North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has supervised a test of domestically-developed attack drones, state media KCNA reported. Photos published by North Korean media on Monday showed a white drone with X-shaped tails and wings crashing into and destroying a target resembling South Korea's K-2 main battle tank. Kim, who was pictured at a desk surrounded by advisers, has been modernising his country's military and developing its weapons capabilities amid rising tensions with Washington and Seoul. The North Korean leader supervised the test on a visit to the Drone Institute of North Korea's Academy of Defense Science, KCNA said. Kim said that global trends in military technologies and modern combat showed the importance of drones in war and that Pyongyang's military should be equipped with them "as early as possible".

North Korea and South Korea violated the armistice that governs their shared border by sending drones into each other's airspace in December, the US-led United Nations Command says. Five North Korean drones crossed into the South on December 26, prompting South Korea's military to scramble fighter jets and helicopters as well as send surveillance aircraft into the North to photograph its military installations. The UN Command, which has helped oversee the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas since an armistice ended fighting in the 1950-1953 Korean War, said on Thursday that it had conducted a special investigation of the airspace incursions to determine whether there were any violations of the ceasefire. The drone incursions by the two countries constituted violations, but South Korea's efforts to shoot down the drones in its airspace did not violate the armistice, the UN Command said in a statement. Seoul and Pyongyang remain technically at war because no permanent peace treaty has ever been reached to end the Korean War.

Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg weighs in on North Korea's long-range ballistic missile launch and China's belligerence toward Taiwan on'Your World.' North Korean leader Kim Jong Un set new goals for the country's military at the Sixth Enlarged Plenary Meeting of the party's 8th Central Committee as tensions continue to escalate on the Korean Peninsula. Kim told party leaders that North Korea faces a "newly created challenging situation" on the Korean Peninsula and set the direction for the "anti-enemy struggle," the country's state media reported Wednesday, according to Reuters. "He specified the principles of foreign affairs and the direction of the struggle against the enemy that our party and government must thoroughly abide by in order to protect sovereign rights and defend national interests," the KCNA news agency said in the report. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea. To accomplish those goals, KCNA said Kim called for a "strengthening self-defensive capabilities to be strongly pursued in 2023," though the report did not offer specific details on what the increased military build up would look like. The dictator's remarks come amid rising tensions between the isolated country and its neighbors South Korea and Japan, which have both pushed for a stronger military in response to an unprecedented amount of missile tests conducted by North Korea.

Seoul – A toy-like robot with scowling blue eyes and a North Korean flag across its chest roams around a classroom at a university in Pyongyang in a recent demonstration of tools aimed at helping children learn basic math, music and English. The footage, broadcast by North Korean state television KRT, also showed two other larger plastic robots, each with a vaguely humanoid appearance. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been pushing for education reform in recent years by spurring technological and scientific innovation. "I help teach educational technology that enhances children's intelligence," said the 80-centimeter (31.5 inches) tall robot in a female voice, waving its arms. A second robot featured a smiley face on a screen embedded inside a white round head, while another wore a blue plastic suit and white-rimmed glasses, the KRT footage showed.

Seoul – South Korean President Moon Jae-in called on Wednesday for a regional infectious disease control and public health initiative involving Japan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea to tackle health crises and lay the foundation for peace with Pyongyang. Moon unveiled the so-called Northeast Asia Cooperation Initiative for Infectious Disease Control and Public Health during a video address to the U.N. General Assembly. "In the face of the COVID-19 crisis that poses a greater threat to humanity than a war, we came to be acutely reminded that the safety of neighboring countries is directly linked to that of our own," Moon said, according to an English translation of his prepared remarks distributed by his office. Such an initiative would lead North Korea to "engage with the international community," according to Moon. "It is not only Korea's response to COVID-19 but also the invaluable lessons Korea will be gaining from institutionalizing peace that Korea wishes to share with the rest of the world," he said.

Japan has told the United States it is ready to provide its robot technology for use in dismantling nuclear and uranium enrichment facilities in North Korea as Washington and Pyongyang pursue further denuclearization talks, government sources said Friday. As Japan turns to the remotely controlled robots it has developed to decommission reactors crippled by the triple core meltdown in 2011 at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, it believes the same technology can be used in North Korea, according to the sources. The offer is part of Japan's efforts to make its own contribution to the denuclearization talks amid concern that Tokyo could be left out of the loop as the United States and North Korea step up diplomacy. Tokyo has already told Washington it would shoulder part of the costs of any International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of North Korean facilities and dispatch its own nuclear experts to help. The scrapping of nuclear facilities, such as the Yongbyon complex, which has a graphite-moderated reactor, will come into focus in forthcoming working-level talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

North Korea is reforming education at universities to place greater emphasis on artificial intelligence, according to state media. Pyongyang's Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported Sunday Pyongyang University of Computer Science is changing its computer-programming department into a department for the study of AI. The goal is to improve the quality of school courses so classes on AI are more readily available in the department, according to the report. PyongyangUniversity of Computer Science has decided to improve artificial intelligence education because AI is a "key technology in the information industry," the Rodong article said. The university is developing the new program following directives from Kim Jong Un, issued at the fourth plenum of the seventh party central committee meeting in April, state media said.

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea has labeled Joe Biden a "fool of low IQ" and an "imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being" after the Democratic presidential hopeful during a recent speech called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a tyrant. Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday accused Biden of insulting the country's supreme leadership and committing an "intolerable and serious politically-motivated provocation" against the North. Biden during a campaign launch in Philadelphia on Saturday accused President Donald Trump of cozying up to "dictators and tyrants" like Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Google has urged owners of Nest cameras to reset their passwords, following reports of hackers taking over the smart home devices. In one incident last month, a family in Illinois had their home security system compromised by cyber criminals, who took control of connected Nest cameras to shout racial abuse through the device's speaker at a couple and their baby. "As I approached the baby's room and stood outside, I was shocked to hear a deep manly voice talking to my 7-month-old son," the victim told local media. In a separate incident that same month, a Californian family received an emergency broadcast alert through their Nest surveillance camera that detailed three North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles headed to the United States. "It warned that the United States had retaliated against Pyongyang and that people in the affected areas had three hours to evacuate," The Nest owner told The Mercury News.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Maltese counterpart Joseph Muscat agreed Wednesday to closely cooperate in maintaining maritime order based on the rule of law. In a news conference after their meeting in Tokyo, Abe said the two leaders confirmed the importance of the issue. Malta is the home of the International Maritime Law Institute aimed at training specialists in the field. Abe said they also agreed to work together in resolving outstanding issues surrounding North Korea, including Japanese nationals abducted by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s. On the economic front, Muscat, the first Maltese prime minister to visit Japan in 28 years, expressed hope for an early implementation of a free trade agreement Japan and the European Union signed last month.