• But the official added that Pyongyang cannot expect concessions -- such as cutting back on bilateral military exercises -- from Biden.

• North Korea's foreign ministry announced the "total severance of the diplomatic relations with Malaysia", according to state news agency KCNA, saying the citizen being extradited had been involved in "legitimate" trading activities in Singapore.

• Beijing warned Thursday it would make no concessions to the US on key issues including human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

• But ultimately no progress was made towards Washington's declared aim of denuclearising North Korea, with a second summit in Hanoi in early 2019 breaking up without an agreement and Pyongyang still under multiple international sanctions for its banned weapons programmes.

• The Biden administration is focused on rallying alliances with its key Asian partners to counter a rising China.

• He said democratic values were under threat in places like Myanmar and China.

• Both rulings drew a rebuke from Tokyo, which says the women and labour issues were settled under a 2015 deal and 1965 treaty, respectively.

• "WFP will opportunistically use windows in which food imports are allowed to replenish and optimise in-country stocks," it added.

• The Trump administration argued that it ended a diplomatic logjam and effectively stopped North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, although critics say that Pyongyang nonetheless advanced on the programs.

• South Korea’s intelligence agency said it had foiled North Korean attempts to hack into South Korean companies developing coronavirus vaccines.
• North Korea is often accused of turning to an army of hackers to fill cash-strapped government coffers amid international sanctions that ban most international trade with the country.

• In July, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared an emergency and sealed off a border town after a person with COVID-19 symptoms illegally crossed the border into the North from the South.

• The North is also blamed for a huge, $81 million cyber-heist from the Bangladesh Central Bank, as well as the theft of $60 million from Taiwan's Far Eastern International Bank.

• The experts also found that North Korea had continued to import more refined petroleum than is allowed under its 500,000-barrel limit, sometimes by using "elaborate subterfuge."

• According to the report, the North is to receive the AstraZeneca-Oxford jab produced by the Serum Institute of India.

• The North has tightened border security as part of its defences against the coronavirus, and the number of arrivals to the South plummeted last year.

• "It looks like the number of (North Korean) people entering the South decreased due to the effects of North Korean-Chinese border control and restrictions of movement from third countries due to Covid-19," Seoul's unification ministry said in a statement.

• In May 2019, the US Department of Homeland Security warned US firms of the risks to company data from Chinese-made drones.

• The parade featured rows of marching soldiers, as well as a range of military hardware including tanks and rocket launchers.

• The congress is expected to take place ahead of the January 20 inauguration of Joe Biden as US president.

• “The characteristics of the site are more consistent with a plant that could manufacture components for centrifuges,” says IAEA official.
• The imagery suggests the site lacks the infrastructure needed for enrichment, writes Heinonen, a distinguished fellow with the Stimson Center, the Washington think-tank that runs the project.

• The missiles would allow Japan to expand a strategy known as anti-access area denial (A2AD), that is meant to stop foreign forces from operating freely in waters close to home territory.

• Biden's victory and Bolsonaro's reluctance to recognize it have cast a dark cloud over US-Brazilian relations, which had warmed to the point of discussing a free trade deal last year.

Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said the Kims and several senior North Korean officials had been vaccinated.

• North Korea has a large submarine fleet but only one known experimental submarine capable of carrying a ballistic missile.
• One of the submarines North Korea is building can carry a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM)," Ha Tae-keung,

• Leader Kim Jong Un watched the huge ICBM roll through Pyongyang at the climax of an unprecedented night-time parade on Saturday, weeks before the US election.

• New missile may carry more warheads – analysts.
• Parade features long-range missiles for first time since 2018.
• State TV broadcasts edited footage of unusual predawn parade.
• N.Korean leader thanks troops for preventing coronavirus outbreak.

• The move against the two organisations, named as the Ministry of State Security Bureau 7 and Ministry of People's Security Correctional Bureau.
• Britain's latest move is a flagrant political plot to jump on the bandwagon of the United States' inimical policy.