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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says Russia will help his country build four new nuclear power plants. Mr. Singh made the announcement after meetings in Moscow with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

President Dmitri Medvedev says the heads of the Russian and Indian atomic energy agencies initialed the agreement to foster nuclear cooperation between the two countries for years to come.

Mr. Medvedev notes numerous ongoing energy projects between the two countries, including many related to nuclear energy. He says the latest agreement opens prospects for future cooperation. He says Russia has experience at India's Kudankulam power station and is thinking about ways to work at another site.

Mr. Singh called the Kudankulam site a symbol of Russian-Indian cooperation in civilian nuclear power, adding that four more reactors will be built after a new site is identified in West Bengal.

‘Today, we have signed an agreement, which broadens the reach of our cooperation beyond the supply of nuclear reactors to areas of research and development and a whole range of areas of nuclear energy,’ he said.

According to the deal, Russia will also provide India with nuclear fuel for its reactors.

President Medvedev says Russia and India want peaceful nuclear technology to remain under the strict control of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He notes that nuclear weapons are a separate issue regulated by special international agreements. He adds that Russia opposes expansion of the nuclear club.

Mr. Medvedev says it goes without saying that this also concerns the Iranian nuclear program and any other country that could possibly use nuclear weapons

Talks between Iran and six world powers are proceeding in a ‘cordial and businesslike’ atmosphere with the main focus on Iran's nuclear program, the spokeswoman for European Union policy chief Javier Solana said.

‘There is a good will of the international community to have a serious relationship with Iran,’ Cristina Gallach told reporters. ‘At the same time there are important clarifications to be obtained.’

She said Iran's nuclear program was the most important aspect of the talks, which are being hosted by Switzerland at a villa in the Geneva countryside.

Iran's nuclear negotiator touched on the country's nuclear program in his opening statement at talks with six world powers in Geneva, a Western diplomat close to the meeting said.

He said that Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili mentioned Tehran's disputed nuclear program ‘in a general way’ in his opening statement, even though Jalili and other Iranian officials had said they would not be willing to discuss Tehran's ‘nuclear rights’ at the one-day talks in Geneva.

‘The EU3 (Britain, France and Germany) restated that the July 2008 offer is still on the table,’ the diplomat, who was present at the talks, said on condition of anonymity.

American sources said Wednesday that the talks will fail if Iran maintains its refusal for meaningful dialogue of the nuclear issue. While some officials have said they are coming to the table with a ‘positive attitude,’ others have expressed an unwillingness to discuss the nuclear program

Russian media continued to cover Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's mysterious visit to Moscow, that was leaked to the media from his office.

Kommersant newspaper quoted ‘experts’ as saying they believe a visit of this kind could have stemmed from urgent circumstances, ‘for example, in the event that Israel plans to attack Iran’.

At first, Moscow denied a visit ever took place, but after Netanyahu's office was forced to admit to the PM's Military Secretary Meir Kalifi's lie, a senior Kremlin source also confirmed to Kommersant that the Israeli prime minister did indeed visit the city.

Russian media also directed questions on the visit to the Israeli embassy in Moscow, but embassy sources said that if there was such a visit, ‘We know nothing about it.’

The paper then quoted what it called an ‘informed’ Israeli source, who wished to remain anonymous, as saying, ‘Such a visit could be related to new information and could threaten the Iranian nuclear program. It should not be ruled out that Israel may be ready to move on to decisive actions with regards to Iran, and Netanyahu has decided to inform the Kremlin of this.’

Russian Foreign Minister Spokesman Andrei Nesterenko published an announcement saying, ‘We have no knowledge of a Netanyahu's 'secret' visit to Moscow. We saw reports in various media. They are inconsistent. Other than that, I cannot tell you anything. I have no detailed information in the matter, or any information in the matter. We have seen the reports.’

Netanyahu left Israel on a private jet belonging Israeli millionaire Yossi Maiman. Earlier, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that his destination was Russia

With the world seemingly unable to stop Iran's nuclear march, other countries in the region are now pushing forward with their own plans to build nuclear power plants.

The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on Thursday that the Saudi minister of water and electricity, Abdullah al-Hosain, said the kingdom was working on plans for its first nuclear power plant. The US inked civil nuclear power deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last year.

