Topic: North Korea

North Korea vowed on Tuesday to bolster its nuclear deterrent in response to diplomatic pressure from Washington over a recent failed rocket launch. 

China has been quietly and gently pressuring North Korea to scrap plans for a third nuclear test, said two sources with knowledge of closed-door discussions between the countries, but there is no indication how the North will react.

North Korea has almost completed preparations for a third nuclear test, a senior source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing said, an act that would draw further international condemnation following a failed rocket launch.

China has provided some assistance to North Korea's missile program, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday, a week after the hermit state's failed missile launch triggered broad international condemnation

A bristling North Korea said it was ready to retaliate in the face of international condemnation over its failed rocket launch, increasing the likelihood the hermit state will push ahead with a third nuclear test.

North Korea's new leader delivered his first major public speech on Sunday as the impoverished state celebrated the centenary of its founder's birth, calling for a push to "final victory" despite a failed rocket launch two days earlier.

The failure of North Korea's long-range rocket launch may have brought relief to the international community and got muted reaction from markets, but political analysts are now warning of a “much bigger confrontation” in the form of a nuclear test next month.

North Korea said its much hyped long-range rocket launch failed on Friday, in a very rare and embarrassing public admission of failure by the hermit state and a blow for its new young leader who faces international outrage over the attempt. 

North Korea is once again testing relations with the world, as it prepares to test-fire a long-range missile in the face of strong warnings from the United States.

In a move designed to shore up his standing, Kim Jong-un received the title of 'first secretary' ahead of the centennial of his grandfather's birth and an anticipated rocket launch, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

South Korea's ruling conservative party has clung on to a parliamentary majority, losing less seats than forecast and bolstering the presidential ambitions of its leader Park Geun-hye, the daughter of a strong-arm ruler who was assassinated.

South Koreans voted in parliamentary elections on Wednesday, overshadowed by a North Korean rocket launch, as the ruling conservatives sought to overcome allegations of sleaze and growing discontent over the power of big business.

Isolated and impoverished North Korea said on Tuesday it was ready to go ahead with its proposed long-range rocket launch in a move that sparked immediate condemnation from South Korea and Russia and a plea from China, its main ally, for calm.

The United States urged North Korea on Monday not conduct a nuclear test or launch a satellite and called on China to exert its influence over its neighbor to try to ward off such "provocative actions."

North Korea has readied a rocket for a launch from a forested valley in its remote northwest this week that will showcase the reclusive state's ability to fire a missile with the capacity to hit the continental United States.