The ex-girlfriend of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who was thought to have been executed by firing squad last year has appeared back on state television.

The operation to recover bodies from the ferry that sank off South Korea last month has been suspended because of heavy seas amid concern many of the missing may never be found.

Rare pictures of Kim Jong-un as a boy have been shown during a televised concert for the air force in North Korea.

After more than three days of frustration and failure, divers finally found a way into a submerged ferry off South Korea's southern shore.

The deputy headmaster, Kang Min-gyu, in charge of the 236 missing students was found dead.

As the battle to free 290 from a sunken ferry in South Korea continues, it's emerged texts purported to be sent from trapped children were a hoax.

A North Korean official has been executed with a flame-thrower, South Korean media has reported.

Aviation safety authorities have been urged to clamp down on Australia's burgeoning unmanned aerial vehicle market.

S Korean president Park Geun Hye said this week she is willing to hold a summit with N Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but she rejects any meeting with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe until Japan apologises for wrongdoings during its 35-year occupation of Korea.

This posh Seoul suburb is a hub of luxury and excess, discovers Sharon Stephenson.

A former police officer is vying to become the first person since the Korean War to walk a mountain range the length of the Korean Peninsula.

New Zealand is more likely than not to secure a much-coveted free trade deal with South Korea and it could be signed within a year, Prime Minister John Key says.

Karakia and waiata mixed with strains of bagpipes and brass as Korean War veterans from New Zealand and 10 other countries reunited to pay their respects yesterday.

South Korea's second city Busan is an entirely different place to when New Zealanders passed through it on their way to the frontline of the Korean war in 1950.

Goose-stepping soldiers, columns of tanks and a broad array of ominous-looking missiles poised on mobile launchers paraded through Pyongyang's main square in a painstakingly choreographed military pageant intended to strike fear into North Korea's adversaries and rally its people behind young ruler Kim Jong Un on the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War.

A disgruntled businessman drove an SUV packed with gas cylinders at a commemoration service crowd where the New Zealand Prime Minister had been speaking yesterday.

In the 4km wide demilitarised zone which separates North and South Korea, absurdities abound that would be laughable if not for the fact they reflect the deadly reality of war that is on hold rather than over.

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.

Mr Key arrives in capital Seoul tomorrow where he will attend commemorations marking armistice that ended large-scale hostilities on the peninsula 60 years ago.

South Korea has reopened its landmark Namdaemun gate to the public, five years after the historic jewel in central Seoul was burned down in an arson attack that shocked the nation.

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.

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

Les Miserable star Russell Crowe has helped promote an epic parody of the film by the South Korean air force.