Over the last two years, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, the UAE, Yemen, Morocco, Libya, Jordan and Egypt have all indicated an interest in developing nuclear programs, with Israeli officials saying, off the record, that if these countries did not want the programs now for their military capabilities, they wanted the technology in place to keep ‘other options open’ if Iran were to develop a bomb.

Israel has been careful not to take a public stand on civilian nuclear programs in neighboring states, partly because as one of the few countries in the world that has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is not keen on lobbying against nuclear know-how for peaceful needs going to countries that are willing to sign the treaty, since that would focus the limelight on Israel's own unique situation.

There is also a sense that if the programs were under the supervision of the US or France, which pledged two years ago to help Morocco develop a nuclear program, then there would be little concern that they would later be turned into military projects.

Nevertheless, defense officials said that Saudi interest in nuclear power was connected to Teheran's continued race toward nuclear power.

‘The Saudis are genuinely scared of what will happen if Iran turns nuclear,’ one official said. ‘This is part of their response.’

On the other hand, the officials said that Saudi Arabia's nuclear program was not of concern at the moment for Israel since the project was being established jointly with the United States and in the framework of International Atomic Energy Agency regulations

Iran has announced it is willing to negotiate with the West over its nuclear development activities without preconditions. Iranian state television quoted the country's nuclear envoy to the United Nations, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, as saying, "Talks without preconditions is Iran's main stance in negotiations on the nuclear issue." The station added that Soltanieh had announced the Islamic Republic's readiness to participate "in any negotiations based on mutual respect." Iran is facing an imminent deadline that will force it to decide between a deal to accept trade benefits in exchange for suspending its uranium enrichment program, or increasingly harsh sanctions.

Iran is unlikely to be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a nuclear weapon until at least 2013, according to a U.S. government intelligence estimate made public Thursday.The estimate, which sets a notably later date for Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear capability than other claims that have recently been circulated in the media, was prepared by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dennis Blair submitted it in written testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in February. The publication of the estimate comes at a particularly sensitive time in Washington, as the U.S. debates how best to proceed in dealing with Iran in the wake of June’s disputed election and the Iranian government’s subsequent crackdown on protesters

The Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that Iran would strike Israel's nuclear facilities if the Jewish state attacked it, state television reported.

‘If the Zionist Regime (Israel) attacks Iran, we will surely strike its nuclear facilities with our missile capabilities,’ Mohammad Ali Jafari, Guards commander-in-chief, told Iran's Arabic language al-Alam television.

The Revolutionary Guards are the ideologically driven wing of Iran's military with air, sea and land capabilities, and a separate command structure to regular units.

Iranian leaders often dismiss talk of a possible strike by Israel, saying it is not in a position to threaten Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter. They say Iran would respond to any attack by targeting U.S. interests and Israel.

‘We are not responsible for this regime and other enemies' foolishness ... If they strike Iran, our answer will be firm and precise,’ state television quoted Jafari as saying

Israel must have ‘tremendously powerful’ weapons to deter a nuclear attack or destroy an enemy that dares to launch an atomic strike, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted as saying.

National security adviser Uzi Arad, in comments to Haaretz newspaper, appeared to allude to what is widely believed to be Israel's own nuclear arsenal and a standing policy of ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD). He warned other countries they could bring about their own devastation if they launched an attack.

In excerpts on Haaretz's English-language website of an interview to be published on Friday, Arad said he feared that if Iran became a nuclear power, five or six other states in the Middle East would follow suit. He called such a prospect a ‘nightmare’ for Israel.

‘The defensive might we have must be improved and become tremendously powerful, and create a situation in which no one will dare to realize the ability to harm us,’ Arad said.

‘And if they do dare, we will exact a full price, so that they too will not survive.’

Israel has three German-made submarines that are widely assumed to carry nuclear missiles

North Korea has test-fired two short-range missiles off its east coast, a spokesman for South Korea's defense ministry has said.

The spokesman said the surface-to-ship missiles were launched from a base near the port of Wonsan at about 0900 GMT.

The UN tightened sanctions against North Korea after it launched several missiles and carried out an underground nuclear test in May.

‘One [missile] was fired at 1720 (0820 GMT) and the other at 1800 from Sinsang-ni’ near the east coast city of Wonsan, South Korean defense ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said.

