The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea expressed concern over North Korea’s nuclear test and called for “effective steps” to break a stand off in talks to de-nuclearise the Korean peninsula, a joint statement said today.

Japan’s new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun held a summit today, with Abe calling for “harsh measures” against North Korea and warning of a “dangerous nuclear age” after its nuclear test.

North Korea said today it has performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test.

Neighbouring countries today cautioned North Korea against carrying out a planned nuclear test, while a top South Korean security official said there was no sign a test was imminent.

Japanese and South Korean negotiators today raced to avert a clash over a set of disputed islets as Seoul accused Tokyo of neo-colonial ambitions and warned of a possible confrontation at sea.

Britain's Prince Andrew discussed economic co-operation with South Korea at a meeting with President Roh Moo-hyun today, Roh’s office said.

South Korea’s president said his nation was “wrenched with grief” over the beheading of a South Korean hostage in Iraq.

South Korea said today it will go ahead with its plan to send troops to Iraq despite the abduction of a South Korean man and the televised broadcast of his desperate pleas to stay alive.

Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera has aired a video said to be from al-Qaida-linked militants showing a South Korean hostage begging for his life and pleading with his government to withdraw troops from Iraq.

The pro-government Uri Party took a majority in South Korea’s hotly contested parliamentary elections today.

South Koreans voted today in tightly contested parliamentary elections that could determine the future of impeached President Roh Moo-hyun.

Inter-Korean economic talks today have been scuttled by North Korean concerns about political instability in the South after last week’s presidential impeachment.

South Korea’s two main opposition parties submitted the country’s first ever impeachment motion today in a bid to remove embattled President Roh Moo-hyun for violating election laws.

Samsung, South Korea’s largest conglomerate, funnelled nearly €11.4m in illegal donations to the campaign of an opposition presidential candidate last year, prosecutors said today.

Thousands of soldiers searched for bodies, cleared roads and distributed relief supplies today as the death toll climbed to 85 from South Korea’s most powerful typhoon in at least a century.

A SENIOR executive with South Korean industrial giant Hyundai, whose business spearheaded reconciliation efforts with North Korea but ended up tangled in debt and scandal, leapt to his death from his 12th-floor office window yesterday.

SOUTH KOREA exchanged machine gun fire with communist North Korea yesterday in a rare incident that could raise the diplomatic stakes just as Pyongyang appears set to return to talks on its nuclear ambitions.

SOUTH KOREAN President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday called for a stronger alliance with the United States but said the nation must be prepared for a possible redeployment of US troops in the country.

North Korea test-fired a missile into the sea off its east coast today, South Korea’s Defence Ministry said.

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.