South Korea, North Korea | featured news

Pyongyang vows to attack the South if its ships are searched as part effort to stop weapons shipments.

South Korean officials have detected "brisk" activity at a North Korean nuclear test site, a news report said Thursday, days after the communist country threatened to conduct nuclear and missile tests.

North Korea said on Thursday it was ready for war with the South, just hours before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was set to arrive in Seoul for talks on defusing the North's military threat.

South Korea's president said on Monday he has no intention of backing down to North Korea, which may be preparing to test-fire its longest-range missile and in recent weeks has threatened to reduce its neighbor to ashes.

North Korea warned that the downward spiral of relations with the South has pushed the peninsula to the brink of war, two days after it said it was scrapping all pacts with its rich capitalist neighbor.