Kim Jong-un | featured news

Whether North Korea's new leader will follow the dangerous path of his father is unclear, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, despite worrying behavior by the reclusive state during Kim Jong Un's first year in power.

By showing up with his new wife in public, the young leader Kim Jong-un has distinguished himself from his father, whose wife was unknown to many North Koreans.

Impoverished North Korea is gearing up to experiment with agricultural and economic reforms after young leader Kim Jong-un and his powerful uncle purged the country's top general for opposing change, a source with ties to both Pyongyang and Beijing said.

With a terse four-paragraph statement, North Korea on Monday announced the dismissal of its top military leader, the latest in what analysts describe as a series of increasingly bold shake-ups to strengthen support for young leader Kim Jong Eun.

N. Korea's Kim Jong Un, during celebration, addresses public for first time since Friday's failed rocket launch.

A joke circulating among officials in Beijing pretty much underlines the bind China is in over North Korea's plans to send a satellite into space. North Korea's young ruler Kim Jong-un phones a Chinese leader to tell him about timing of the planned rocket launch. "When will it be?" asks the Chinese leader. Kim replies: "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four..."

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatened to launch a powerful retaliatory strike against South Korea if provoked, state media said Sunday, a day before the start of annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that Pyongyang calls an invasion rehearsal.

The first official talks between the two countries since the coming to power of the youthful new North Korean leader were “serious and substantial,” an American negotiator said Thursday.

In footage aired on state television, North Korea's new leader vowed to wage war if the country's enemies shot down its long-range rocket.

With its secretive dynastic dictators and its nuclear-armed military, North Korea produces its fair share of intrigue even without the help of Chinese social media. But in recent days, netizens in China added their own plot twist, posting rumors about a military coup that upended young leader Kim Jong Eun.