U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay on Monday demanded an international probe into the alarming human rights situation in ultra-authoritarian North Korea, decrying more than a half-century of devastating abuses.

"It is time the international community took a much firmer step towards finding the truth and applying serious pressure to bring about change for this beleaguered, subjugated population of 20 million people," the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a rare and strongly worded statement on North Korea.

A North Korean official has apparently told Chinese authorities that the communist state is planning to conduct a third nuclear test in the coming week, a news report said Saturday.

"We've heard a North Korean official in Beijing told the Chinese side that the North planned to carry out a nuclear test between January 13-20," the Joongang Ilbo daily quoted an unidentified Seoul official as saying.

U.S. politician Bill Richardson, who returned Thursday from a controversial visit to North Korea, said he did not meet a detained American whose case he had cited as part of the reason for the trip.

But Richardson said he was given assurances about the good health of Kenneth Bae, 44, who was arrested last November and was said by official media to have admitted an unspecified crime against the state.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt told North Korean officials their country would never develop unless it embraced Internet freedom, he said Thursday as he returned from a visit to Pyongyang.

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, who led the trip, urged North Korea to adopt a moratorium on ballistic missiles and nuclear tests following the communist state's widely criticized rocket launch last month.

What is one of the world's most prominent advocates of Internet freedom doing in a country where unregulated access to information is generally either impossible or criminal?

Google chairman Eric Schmidt's "private" visit to North Korea raises many questions, not least because he embodies what regimes in Pyongyang have spent decades resisting with all the considerable power at their disposal.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has sent one kilo (2.2 pounds) of sweets to every child to mark his birthday on Tuesday, carrying on a tradition instigated by his grandfather, state media reported.

A radio report by the North Korean Central Broadcasting Station, monitored in Seoul on Monday, said Kim had mobilized aircraft to ensure that each child in the country aged 10 or under received the candy gift in time.

The number of North Korean refugees fleeing to the South fell sharply last year, officials in Seoul said, with activists citing crackdowns and tighter border controls.

A total of 1,508 North Koreans arrived in the South in 2012 -- nearly all of them via China -- down from 2,706 the previous year, the Unification Ministry said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un called Tuesday for an easing of tensions with the South and flagged a "radical turnabout" in the national economy in a rare voiced message broadcast on state television.

"An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the North and the South," Kim said in a New Year's message.

South Korean activists launched balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border Tuesday as North Korea joined a global party by greeting the New Year with fireworks.

About 30 activists released seven balloons carrying 28,000 leaflets in the northern border town of Gwanjeonri in Cheorwon County, shouting "Down with North Korea's dynastic dictatorship!"

South Korea has recovered what it believes to be debris from the engine of the long-range rocket launched by North Korea this month, the defense ministry said Friday.

"If it is confirmed to be engine debris, it will be very useful for analyzing North Korea's missile technology," a ministry spokesman said.