North Korea’s release of a South Korean worker it had detained for months signals an attempt to improve ties with Seoul and Washington amid tensions over the regime’s nuclear weapons programme, analysts said.

SOUTH Korean intelligence officials believe North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces committed cyber attacks that paralysed major South Korean and US government websites, aides to two lawmakers said yesterday.

North Korea was today blamed for sophisticated cyber attacks that paralysed major US government websites.

An American destroyer is following a North Korean ship suspected of transporting weapons toward Burma, as anticipation mounted today that the North could soon test-fire short- or medium-range missiles off its eastern coast.

South Korean officials travelled today to North Korea for the first meeting between the two governments in more than a year, amid tension over Pyongyang's moves to restart its nuclear programme following a defiant rocket launch.

An Egyptian telecoms giant launched an advanced mobile phone network in North Korea today, the latest attempt to introduce a global symbol of personal freedom into one of the world’s most tightly controlled societies.

North Korea said it will resume disabling its main nuclear complex after the US removed the country from a terrorism blacklist – a breakthrough expected to energise stalled international talks over the communist nation’s atomic programmes.

North Korea today abruptly cancelled groundbreaking test runs of trains across its highly-guarded border with South Korea, citing an atmosphere of confrontation and war.

In the most serious border clash in three years, a North Korean navy boat with heavy-calibre weapons sank a South Korean patrol boat in the western sea today, the South Korean military said.