North Korea launched three short-range guided missiles into the sea off the Korean Peninsula's east coast Saturday, South Korea's semi-official news agency Yonhap cited the South Korean Defense Ministry as saying.
The ministry said it had detected two launches in the morning, followed by another in the afternoon, Yonhap reported.
The missiles were fired in a northeasterly direction, away from South Korean waters, the ministry said.
South Korea has beefed up monitoring on North Korea and is maintaining a high-level of readiness to deal with any risky developments, the ministry added, according to Yonhap.
FULL STORYA North Korean court has sentenced a U.S. citizen to 15 years of hard labor, saying he committed "hostile acts" against the secretive state.
The country's Supreme Court delivered the sentence against Pae Jun Ho, known as Kenneth Bae by U.S. authorities, on Tuesday, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Thursday.
The KCNA article said Bae a Korean-American, was arrested November 3 after arriving as a tourist in Rason City, a port in the northeastern corner of North Korea. It didn't provide any details about the "hostile acts" he is alleged to have committed.
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North Korea on Friday shunned a South Korean proposal for talks over the two countries' joint manufacturing zone, where Pyongyang halted activity this month amid tensions.
In a statement on state media, a spokesman for the North's National Defense Commission described Seoul's offer of talks about the Kaesong Industrial Complex as "deceptive."
The complex, which is on the North's side of the border but houses the operations of more than 120 South Korean companies, is seen as the last major symbol of cooperation between the two countries.
FULL STORYNorth Korea on Thursday set out demanding conditions for any talks with Washington and Seoul, calling for the withdrawal of U.N. sanctions against it and a permanent end to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises.
The United States and South Korea "should immediately stop all their provocative acts against the DPRK and apologize for all of them," the North's National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by state-run media, using the shortened version of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
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[Updated at 9:23 a.m. ET] The United States will talk to North Korea, but only if the country gets serious about negotiating the end of its nuclear weapons program, Secretary of State John Kerry said after arriving Friday in Seoul for talks with U.S. ally South Korea.
"North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power," Kerry said.
His trip to South Korea – part of an Asian swing that also includes North Korean ally China – comes a day after a Pentagon intelligence assessment surfaced suggesting the country may have developed the ability to fire a nuclear-tipped missile at its foes.
Disclosed first by a congressman at a hearing Thursday and then confirmed to CNN by the Defense Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency assessment is the clearest acknowledgment yet by the United States about potential advances in North Korea's nuclear program.
FULL STORYNorth Korea has raised at least one missile into its upright firing position Wednesday, raising concerns that a launch was imminent, a U.S. official told CNN Thursday.
This comes as the world continued to keep watch for a possible missile launch by the secretive regime, and just a day before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was due to arrive in the region.
It's not known by the United States why the regime did not proceed with the firing.
FULL STORYCountries in northeast Asia remained on edge Wednesday amid warnings from U.S. and South Korean officials that North Korea could carry out a missile test at any point.
Japan has deployed missile defense systems around Tokyo, some Chinese tour groups have canceled visits to North Korea, and U.S. radars and satellites are trained on an area of the Korean east coast where Kim Jong Un's regime is believed to have prepared mobile ballistic missiles for a possible test launch.
After weeks of belligerent threats and provocative gestures from Pyongyang, the situation on the Korean Peninsula is fragile.
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The Obama administration calculates it's likely North Korea may test fire mobile ballistic missiles at any time, based on the most recent intelligence showing Pyongyang probably has completed launch preparations, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
The administration believes a test launch could happen without North Korea issuing a standard notice to commercial aviation and maritime shipping warning them to stay away from the missile's path, according to the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the information.
Adm. Samuel J. Locklear, the top U.S. commander in the Pacific, on Tuesday called repeated North Korean violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions forbidding the "building and testing" of long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons "a clear and direct threat to U.S. national security and regional peace and stability."
FULL STORYWatch CNN.com Live for gavel-to-gavel coverage of the trial of Jodi Arias, who's accused of killing her ex-boyfriend in 2008.
Today's programming highlights...
9:30 am ET - Congress talks Korea conflict - The North Korea situation will be the focal point of discussion when the Senate Armed Services Committee discusses funding the U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Forces Korea.
North Korea issued its latest dispatch of ominous rhetoric Tuesday, telling foreigners in South Korea they should take steps to secure shelter or evacuation to protect themselves in the event of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
The unnerving message came as Japan set up missile defenses in Tokyo, and North Korean workers failed to turn up for work in the industrial complex jointly operated by North and South Korea.
