North Korea threatened South Korea with possible punishment today over a skirmish that left one of its warships badly damaged and a crew member dead.

South Korea has demanded that North Korea abandons any plans to launch a long-range missile, South Korea’s ruling party said today.

THE interception of a US reconnaissance plane by North Korean fighter jets heightens tension on the Korean Peninsula amid fears that the North could make nuclear bombs within months.

North Korea said today that it was not interested in dialogue with the US because of what it described as Washington’s ‘‘vicious hostile policy’’.