Seoul has long accused the nuclear-armed North of sending weapons to help Moscow fight Kyiv, and after Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defence deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June, Pyongyang is alleged to have moved to deploy soldiers en masse.

North Korean state media said Monday that an investigation had "proved" South Korea's military sent a drone over Pyongyang to drop propaganda leaflets, calling it an infringement of sovereignty.

A North Korean "trash balloon" exploded over the South Korean Presidential Office Compound in Seoul on Thursday.

Kim's tour comes days after South Korea's spy agency said Pyongyang had sent a "large-scale" troop deployment to Russia to fight against Ukraine, cementing Pyongyang's contentious military alliance with Moscow.

Seoul's spy agency said Friday that Pyongyang sent a "large-scale" troop deployment to help its ally, claiming that 1,500 special forces were already training in Russia's Far East and ready to head soon for the frontlines of the Ukraine war.

South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador Monday to criticise Pyongyang's decision to send thousands of soldiers to support Moscow's war in Ukraine, the foreign ministry said, calling for their immediate withdrawal.

The nuclear-armed North has accused Seoul of flying drones over its capital to drop propaganda leaflets filled with "inflammatory rumours and rubbish", and warned on Sunday that it would consider it "a declaration of war" if another drone was detected.

The first Asian woman to win the literary award, short story writer and novelist Han is best known overseas for "The Vegetarian", her first novel to be translated into English, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2016.

North Korea's army said on Wednesday it was moving to "permanently shut off and block the southern border" with the South and had informed the US military to prevent an accidental clash.

The suspected drunk driver was stopped by police, but the man chugged a bottle of soju in just 39 seconds before officers could test him.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in decades, with Seoul this week staging a military parade where it showcased its bunker-busting "monster" missile and President Yoon Suk Yeol warned Kim that using nukes would mean the end of his regime.

An American Airlines flight from Dallas, Texas to Seoul, South Korea turned around 5 hours into its journey, returning all passengers from the airport it initially took off from due to a reported issue with its toilets.

South Korea is a major producer of batteries and electric vehicles, including local carmakers Hyundai and Kia, with EVs making up 9.3 percent of new cars purchased last year -- higher than in the US.

A South Korean Olympic sharpshooter who took silver in the women's 10-metre air pistol exploded across the internet Wednesday, crowned the Paris Games' breakout style star.

Seoul and Washington's air forces started around three weeks of joint drills Tuesday in Suwon, south of Seoul, involving US F/A-18 and F-35B combat aircraft.

"The chemical, biological and radiological (warfare) response team has safely collected the trash balloons," the presidential security service told AFP.

North Korean diplomat Ri Il Kyu had been responsible for political affairs at Pyongyang's embassy in Cuba since 2019, tasked specifically "with obstructing the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Cuba", according to South Korea's Chosun Daily.

The statement came a day after South Korea's military said the North had test-fired what appeared to be a hypersonic missile on Wednesday, but the launch ended in a mid-air explosion.

South Korea's Gumi City Council announced the robot was found unresponsive after having apparently fallen down a two-meter (six-and-a-half foot) staircase last week.

Over 100 people were working in the factory when workers heard a series of explosions from the second floor, where lithium-ion batteries are inspected and packaged.

Putin is scheduled to touch down on Tuesday night for his first trip to the isolated nation in 24 years, with a confrontation between North and South Korean troops on their shared border highlighting regional security tensions.

The South Korean government this month fully suspended a 2018 tension-reducing military deal and restarted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border in response to Pyongyang's balloons, infuriating the North which warned Seoul was creating "a new crisis".

The launch follows a failed attempt by the nuclear-armed North to put a second spy satellite into orbit on Monday, shortly after Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo held a rare summit and called for Pyongyang to give up their nukes.

South Korea and the United States have repeatedly accused North Korea of supplying weapons to Moscow, despite a raft of UN sanctions on both countries that would ban any such arms transfers.

Seoul and Washington say Kim has been shipping weapons to Russia, possibly in exchange for Moscow's technical assistance for Pyongyang's budding spy satellite programme.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield arrived in South Korea on Sunday on a trip aimed at keeping up pressure on the nuclear-armed North after Russia last month used its UN veto to effectively end UN monitoring of violations of the raft of sanctions on Kim Jong Un's regime.

Fighting disinformation including AI-enabled content is a "vital" national security interest and diplomatic priority for the United States, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday at a democracy summit in Seoul.

Zuckerberg is on a mini-tour of Asia that has included a stop in Japan, plus a three-day visit to Seoul where he met business leaders from electronics giants Samsung and LG. He heads to India next.

A South Korean court on Monday acquitted Samsung Electronics chief Lee Jae-yong of a raft of crimes linked to a controversial 2015 merger, the Yonhap news agency reported.

After years of worsening ties, Pyongyang made it official this week: declaring Seoul its main enemy, abolishing agencies dedicated to reunification and threatening to occupy the South during war.