South Korea accused the reclusive North today of torpedoing one of its warships, heightening tension in the economically powerful region and testing the international position of China, Pyongyang's only major backer.

South Korea's Foreign Minister said yesterday that it was "obvious" that North Korea fired a torpedo that sank one of the South's warships in March, killing 46 sailors.

A torpedo was the likely cause of an explosion that sank a warship near the tense border with North Korea last month, a South Korean minister said today.

South Korea today raised the front half of a warship that exploded and sank a month ago near a contested sea border with North Korea, finding clues that support growing suspicions Pyongyang attacked the vessel.

Authorities arrested two North Koreans for allegedly posing as defectors to South Korea and plotting to assassinate the top-ranked North Korean official ever to defect to Seoul, officials said today.

A tearful President Lee Myung-bak pledged yesterday that South Korea would respond "resolutely and unwaveringly" to the mysterious sinking of a warship near the maritime border with North Korea last month. Seoul has refrained from openly blaming Pyongyang for the explosion that broke the 1,200-ton Cheonan in two, killing at least 38 sailors on board. However, officials said they were investigating the possibility that North Korea was responsible. The South Korean President wiped away tears during the 10-minute televised address, vowing to "uncover the cause of the Cheonan's sinking down to the very last detail". AP

Very little happens in this quiet Korean drama of separation and loss, but then very little needs to, because most of its meaning is played out in the face of its lead character, a seven-year-old schoolgirl named Jin.

An American missionary is believed to be in North Korean custody after he entered the communist nation illegally on Christmas Day in an attempt to call attention to the reclusive country's human rights conditions. Robert Park, 28, slipped across the frozen Tumen River into the North from China on Friday.

The North Korean government was the source of high-profile cyberattacks in July that caused web outages in South Korea and the United States, news reports said.

The body in charge of assigning the world's Internet users their online addresses on Friday said it had agreed to allow the use of any of the world's scripts, no longer just the Latin alphabet.

North Korea fired five short-range missiles off its east coast today, a news report said, even as South Korea proposed working-level talks with its communist neighbor.

Little Boots
"Glastonbury was obviously a highlight for me this year, as was my mum crying her way through the entire set from side of stage. DJing wedding songs dressed in a full bridal gown to about 2,000 people in the early hours of Latitude was another. Especially because we managed to make the biggest conga line I've ever seen. But I think my favourite moment was at Leeds. My little brother came along and it was his birthday so I'd got him and his friends backstage passes for the weekend, which I think already upped his street cred, but at the end of the set I got him on stage and had the entire crowd to sing happy birthday to him. It was great just to see his face. He's definitely the coolest kid in school right now."

North Korea has invited the US envoy overseeing ties with the prickly state to visit for nuclear talks next month, as Washington pushes sanctions against Pyongyang.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has life-threatening pancreatic cancer, South Korean broadcaster YTN said today, citing information gathered from Chinese and South Korean intelligence sources.