North Korea severed diplomatic ties with Malaysia on Friday, abruptly ending a once-close relationship that soured following the assassination of Kim Jong Un's half-brother in a Kuala Lumpur airport four years ago.Pyongyang's foreign ministry said it was responding to Malaysia's extradition of a North Korean citizen to the United States (US) this week – a move it labelled an "unpardonable crime" carried out under "blind obedience" to US pressure.Malaysia had

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un issued a rare apology Friday over what he described as the "unexpected and disgraceful" killing of a South Korean at sea, Seoul's presidential office said.Apologies from the North – let alone attributed to Kim personally – are extremely unusual, and the message comes with inter-Korean ties in a deep freeze, and amid a standoff in nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington.Analysts said the North was looking to placate its neighbour aft

Like the leading character in a long-running television series, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has kicked off the latest crisis on the Korean Peninsula with familiar theatrics. After cutting off all communications with South Korea earlier this month, the Kim regime bombed the building in which it had previously hosted South Korean diplomats. It has redeployed troops into demilitarised border areas and issued renewed threats of violence against the South.

North Korea criticised Donald Trump in a stinging denunciation of the United States (US) on Friday, the second anniversary of a landmark summit in Singapore where the US president shook hands with leader Kim Jong-un.It was the latest in a series of vitriolic statements from Pyongyang aimed at both Washington and Seoul, and came a day after the North implicitly threatened to disrupt November's election if the US did not stay out of inter-Korean affairs.

A North Korean man is likely to face money-laundering charges in the United States (US) after a Malaysian court approved his extradition Friday, in a case his lawyers claim is politically motivated. Mun Chol Myong has denied FBI claims that he led a criminal group that violated sanctions by supplying luxury goods to his isolated homeland and laundered funds through front companies. The 54-year-old, who has lived in Malaysia with his family for a decade, was arrested in May f

North Korea has launched a visceral diatribe against United States (US) Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, calling the former vice-president a "rabid dog" – while also borrowing the terminology of Donald Trump.Pyongyang is renowned for its vitriol, but the verbal deluge was unusually ferocious even by its own standards.Biden "had the temerity to dare slander the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK", the North's official KCNA news agency said late T

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un supervised a "new weapon" test, state media reported Sunday, the latest in a series of launches that United States (US) President Donald Trump has played down as Washington seeks to restart nuclear talks with Pyongyang.The report carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) followed Trump's comments that Kim had expressed a willingness to meet once the US-South Korean exercises are over and apologised for the slew of missile tests.Saturday&#0

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un says the country's latest missile launches were a warning to Washington and Seoul over their joint war games, state news agency KCNA reported on Wednesday, as tensions rise on the Korean peninsula.The latest launch by the nuclear-armed North came after the South Korean and United States (US) militaries began mainly computer-simulated joint exercises on Monday to test Seoul's ability to take operational control in wartime.Those drills are taking

The third meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un on the world's last Cold War frontier checked off all boxes for a spectacular blockbuster – the suspense, the theatrics, and the climax – but was far from a normal summit.No formal communique was issued, leaving observers to interpret the two sides' individual pronouncements, whether by the leaders themselves or through statements and media.

Donald Trump stepped onto North Korean soil in a historic first Sunday as he met Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong-un in a moment of high diplomatic drama on the world's last Cold War frontier.Moments after becoming the only sitting United States (US) president to set foot inside North Korea, Trump brought Kim back over the dividing line for a meeting where they agreed to start working-level talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons.Trump, 73, also said he had invited 35-year-old Kim to t