South Korea

The North's official KCNA news agency said the exercises were a "provocation" and a rehearsal for an invasion.

It also warned the US over the fate of the historic summit between Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump that is scheduled for 12 June in Singapore.

In March, Mr Trump stunned the world by accepting an invitation to meet Mr Kim.

"We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!" the US leader later tweeted.

Smiling and waving, South Korean President Moon Jae-in met Mr Kim at the border before talks begin.

At the summit venue, Mr Kim said that he hoped for frank discussions.

The historic meeting will focus on the North's recent indications it could be willing to give up its nuclear weapons.

In a moment rich with symbolism, Mr Kim and Mr Moon shook hands on both sides of the border in the demilitarised zone.

The South Korean president briefly stepped into the border into North Korea as well - an unexpected moment.

The fire started around 7:30 am local time at the rear of the emergency room on the first floor of Sejong Hospital and it was mostly extinguished after a few hours, Choi Man-woo, the head of Miryang city's fire station, told a televised media briefing.

Firefighters were still in the process of evacuating around roughly 200 people from the main hospital building and nursing home directly behind the hospital, Choi said.

At of the time of the briefing, Choi said 10 people had been critically injured and 35 slightly injured.

The meeting, at the Peace House in the truce village of Panmunjom, will focus on North Korea's possible participation in the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, taking place in South Korea in February.

South Korea also said it would raise ways to improve inter-Korean relations.

Ties have become increasingly tense since the last talks in 2015.

Relations broke down after Seoul suspended a joint economic project at the Kaesong Industrial complex in North Korea following a rocket launch and nuclear test by the North.

South Korea confirmed it had received a call from the North at 15:30 local time on Wednesday.

The North Korean leader had earlier said he was open to dialogue with Seoul and to sending a team to the Winter Olympics in the South next month.

The two nations have not held high-level talks since December 2015.

North Korea cut off the communications channel shortly afterwards, refusing to answer calls, according to officials in the South.

A North Korean official announced the hotline's reopening in a televised statement.

The babies all went into cardiac arrest while lying in incubators at Seoul's Ewha Womans University Medical Centre.

Staff performed CPR but efforts to revive the babies were unsuccessful, a hospital official said.

Family members told local media they were concerned about the health of the infants before they died on Saturday.

They said the babies all had bloated stomachs and difficulty breathing. Hospital staff say they do not know what caused the cardiac arrests but told police they did "not seem to have originated from a contagious cause."

Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said this was among topics discussed at recent talks held in the South Korean capital Seoul.

He told reporters at his weekly media briefing on Friday it was hoped there'd be a plan on the issue soon.

Tuilaepa, who is chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, referred to the leadership of North Korea as "a bit off in the head".

He said the issue was of major concern particularly as another test was launched by Pyongyang during the Seoul visit.

Photo: AFP / KCNA via KNS

In a joint statement issued after a two-day meeting in Denver, the organisations also criticised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for "continuing failure in its obligations to clean sport."

"A country's sport leaders and organisations should not be given credentials to the Olympics when they intentionally violate the rules and rob clean athletes," said the statement.

"This is especially unfair when athletes are punished when they violate the rules."

Technically, only medical doctors are allowed to do tattooing. Mirae and Yo-Yo, two 25-year-old tattoo artists living and working in the capital, Seoul, are certainly not that.

Mirae is a part-time model with a keen interest in fashion; Yo-Yo used to work in clothes shops, before taking a working holiday to Australia, where she began to consider training as a tattoo artist.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is understood to be close to issuing what has been described as an "F1-style" fine, sum similar to the $US100 million sanction slapped on McLaren in 2007 for spying on Ferrari.

That would be imposed as an alternative to excluding Russia from February's Games in PyeongChang.

Senior anti-doping officials have told PA Sport they believe the IOC and Russia have already agreed the terms of the sanction.