South Korean media had reported that a missile launch was imminent. Previous North Korean warnings to shipping to avoid its coastal waters have been preludes to test launches.

Japanese and South Korean media have also reported that North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range ballistic missile.

Such a rocket was launched in May, with Pyongyang saying it was intended to put a satellite into orbit.

There are fears that North Korea is trying to produce nuclear warheads small enough to put on long-range missiles

The EU is no longer qualified to take part in talks on Iran's nuclear program, Iran's military chief says.

Maj-Gen Hassan Firouzabadi, Iran's chief of staff, accused the EU of ‘interference’ in riots which followed June's disputed presidential elections.

EU states, meanwhile, are considering withdrawing their ambassadors from Iran in a growing diplomatic row.

Britain proposed the step after Iran detained nine of its embassy staff last week. Eight have since been released.

The BBC's European affairs correspondent Oana Lungescu says senior officials from EU capitals will discuss the request in Stockholm on Thursday.

But diplomats say that Germany and Italy - Iran's biggest trading partners in the EU - oppose it, arguing that channels of dialogue with Iran should be kept open

North Korea appears to be enriching uranium, potentially giving the state that has twice tested a plutonium-based nuclear device another path to making atomic weapons, South Korea's defense minister said on Tuesday.

‘It is clear that they are moving forward with it,’ Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee told a parliamentary hearing, adding such a program was far easier to hide than the North's current plutonium-based activities.

North Korea earlier this month responded to U.N. punishment for its most recent nuclear test in May by saying it would start enriching uranium for a light-water reactor.

Experts said destitute North Korea lacks the technology and resources to build such a costly civilian reactor but may use the program as a cover to enrich uranium for weapons.

North Korea, which has ample supplies of natural uranium, would be able to conduct an enrichment program in underground or undisclosed facilities and away from the prying eyes of U.S. spy satellites.

The North's plutonium program uses an aging reactor and is centered at its Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear plant, which has been watched by U.S. aerial reconnaissance for years

Russia says it is open to further international discussions on North Korea's nuclear program, despite Pyongyang's withdrawal from the so-called six-party talks.

Russia's envoy to the nuclear talks, Alexei Borodavkin, said Russia would be open to continue talks with the remaining participants: the United States, China, Japan and South Korea, as long as the aim is to get North Korea to return to the negotiating table. Borodavkin spoke after meeting his South Korean counterpart, Wi Sung-lac, in Moscow.

China, which has hosted the nuclear talks, has not indicated whether its position on a five-party meeting.

In Beijing, Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka told reporters after a meeting with his Chinese counterpart that both sides repeated their opposition to a nuclear North Korea and their commitment to implement new U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang.

North Korean state media on Wednesday continued a barrage of bellicose rhetoric, threatening to wipe the United States off the map and reunify the Korean peninsula if the United States starts another war

If words were launched as missiles rather than missives, the United States and North Korea would be firing salvo on salvo in an escalating war in which much of the North would be in ruins and parts of the US in flames.

As it is, the war of words they're waging gets more intense by the day with the dreaded ‘nuclear’ word being used with alarming frequency.

It was one thing for North Korea to declare its need for nuclear weapons to ‘bolster defense’ against the US, say it was producing ever-more plutonium for atomic bombs and reveal its nascent program for enriching uranium for still more bombs.

It was quite another, however, for US President Barack Obama, darling of the American liberals, to sign a joint statement with South Korea's conservative President Lee Myung-bak pledging commitment to ‘the US nuclear umbrella’.

That's the verbal commitment of waving a red flag in front of a bull, bandying about a term that's going to provoke a torrent of snarling invective from North Korea on a scale far more venomous than the North's response to the latest United Nations Security Council sanctions for detonating a nuclear device underground on May 25.

It's a phrase that US officials may bandy about in briefings but avoid putting in formal statements for presidents to toss out if only because it connotes such an obvious threat. If you're going to talk about a ‘nuclear umbrella’, after all, does that mean you're poised to drop one of them without much prior notice?

The phrase was sneaked in, almost deliberately buried, in a declaration issued in the names of both Obama and Lee after their meeting in Washington on Tuesday under the flowery title of ‘joint vision for the alliance’. After a great deal of verbiage that seemed to be the presidential equivalent of a love-in, after promising to maintain ‘a robust defense posture, backed by allied capabilities’, the statement got to the real point.

