Japan Coast Guard vessels give warning as China's marine surveillance vessel, front, intrudes into Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on April 23. (Yasuhiro Sugimoto)
INSIGHT: Abe returns to hard-line approach in response to Beijing, Seoul
After keeping a low diplomatic profile since taking office, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has begun to show his true colors as a nationalist, threatening to further exacerbate Japan's difficulties with China and South Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during a plenary meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers' Party in Pyongyang, North Korea, March 31. (Provided by Korean News Agency)
U.S. rejects North Korean demand for nuclear status
SEOUL/ GENEVA--North Korea insisted on April 23 that it be recognized as a nuclear weapons state, a demand the United States promptly dismissed as "neither realistic nor acceptable."
A South Korean army soldier rests on an armored vehicle during an annual military exercise in Paju near the border with North Korea, South Korea, on April 22. (AP Photo)
China says new North Korea nuclear test possible
BEIJING--China's top general said on April 22 that a fourth North Korean nuclear weapons test is a possibility that underscores the need for fresh talks between Pyongyang and other regional parties.
Keiji Furuya, minister in charge of the issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals, visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on April 21. (Ryutaro Abe)
South Korea foreign minister to scrap trip to Japan over Yasukuni Shrine visits
South Korea’s foreign minister will cancel his trip to Tokyo to protest visits to a shrine symbolizing Japan’s militaristic past by Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and other Cabinet members, sources said April 22.
North Korea reiterates it will not give up nuclear arms. (File photo provided by Korean News Service)
North Korea reiterates it will not give up nuclear arms
SEOUL--North Korea reiterated on April 20 that it would not give up its nuclear weapons, rejecting a U.S. condition for talks although it said it was willing to discuss disarmament.
Smartphone film fest draws unlikely filmmakers. (The Asahi Shimbun)
Smartphone film fest draws unlikely filmmakers
SEOUL, South Korea--No red carpet. No sleek limousines dropping off celebrities dressed to impress.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un examines plans for a possible attack at an emergency meeting with top military officials on March 29. (Provided by Korea News Service)
North Korea moving toward dialogue with China
Although North Korea continues to have ballistic missiles ready to launch, the reclusive nation indicated it was open to dialogue with close ally China and may be toning down its belligerent rhetoric.
Chinese special envoy on North Korea Wu Dawei, center, with then Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada in August 2010 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
China to send North Korea envoy to Washington
BEIJING--China will send its special envoy on North Korea to the United States next week for talks on maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, the foreign ministry said on April 19.
In this April 18 photo, eleven-year-old students who were newly admitted into the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, gather together inside a biology specimen room in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo)
Young North Koreans train to seek 'revenge on U.S.'
PYONGYANG, North Korea--North Korea's newest batch of future soldiers--scrawny 11-year-olds with freshly shaved heads--punch the air as they practice taekwondo on the grounds of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School. Students and teachers here say they're studying harder these days to prepare for a fight.
Chung Kapsu, right, and Lee Bong-woo meet on Oct. 11, 2012, in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. (Provided by Pae So)
Film about unified Korean pingpong team to hit Japanese cinemas
A movie about the true-life story of the unified Korean team that won the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba will be released in Japanese theaters on April 20.
U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, left, shakes hands with his South Korean counterpart, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Jung Seung-jo, at Defense Ministry in Seoul on Oct. 27, 2011. (AP file photo/ Pool)
U.S. joint chiefs chairman Dempsey adds S. Korea visit
WASHINGTON--The top U.S. military officer, Gen. Martin Dempsey, is adding a South Korea stop to his previously announced trip to China to meet face to face with his South Korean counterpart on the North Korea situation.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Hopes dashed for trilateral summit in May
The standoff over sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands appears to be impeding plans for a trilateral summit between Japan, China and South Korea.
Kim Jong Un and high-ranking North Korean government officials visit Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang, where his grandfather Kim Il Sung's embalmed body is maintained, on the 101st anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung on April 15. (Taken from Rodong Sinmun's official website)
North Korea demands end of sanctions if U.S. wants dialogue
SEOUL--North Korea offered the United States and South Korea a list of conditions for talks, including the lifting of U.N. sanctions, signaling a possible end to weeks of warlike hostility on the Korean peninsula.
Visitors look at products made at Kaesong industrial complex in North Korea displayed at a showroom at the unification observation post near the border village of Panmunjom, that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, on April 18. (AP Photo)
South Koreans hoping to return to Kaesong factories
SEOUL, South Korea--The South Korean entrepreneurs who invested up to 10 years and millions of dollars in the Kaesong industrial complex, a symbol of economic collaboration between the rival Koreas that is now shuttered by the North, have little more than hope to cling to as assembly lines sit idle day after day.
A North Korean defector ties hands of South Korean activists wearing masks of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, center, and Kim Il Sung, the late founder of North Korea, with ropes during a rally against North Korea on the eve of 101st anniversary of founder Kim's birthday, in Seoul, on April 14, 2013. (AP Photo/Yonhap)
North Korean exiles scoff at talk of war
SEOUL--Asked if there might be war, the 40ish woman with the spangly purple shirt laughed out loud. She waved her hands back and forth, as if whisking away a pesky insect.
South Korean vehicles laden with products return from North Korean city of Kaesong as a South Korean security person stands guard at the customs, immigration and quarantine office in Paju, South Korea, on April 17. (AP Photo)
Electric cable a lifeline for idled symbol of Korean cooperation
PAJU, South Korea--An electricity cable running from South Korea over the border into North Korea is one of last lifelines for more than 200 South Korean workers at a joint industrial park that North Korea has shut down amid fears of war.
Kim Jong Un and high-ranking North Korean government officials visit Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang, where his grandfather Kim Il Sung's embalmed body is maintained, on the 101st anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung on April 15. (Taken from Rodong Sinmun's official website)
North Korea issues new threats over protests in South
SEOUL--North Korea issued new threats against South Korea on April 16, vowing "sledge-hammer blows" of retaliation if South Korea did not apologize for anti-North Korean protests the previous day when the North was celebrating the birth of its founding leader.
The Asahi Shimbun
Japanese tourists to South Korea plummet amid Pyongyang's rhetoric
SEOUL--Fewer Japanese are going to South Korea amid heightened international tensions over talk of war by North Korea.
People bow down to statues of North Korea's late leaders Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang on April 13. (AP Photo)
Defiant N. Korea celebrates founder's anniversary
SEOUL--North Korea celebrated the 101st anniversary of its founder's birth on April 15 with no signs of tension easing on the peninsula after it rejected talks with South Korea aimed at normalizing ties and re-opening a joint industrial park.
A South Korean army soldier aims his machine gun during an anti-terrorism drill against possible terrorists' attacks at a subway station in Seoul on April 15. (AP Photo)
North Korea takes nuke rhetoric to Beijing art gallery
BEIJING--North Korea took its angry rhetoric to an obscure Beijing art gallery on April 15, with its ambassador to China using an exhibition celebrating the 101st birthday of the North's founder Kim Il Sung to attack the United States and reject repeated calls by China to give up its nuclear program.