The Korean War and the mates lost to it remain painful memories for many of the New Zealand veterans who yesterday visited the demilitarised zone which still separates North and South Korea 60 years later.

While the focus will be on free trade, New Zealand's defence commitments to South Korea are also likely to be on the table when Prime Minister John Key meets South Korean President Park Guen-hye today.

Skiing destinations tend to be in well-heeled areas - from Queenstown to the Austrian Alps and Whistler. Naturally, North Korea wants to take its place alongside the well-groomed resorts.

A 29-year-old whiteware salesman who only started playing golf last November has become NZ's most unlikely international sporting champion.

North Korea has fired a projectile into waters off its eastern coast, a day after launching three short-range missiles in the same area, officials said.

The Government is maintaining there is no specific threat to the safety of New Zealanders in South Korea, despite a new warning issued by the North.

Japan has deployed Patriot missiles in its capital as it readies to defend the 30 million people who live in greater Tokyo from any North Korean attack.

As tensions surrounding the world's most closed state escalate, Angus West asks experts from around the globe waht on earth they think is going on behind the sabre-rattling.

The US military is set to deploy an unmanned spy plane in Japan to boost surveillance capabilities as North Korea apparently readies for missile launches.

Each time it makes a threatening gesture to its sister in the south, the US and China respond like different parents. But a sibling often knows a troubled child better than either parent, says John Roughan.

The North Korea security crisis will be high on tomorrow's agenda when Prime Minister John Key meets new President of China Xi Jinping on the Chinese tropical island of Hainan, at the Boao Forum for Asia.

If North Korea matches its warlike rhetoric with actions we are all in trouble, writes Robert Ayson. Kim Jong-Un may not have inherited the kind of nuclear warheads from his father that are ready to be put on to long-range missiles.

Ratcheting up the rhetoric, North Korea has warned early that its military has been cleared to wage an attack on the US using "smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear" weapons.

North Korea is to restart its plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material in what is seen as its latest attempt to extract US concessions.

Since the video was broadcast early this month, North Korea's government has published regular propaganda in what - for those outside North Korea - amounts to farcical episodic delight.

A cyberattack caused computer networks at major South Korean banks and top TV broadcasters to crash simultaneously.

A White House official made two secret visits to North Korea last year in an effort to improve relations after new ruler Kim Jong-Un assumed power, former US officials say.

ESR scientists are monitoring the Pacific for airborne radioactivity resulting from yesterday's underground nuclear test in North Korea.

If North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong Un, wanted to end the brutal and destructive tyranny his father and grandfather imposed on the country, he would need support from abroad.

Park Geun-hye promises to reach out to North Korea with more humanitarian aid and deeper engagement after she moves into South Korea's presidential Blue House on February 25.

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully says he is seriously concerned by reports that North Korea plans to launch a satellite this month using a long-range ballistic missile.