting down short-, medium- and intermediate-range missiles in their terminal phase. But the real story is that the Pentagon has been launching cyber and electronic attacks against North Korea’s missile program, and that may prove to be a better alternative to America’s expensive and highly unreliable Ground-based Midcourse Defense system (GMD).

North Korea announced Tuesday it had temporarily banned Malaysian citizens from leaving the country amid a dispute between the formerly friendly nations that stemmed from the death of the half-brother of North Korea’s leader. “All Malaysian nationals in the DPRK will be temporarily prohibited from leaving the country until the incident that happened in Malaysia is properly solved,” the official Korea Central News Agency said, citing North Korea’s foreign ministry.

The four missiles North Korea launched on Monday were likely practice for targeting U.S. military bases in Japan. According to South Korea's joint chiefs of staff, three of the four missiles landed in Japanese territorial waters, making it likely North Korea is rehearsing attacks against U.S. military stations in Japan, from where reinforcements for the Korean peninsula would arrive in the event of war. Seoul said all four projectiles were most likely midrange ballistic missiles that are not capable of reaching the continental United States, South Korean newspaper Kukmin Ilbo reported Monday.

The bizarre scene unfolded outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, where both of the rallies took place. First to start was a pro-Pyongyang protest comprising nine members of the UK Korean Friendship Association. It was organised to oppose joint-military exercises currently underway between the US and South Korea.

North Korea has fired four ballistic missiles, three of which landed in Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

A pre-emptive military strike is one of several options for dealing with North Korea that may be presented to President Trump in a White House strategy review document, The Wall Street Journal reports. The review includes a broad range of possibilities, from forcible regime change to American acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear state. Though the president has publicly maintained he will stay the course on U.S.-North Korea relations, "U.S. officials have underscored the possible military dimensions of their emerging strategy...

Two women accused of smearing VX nerve agent on Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korea's leader, were charged with murder Wednesday after arriving in court under heavy protection. Kim Jong Nam was attacked at a busy Kuala Lumpur airport terminal on Feb. 13 and died shortly after two women went up behind him and wiped something onto his face.

South Korean intelligence believes suspects wanted for the murder of the half-brother of North Korea’s leader included several officials who worked for the reclusive state’s foreign and security ministries, according to lawmakers in Seoul. Kim Jong Nam was killed earlier this month at a Malaysian airport by assassins using VX nerve agent, a chemical capable of killing in minutes and listed by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

Kim Jong-un's reign of terror resumed this week as South Korea's spy agency reported the North Korean dictator ordered more executions. According to the report, North Korea executed five senior officials using anti-aircraft guns because they made false reports that “enraged” leader Kim Jong-un, South Korea’s spy agency said Monday. The comments by the National Intelligence Service in a private briefing to lawmakers come as Malaysia investigates the poisoning death of Kim’s estranged elder half-brother, Kim Jong-nam.

Kim Jong-nam was killed using the highly toxic liquid nerve agent VX, Malaysian police have said. One of the two women suspected of involvement in the poisoning vomited in police custody and was also suffering the effects of VX, which is only usually used in chemical warfare, the inspector general, Khalid Abu Bakar, said. The findings followed a preliminary analysis of swabs taken from the face and eyes of Kim, the half-brother of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. More items linked to the attack at Kuala Lumpur airport were still being analysed, police said.

He was born into the ruthless North Korean dictatorship and could never quite escape it.

The assassination of the older half-brother of Kim Jong Un may have a serious impact on the Chinese leadership because of its North Korea ties, but news of the slaying is being severely restricted in China. Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported that Chinese authorities issued a notice to domestic media on Wednesday, instructing news organizations to limit their coverage to syndicated news articles or to use Malaysian news sources, an indication no on-ground-reporting was being allowed.