The US Navy is monitoring a North Korean shipping vessel suspected of carrying missile parts towards Myanmar, heightening tension days after the UN imposed financial sanctions on the Stalinist state.

As North Korea continues to spew provocative threats, members of the UN security council and regional allies are responding with increasingly less tolerance.

Days after North Korea detonated an underground nuclear device and launched a series of short-range missiles, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates met with his counterparts from Japan, South Korea and China to discuss how to collectively deal with the increasingly belligerent Stalinist state.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the United States remains committed to diplomatic resolution of the nuclear weapons issue on the Korean peninsula.

In response to a UN Security Council condemnation of its missile launch, Pyongyang withdrew from six-nation talks on nuclear disarmament and expelled UN nuclear experts. The situation intensified after US and allies accused Pyongyang of launching a missile, despite Pyongyang's assertion it was a satellite. On Sunday, the Stalinist state ...

As tens of thousands of North Koreans stood proud last week after Pyongyang's missile launch, UN Security Council members remain deadlocked about a unified response. Pyongyang claims the satellite successfully reached orbit "fully demonstrating the might of science and technology as a leading launcher". Reports from within the Stalinist state ...

As North Korea launched it’s Taepodong-2 satellite on Sunday morning, US and South Korean leaders condemned the act and urged international stance but UN remains deadlocked about response.

North Korea's recently overtly belligerent behavior, including plans for a space launch, demonstrates increasing desperation according to analysts.

Pyongyang's intentions to conduct a space launch are questioned, US intelligence says differences between technology for a space launch and an intercontinental ballistic minimal.

Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) to give unified statement against trade protectionism at a summit next week, and will discuss details of a regional foreign reserve fund pool. Finance ministers in the Asia region are holding bilateral talks in the lead up, showing strategic cooperation to prevent trade protectionism.