North Korea said on Tuesday that it was ready to use nuclear weapons against the United States and announced that it has restarted operations at its atomic bomb fuel production plants.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula further intensified on Friday as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un warned that his country was in a "quasi-state of war" with the South.
North and South Korea on Thursday exchanged artillery fire along their heavily fortified border. The incident marked an apparent escalation of a dispute over the South's propaganda broadcasts along the border, which Pyongyang insisted must stop within 48 hours.
Officials in South Korea may be breathing a sigh of relief as the MERS outbreak, which has closed over 2,000 schools and quarantined over 3,000 people, passes its critical two-week incubation period. And with infections mainly restricted to hospital settings, even health officials suggest the danger may be waning.
Two individuals in South Korea have died from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, the country's health authorities confirmed on Tuesday. The cases marked only the second time the virus has caused fatalities in Asia since a man succumbed to it in Malaysia in April 2014.
American feminist leader Gloria Steinem, two Nobel Peace laureates and two dozen other activists from 15 countries on Sunday used a bus to cross the Demilitarized Zone dividing North and South Korea in what they declared to be a landmark event.
The U.S. ambassador in South Korea was wounded in a stabbing incident on Thursday, prompting Pyongyang to qualify the assault as a "knife attack of justice" reflecting "anti-U.S. sentiment." A man shouting slogans against joint South Korean-U.S. war games slashed Mark Lippert's face and arm.
The North Korean government underlined its anger at joint U.S.-South Korean war games on Monday by firing two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea. Pyeongyang always protests the annual drills and warned of "merciless" retaliation on Monday; nevertheless, the regime of dictator Kim Jong Un seemed to strike a particularly angry note this year.
South Korea decriminalized adultery on Thursday after the country's Constitutional Court struck down a 62-year-old law that made marital infidelity punishable by up to two years in prison.
The North Korean propaganda apparatus is not known for understatements, but Pyongyang on Wednesday upped the ante even by its own standards when it threatened the United States with the "most disastrous final doom on its mainland," warning that "the time of the nightmare" was near."
The former Korean Air executive was charged with various crimes, including assault and violating aviation safety laws following a December incident in which she attacked a flight attendant who served nuts improperly.
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who last year caused a firestorm when he visited a controversial shrine that includes the names of convicted war criminals, promised he would for express remorse for his country's role in World War II.
The daughter of Korean Air's chairman resigned from her remaining posts with the carrier Friday and apologized for what global media have dubbed her "nut rage" scandal. Cho Hyun-ah had a plane returned to the gate in New York on Dec. 5 after a flight attendant in first class offered her macadamia nuts in a bag, not on a plate.
Peru plays Paraguay in a rematch from last week's friendly match which saw Los Guaranies defeat Peru 2-1 after breakdowns in the Incas' defense late in the game.
