U.S. President Obama and his South Korean counterpart pressed North Korea to return to dormant nuclear talks and said it was time forPyongyang to break a pattern of provocative behaviour.

U.S. President Barack Obama will arrive in South Korea on Wednesday and hold a summit with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Thursday, with North Korea and a trade deal topping the agenda of their talks.

A badly damaged North Korean patrol ship retreated in flames after a skirmish with a South Korean naval vessel along their disputed western coast, South Korean officials said. 

While the government battles over a health care plan, many companies are taking matters into their own hands - finding solutions that they hope will bring their employees high quality medical care and substantial savings to their bottom line.  One such solution - sending workers overseas for major medical care, a burgeoning field known as "international surgical travel" or "medical tourism".

The United States will continue working for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula regardless of reports that North Korea launched missiles on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

North Korea has shut down its largest wholesale market because of its apparent concern that big markets spread capitalist influence, a South Korean monitoring group said Monday.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson says his meeting with North Korean diplomats offered a "hopeful sign" of improving relations with the reclusive nation.

North Korea, whose relations with South Korea have turned increasingly bitter, said on Monday it had agreed to reopen its border to its neighbor and allow tourism and family reunions to resume.

Two American journalists freed by North Korea returned home to the United States on Wednesday for a jubilant reunion with family and friends they hadn't seen in nearly five months.

Italy has blocked the nearly euro13-million ($18-million) sale of two luxury yachts believed to have been bound for the impoverished nation of North Korea in violation of international sanctions, authorities said Thursday.

The ballistic missiles that North Korea test-fired this weekend were likely capable of striking key government and military facilities in South Korea, a defense official said Sunday, amid growing concerns over Pyongyang's firepower.

With joblessness rising, President Barack Obama said Thursday he was "deeply concerned" about unemployment and conceded that too many families are worried about "whether they will be next" to suffer economically.

North Korea fired a barrage of short-range missiles off its east coast in a possible prelude to the launch of a long-range missile toward Hawaii over the U.S. Independence Day holiday.

A U.S. official says a North Korean ship has turned around and is headed back the way it came, after being tracked for days by American vessels on suspicion it was carrying illicit weapons.

An impending missile test threatened by North Korea is expected to launch short- to medium-range missiles rather than a long-range missile, according to U.S. intelligence reports.