Alek Sigley, 29, landed in China safe and well on Thursday after spending nine days detained in the communist country.

The hermit country claimed on Saturday that Alek Sigley had spread anti-Pyongyang propaganda by providing photos and other materials to news outlets with critical views toward the North.

Choe In-guk - the son of former South Korean foreign minister Choe Dok-shin who defected in 1986 - was filmed arriving in Pyongyang on Saturday where he pledged allegiance to Kim Jong-un.

Mr Sigley, 29, returned to social media late on Wednesday, where he released a brief statement after assuring everyone he was well, mentally and physically.

Alek Sigley (left), 29, who is believed to be the only Australian living in North Korea, went missing this week after a series of posts on social media about life in the mysterious capital of Pyongyang.

Starting in Rotterdam, the two Maybach S600s took a four-month route across five countries before it is thought they were flown to North Korea from Russia, before Kim Jong-un took a ride in one (pictured).

The Beijing-backed company, which has been blacklisted in the U.S. over fears of its possible role in Chinese espionage, is said to have worked on a range of projects in the secretive state over eight years.

Reports which emerged in Japan last month claimed that Kenji Fujimoto (pictured), a former chef for Kim Jong-un's father Kim Jong-il, had been arrested on suspicion of a 'past betrayal'.

The two missiles were launched from the coastal city of Wonsan into the Sea of Japan early on Wednesday, almost exactly a week after a similar test in the same location (file image).

US national security adviser John Bolton has said that North Korea's latest missile tests did not violate pledges made by the state to Donald Trump. Short-range missiles were launched on Tuesday.

Two projectiles, believed to be short-range ballistic missiles, were fired from South Hwanghae province Tuesday, before North Korea issued a statement condemning joint US-South Korea military drills.

North Korea has opened a high-end shopping mall in the capital Pyongyang which appeared to be selling western goods made by the likes of Nike, Adidas, Rolex, Tissot, Omega and Fila.

Kim Jong-un personally oversaw the test of a 'new-type tactical guided weapon' on Tuesday, North Korean state media said, which was meant as 'a warning' to the US and South Korea.

Donald Trump said South Korea has agreed to pay the U.S. 'a lot more money' for protection after North Korea's Kim Jong-Un conducted a series of missile tests over the past two weeks.

The latest launch comes shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had received a 'very beautiful letter' from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea said leader Kim Jong Un supervised test-firings of an unspecified new weapons system today, seen as an attempt to build leverage ahead of negotiations with the United States.

The UN banned luxury goods from entering North Korea to punish the rogue state for its nuclear weapons tests, with luxury watches among the specific items named.

Japan's military last year said it was 'possible' that North Korea had achieved miniaturisation, but Tokyo now appears to have upgraded its assessment (pictured, a recent North Korean weapons test).

Jacob Bogle, a researcher from the US, analysed satellite images of North Korea taken since 2003 and found that a uranium plant at Pyongsan appears to be leaking waste into a nearby river.

The Coast Guard says the short-range projectiles did not reach Japanese waters or the  Exclusive Economic Zone.

The North Korean leader is reported to have personally overseen the test of the ballistic missiles. North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released photos of the test, Sunday.

Images of the Sinpo South Shipyard suggest circumstantial evidence of the construction of a new ballistic missile submarine, according to the report on Wednesday.

North Korea has been left begging for extra cash from Chinese backers after its missile test sight turned beach resort has been delayed again. The site was originally meant to be finished this April.

Kaoru Hasuike and his girlfriend Yukiko spent 24 years as captives in North Korea, where he was forced to work training spies after being kidnapped from a Japanese beach.

Kim Jong-un will likely have 40 nukes by 2020, researchers from Sweden say, around a dozen more than this time last year - meaning he has continued to build them despite talks with the US.

John Bolton bashed any future talks between Trump and North Korea and Iran, claiming they are 'doomed to failure.' 'He ripped Trump, without using his name, several times,' one attendee said.

Volodymyr Zelensky, who once played a hapless President on TV but was elected to the real-life presidency in April, put on the mock presentation for guests at a summit in Yalta earlier this month.

The Mount Kumgang resort was opened in 1998 to encourage cross-border tourism but the arrangement ended in acrimony when a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a soldier in 2008.

Residents living near the 'forbidden city' in Pyongyang have been faced with the measure to stop them snooping on Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un as he works (file photo).

NBA legend Dennis Rodman thinks he's the key to helping the NBA mend fences with China after a week of fighting over its influence on American companies with which it does business.

The historic encounter at the Kim II-Sung Stadium in Pyongyang saw South Korean spectators and journalists banned from attending the game, while there was also no live broadcast of the match.

John Bolton ripped apart Donald Trump's efforts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula as ineffective, claiming it will get worse with time. 'North Korea isn't our friend and never will be,' Bolton said.

The order came as North Korea warned of 'undesirable consequences' after the US seized one of its sanction-breaking cargo ships.

Ri Sol-ju was seen alongside husband Kim Jong-un during his visit to the Mount Kumgang resort this week, marking the first time she has been seen in public in more than four months.

Kim Jong Un visited the country's Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory just as North Korean official released a statement on tense US relations to secure nuclear negotiation, yesterday.

Smiling Grape Adventure Tours, based in Cambridgeshire, will take guests to Pyongyang's best pubs, bars and microbreweries in March 2020.

Talks in Seoul broke down after both sides alleged a failure to compromise on the cost of keeping 28,500 troops on the peninsula as a deterrent to North Korea. Pictured: U.S. negotiator James DeHart.

Singapore-based drug smuggler Wee Quay Tan, 48, who also has a large tattoo of a dragon inked over his shoulders and chest, found himself in the middle of the biggest drug bust in Australian history.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the women's company under Unit 5492 of the Korean People's Army stationed at the country's southwestern coast.

The FBI pinned the blame for the 2014 Sony hack on North Korea, but doubts have been raised over the evidence, while a former bureau informant claims to have evidence it actually came from Russia.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rode a white horse up sacred mountain Mount Paektu in Ryanggang on his second symbolic visit in less than two months, in photos released on Wednesday.

US special representative Stephen Biegun told reporters in Seoul that the US had heard the North's 'hostile, negative and unnecessary' demands but would not work to the arbitrary deadline.

New book Model City Pyongyang says the city 'embodies the dream of total planning, to which every architect secretly aspires; jettisoning planning restrictions and space ratio guidelines'.

Alex Meads, now 23, was excommunicated by the London-based Korean Friendship Association's 'paranoid' chairman, Dermot Hudson, earlier this year.

Donald Trump on Tuesday brushed aside threats of a Christmas surprise from North Korea, joking maybe he would get a 'beautiful vase' from Kim Jong Un instead of a missile test. 

Four aircraft are believed to have to have made the unusual move of flying missions over and around the Korean Peninsula between Tuesday and early Wednesday at the same time.

The dictatorship has threatened to take 'unspecified action' if sanctions are not lifted by 2020. Four US planes flew over the North Korean peninsula on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Police made the discovery in the wooden boat's stem around 9:30 am (00:30 GMT) on Saturday on Sado island, which is off the coast of Japan's northwestern prefecture of Niigata

The technology giant launched a case in the US District Court against the group code named Thallium to try and stop their operations that were specifically targeting certain groups.

Jeffrey Lewis, an nuclear expert from California, has warned that Trump's volatile relationship with Kim Jong-un could plunge the world into a nuclear crisis if North Korea restarts testing nukes.