North Korea's military on Sunday threatened to blow up balloons that South Korean activists plan to send over the heavily-militarized border carrying 10,000 DVDs of the satirical Hollywood film "The Interview".

Activists plan to launch copies of the film -- a comedy about a fictional CIA plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un -- as well as 500,000 propaganda leaflets across the border on or around March 26.

Seventy years ago they crushed Nazi Germany together but raging tensions over Ukraine mean Russia's former World War II allies in the West will snub the Kremlin's showcase victory anniversary celebrations.

As top Western leaders give President Vladimir Putin's Red Square parade on May 9 the cold shoulder, the guest list of those likely to be coming -- including China's president and North Korea's reclusive leader -- shows how Moscow's international standing has shifted.

South Korea and the United States will launch a massive landing drill next week, the climax of an ongoing joint military exercise which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

The amphibious drill will start March 28 and run until April 1 at the port of Pohang, some 360 kilometers (223 miles) south of Seoul, the U.S.-South Korea Combined Forces Command said in a statement.

A group of 14 South Korean businessmen on Wednesday traveled to the Kaesong joint industrial zone for talks with North Korean officials to resolve an escalating row over wages at the park.

Pyongyang last month announced it would raise the basic salary of some 54,000 North Korean workers employed across 125 South Korean firms in the complex as of the end of last year.

South Korea's government accused North Korea Tuesday of carrying out cyber-attacks last December on its nuclear power plant operator, describing them as a  provocation which threatened people's lives and safety.

"It's a clear provocation against our security," the unification ministry said after investigators concluded that the North was behind the attacks.

A United Nations rights expert squared off with North Korea Monday by urging the global community to resolve the fate of 200,000 people allegedly abducted by Pyongyang, and refer perpetrators to the International Criminal Court.

"There is a real sense of urgency to solve this matter once and for all," said Marzuki Darusman, the UN's independent expert on the rights situation in North Korea.

North Korea fired seven surface-to-air missiles into the sea off its east coast on Thursday in an operation supervised by leader Kim Jong-Un at a time of heightened military tensions, South Korea's Defense Ministry said Friday.

A ministry spokesman said Kim was understood to have been on hand when the rockets were fired early Thursday evening from a site near the eastern town of Sondok.

North and South Korea dug in their heels Friday in an escalating row over wages at their Kaesong joint industrial zone.

Pyongyang last month announced it would raise the basic salary of some 54,000 North Korean workers employed across 125 South Korean firms in the complex.

South Korean police handed their investigation into the knife attack on U.S. ambassador Mark Lippert to prosecutors Friday, recommending a charge of attempted murder for the "pre-meditated assault".

Lippert, 42, suffered deep gashes to his cheek and hand when a knife-wielding nationalist, Kim Ki-Jong, assaulted him at a breakfast function in central Seoul last week.

South Korea and the United States wrapped up Friday one of their two large-scale annual military exercises that have prompted bellicose warnings and threats from an incensed North Korea.

The Key Resolve exercise, which began on March 2, involved around 10,000 South Korean and 8,600 U.S. troops, but is a largely computer-simulated command post drill that rehearses various conflict scenarios.