Chinese air travellers have tried opening emergency doors without authorisation 12 times in barely four months on planes that were taxiing or at a standstill, and one man was put on trial in the country’s first such legal case, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said yesterday.

Two North Korean spies have admitted they tried to assassinate the regime’s most high-profile defector, a man who once mentored leader Kim Jong Il.

North Korea claimed it carried out a provocative underground nuclear test today in the escalating international stand-off over its rogue nuclear and missile programmes.

Two Americans have been detained by North Korea for illegally crossing its border and are under investigation, the country’s official news agency said today.

A string of household carbon monoxide poisonings blamed on coal stoves has killed 12 people in China’s north-east and sickened more than 200, the government said today.