In the statement published by state-run media Tuesday, the North's Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee reiterated accusations that Washington and Seoul were seeking to provoke a war with Pyongyang.
North Korea is showing signs it could be preparing to carry out a new nuclear test, South Korea's Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said Monday, according to the semi-official South Korean news agency Yonhap.
Ryoo made the comment in response to a South Korean lawmaker who cited unspecified reports suggesting there had been an increase in activity near the site of the North's three previous underground nuclear tests, Yonhap reported.
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South Korea's government said Sunday it believes North Korea may test a missile around April 10, citing as an indicator Pyongyang's push for workers to leave the Kaesong Industrial Complex by then.
Seoul "is on military readiness posture," said South Korea's Blue House spokeswoman Kim Haeng in a briefing. She said national security chief Kim Jang-soo also based the assessment on North Korea's hint to foreign diplomats in Pyongyang to send personnel out of the country.
FULL STORYWatch CNN.com Live for gavel-to-gavel coverage of the trial of Jodi Arias, who's accused of killing her ex-boyfriend in 2008. The trial is scheduled to resume on Monday, April 8.
Today's programming highlights...
9:15 am ET - Easter prayer breakfast - President Obama and Vice President Biden speak to faith leaders at an Easter prayer breakfast in Washington.
12:45 pm ET - White House briefing - The North Korea crisis and government spending will likely dominate discussion at the White House briefing in Washington.
CNN.com Live is your home for breaking news as it happens.
North Korea kept tensions around its borders simmering Thursday, reviving the alarming but improbable threat of a nuclear attack against the United States and continuing to put pressure on a joint industrial complex where hundreds of South Koreans work.
Pyongyang's latest salvo of ominous rhetoric, warning that "the moment of explosion is approaching fast," came soon after the United States had announced it was sending ballistic missile defenses to Guam, a Western Pacific territory that's home to U.S. naval and air bases. North Korea has cited those bases among possible targets for missile attacks.
FULL STORYNorth Korea on Wednesday stirred up fresh unease in Northeast Asia, blocking hundreds of South Korean workers from entering a joint industrial complex that serves as an important symbol of cooperation between the two countries.
The move comes a day after Pyongyang announced plans to restart a nuclear reactor it shut down five years ago and follows weeks of bombastic threats against the United States and South Korea from the North's young leader, Kim Jong Un, and his government.
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[Updated at 8:22 a.m. ET] North Korea's announcement that it would restart all the facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex was followed by a plea for calm from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is himself South Korean.
Ban said he was "deeply troubled."
"The current crisis has already gone too far," he said in a statement from Andorra. "Nuclear threats are not a game. Aggressive rhetoric and military posturing only result in counter-actions, and fuel fear and instability.
[Posted at 2 a.m. ET] North Korea said Tuesday that it plans to restart all the facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, including a uranium enrichment plant and a reactor that was shut down in 2007.
The announcement follows a new strategic line set out at a recent meeting of a key committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea on Sunday, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Tuesday.
FULL STORYThe South Korean president on Monday warned North Korea that any provocative moves will be met with "a strong response" as the United States deployed stealth fighter jets in the tense region as part of joint military exercises.
"If there is any provocation against South Korea and its people, there should be a strong response in initial combat without any political considerations," President Park Geun-hye said at a meeting with senior defense and security officials, according to her office.
FULL STORYNorth Korea has entered a "state of war" with neighboring South Korea, according to a report from the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
North and South Korea technically remain at war since their conflict between 1950 and 1953 ended with an armistice and not a peace treaty. On March 11, the North Korean army declared the armistice agreement invalid.
FULL STORYNorth Korea's leader Kim Jong Un has signed off on a plan to prepare rockets to be on standby for firing at U.S. targets, including the U.S. mainland and military bases in the Pacific and in South Korea, state media reported Thursday.
FULL STORYNorth Korea said Wednesday it was cutting off an important military hotline with South Korea amid high tensions between the two sides.
"Under the situation where a war may break out any moment, there is no need to keep north-south military communications," the head of a North Korean delegation told the South by telephone on Wednesday, according to the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency.
Earlier this month, Pyongyang disconnected a humanitarian hotline that ran through the border village of Panmunjom, according to the South Korean Unification Ministry.
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