(Reuters) - U.S. Treasuries rose to a one-week high on Tuesday, benefiting from a flight to safety after reports of North Korean shelling of South Korea and instability in the euro zone as Ireland fell into political disarray. The premium investors pay for Irish and Portuguese debt over benchmark Germans Bunds rose as markets worried whether Ireland's government could pass an austerity budget and on fears Portugal would also need to seek an aid package. "The very serious skirmishes in North Korea are obviously adding to the safe haven premium on Treasuries," said Everett Brown, a European bond strategist at IDEAglobal. "But the Irish situation has exacerbated it recently, especially with the political uncertainty there. And Ireland is not necessarily the last domino to fall." T-Note futures rose as high as 125-55/64 after media reported that North Korea had fired artillery shells at a South Korean island, but that was still 1.5 percent below a two-year high hit on November 4. They were last 11/32 lower at 125-14/32, with 10-year cash yields 3 basis points lower at 2.7747 percent. Two-year bonds underperformed with yields up 1.2 basis points at 0.4804 percent. HOUSING DATA AND MINUTES AHEAD Preliminary third quarter GDP and existing home sales data are scheduled later in the day but the main focus will be minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) November 2-3 meeting. The minutes could give further insight into how much support there is for the Fed's $600 billion bond-buying program. "If there's a large spread of views over the size of the quantitative easing package, it gives you an idea of how sensitive they'll be to further interventions," said Peter Chatwell, a European fixed income strategist at Crédit Agricole CIB. Dealers also expect solid demand at the auction of $35 billion of five-year notes on Tuesday at 1800 GMT since bid-to-cover ratios for the 10 previous auctions were above the two-year average of 2.40.

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