North Korea

Neighbors of North Korea reacted angrily Friday to its announcement that it plans to launch a satellite into orbit, and say they suspect the effort masks plans for a long-range missile test. Officials in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, informed international aviation and maritime agencies that the first stage of the rocket would splash down in the Sea of Japan and the second in the Pacific Ocean, which they identified as "danger zones" for shipping and aircraft.

At a time of escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, two American TV journalists and their guide were taken into custody by North Korea while shooting video near the sensitive border region between China and the isolated state. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were on assignment with San Francisco-based Current TV when they were seized Tuesday. The guide, whose name was not released, is a Chinese citizen. Their detention was confirmed by activists who had helped arrange the reporting trip.

Amid the vegetable vendors and lightly stocked department stores, there's a new high-tech shop in low-tech Pyongyang, North Korea, selling a hot gadget the rest of the world already takes for granted. Cellphones. Egyptian telecom company Orascom Communication launched a mobile network in the North Korean capital called Koryolink in December, on a long shot that its service can succeed in one of the world's poorest and most reclusive states.

The United States has contacted representatives of North Korea about two detained American journalists and is waiting for a reply, a U.S. official said Saturday. North Korea confirmed earlier in the day that it detained the two Americans for "illegally intruding" in its territory after crossing the border from China. Authorities are investigating the two women, who were seized Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a report.

A stray dog skitters back and forth on the frozen Tumen River, oblivious to the fact that he is crossing an international border. Gravel and weeds protrude through the thin layer of ice. From the fallow winter cornfields, the North Koreans are so close you can see the large parcels they carry on their backs for lack of motorized transport.

Two U.S. Navy destroyers, including one that is capable of intercepting missiles, were moved out of a South Korean port Monday amid expectations that North Korea may launch a rocket over the Pacific Ocean by the end of the week. The repositioning of the ships marked the latest in a series of military and diplomatic maneuvers between Washington and the government in Pyongyang, although U.S. officials have said there is no plan to strike the North Korean rocket.

Nervous Japanese officials know that the first moments after North Korea launches a rocket will be critical: Barely seven minutes after liftoff, it is likely to be hurtling over Japan's northern coast. In 1998, Japan was caught unaware when the second stage of a North Korean test rocket sailed over its main island before dropping into the ocean. This time, North Korea says it plans to put a satellite into orbit. The U.S.

Defying weeks of international pressure, North Korea launched a multistage rocket today, a move that the U.S. and its allies fear masked a test of its ability to deliver nuclear weapons. Reaction was swift and harsh to the launch from a site in the country's northeast. The Obama administration, confronted by an early foreign-policy challenge, said the launch violated U.N. Security Council resolutions and that the U.S.

A senior North Korean diplomat warned Tuesday that the government will retaliate if the U.N. Security Council takes action over its rocket launch, insisting that his country sent up a peaceful satellite and not a missile. North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador, Pak Tok Hun, accused the Security Council of targeting his country while allowing many other countries to launch satellites.

There was pomp and circumstance, huge adoring crowds -- not to mention one heck of a lot of choreographed propaganda. A frail-looking Kim Jong Il, North Korea's paternal "Dear Leader," appeared Thursday before the newly elected Supreme People's Assembly, which reappointed him as the nation's reigning military chief.