A North Korean boat hijacked three boats with 29 Chinese fishermen on board and demanded 1.2 million yuan ($190,000) for their release, Chinese media reported today.

With the eurozone crisis showing no signs of waning, people around the globe are looking to less traditional models, a new poll shows

I'd never given the American pop star Jessica Simpson much thought before. Nice blond hair, reality TV show origins, some songs I can't remember. Until last week, when she became so fully gestational that all her famous friends started banging on about it. "Has Jessica Simpson had that baby yet?! I'm getting anxious," tweeted fellow pop star Katy Perry. TV presenter Chelsea Handler, recently voted one of the world's most influential people by Time magazine, asked much the same thing, only worse: "How has Jessica Simpson still not given birth to this baby? I'm getting frightened." At the risk of suggesting that a woman who hasn't had a baby might not know as much about the subject as one who has, it is clear that neither Perry nor Handler know what it is to be very, very pregnant.

Analysts who have studied photos of a half-dozen ominous new North Korean missiles showcased recently at a lavish military parade say they were fakes, and not very convincing ones, casting further doubt on the country's claims of military prowess.

North Korea sharply escalated the rhetoric against its southern rival, claiming it would soon conduct “special actions” that would reduce South Korea's conservative government to ashes within minutes.

North Korea's military warned yesterday of imminent "special actions" that would reduce South Korea's government to ashes within minutes, sharply escalating the rhetoric against its southern rival.

North Korea's military vowed today to launch unspecified "special actions" soon meant to reduce South Korea's conservative government and media companies "to ashes" in less that four minutes, in an escalation of its recent threats. 

North Korea's young leader Kim Jong-un spent more of his childhood being educated under a pseudonym in Switzerland than originally thought, the Swiss press reported yesterday.

Wanted: 23 "missing" poets. Must be from Burkina Faso, Papua New Guinea, Liechtenstein or one of 20 other nations still missing from the roster of a record-breaking poetry event scheduled to form part of this summer's Olympics cultural programme.

As the orchestrated mass celebrations commemorating the centenary of the birth of its "Eternal Supreme Leader" Kim Il-Sung drew to a close, North Korea's latest abortive rocket launch was met with opprobrium from the UN Security Council and the threat of a new wave of sanctions.

Usain Bolt opened his 2012 season with an impressive relay leg in Kingston, Jamaica, on Saturday night, but the Lightning Bolt had his thunder stolen in the UTech Invitational.

North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong-un, spoke in public for the first time yesterday, choosing the massive ceremony on the centenary of the birth of his grandfather, the "Great Leader", Kim Il-sung, to read from a prepared text vowing to build on the "military-first" policies propounded by his late father, Kim Jong-il.

Has Kim Jong-un been given rope to hang himself or will this failure strengthen his hand?

US food-aid deal collapses following claims that North Korea was testing a long-range missile