‘The continuing commitment of extended deterrence, including the US nuclear umbrella, reinforces this assurance.’

Those were the words the South Koreans wanted to hear. It was one thing for the United States to promise to defend South Korea, as it has since preserving the South in the Korean War, and it was fine for American commanders to talk about a nuclear umbrella over the region, but South Korean leaders wanted it in writing.

If much of the rest of the ‘joint vision’ was boilerplate, the emphasis on the ‘nuclear umbrella’ was not. Regardless of whether Obama would ever pull the nuclear trigger and order a strike, say, on the North Korean nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, the message was obvious: in a showdown, we've got a lot more nukes than you do, and we're willing to use them if that's what it takes to stop your nonsense

North Korea has threatened a ‘thousand-fold’ military retaliation against the US and its allies if it is provoked.

The warning, carried by state media, came after US President Barack Obama said that a nuclear-armed North Korea posed a ‘grave threat’ to the world.

At a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Mr. Obama said the US would ‘vigorously’ pursue an end to North Korea's nuclear programme.

‘If the US and its followers infringe upon our republic's sovereignty even a bit, our military and people will launch a one hundred- or one thousand-fold retaliation with merciless military strike,’ said a commentary published by state news agency KCNA.

The commentary is the latest threat from Pyongyang as tensions in the region have escalated over its 25 May underground nuclear test and recent missile launches.

Japanese and South Korean media reported that there were signs of two long-range missile launch sites being readied - one on the north-west coast and the other on the north-east coast.

It was previously believed a launch might come from the north-west site, not far from the Chinese border

North Korea has accused the United States of targeting it with nuclear missiles and warned that nuclear war could break out on the Korean peninsula.

A commentary in the North's state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper claimed the US had 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea ready to strike.

Meanwhile, the Tongbil Sinbo newspaper said that North Korea is ‘completely within the range of US nuclear attack and the Korean peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of nuclear war are the highest in the world.’

Over the weekend, North Korea angrily responded to fresh United Nations sanctions by threatening to build as many nuclear weapons as possible.

Until now, it said, it had only reprocessed one-third of its spent fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium. Analysts believe the rogue state could end up with enough plutonium to make eight to nine bombs.

The rogue state also claimed to have a uranium-enrichment program, the first time it has admitted to one. The claim is alarming, said Professor Yang Moo-Jin, of Seoul's University of North Korean Studies.

‘The North has abundant natural uranium of good quality, which, if combined with technology and facilities, would result in a great nuclear arsenal,’ he said

Moscow believes that North Korea is planning to launch a new ballistic missile, according to a report from Interfax, the Russian news agency.

‘We have certain information on the type and characteristics of the rocket. However there is no precise information on the timing of its launch,’ said a source in Russia's General Staff. He added that Russia would monitor the launch.

He did not specify if it would be a long or short-range missile. In the past week, South Korean and American intelligence have identified a missile being moved to the Musudan launch pad, one of North Korea's most commonly-used sites.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, said a missile capable of hitting the West coast of the United States could be launched in mid-June.

A second source, this time at the Russian Foreign ministry, told ITAR-TASS that ‘judging by everything, a launch will take place. There are signs that preparations for this are under way.’

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high since the North tested a nuclear bomb on May 25. The United Nations Security Council is still debating what action to take over the test, which contravened a UN resolution.

The US has been moving more aggressively, and is considering levying its own financial sanctions on the rogue state. South Korea has passed information to the US about as many as 20 North Korean bank accounts which are used for moving money

“North Korea says it will use its nuclear weapons both to defend itself and as an offense against those who seek to attack the country.

An editorial published Tuesday in North Korea's state-run Minju Joson newspaper says its nuclear arsenal will be a strong deterrent against any enemies, and will also be used to carry out a ‘merciless offensive’ against those who violate its dignity and sovereignty.

Late Monday, a top U.S. intelligence official said North Korea's recent nuclear test and missile launches, and its political situation are ‘a potentially dangerous mixture.’ Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said that while the overall pattern is a familiar one for North Korea, the level of risk is higher because Pyongyang is doing provocative things at a time there are questions about a succession of power.

Last week, media reports said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had named his youngest son, 26-year-old Kim Jong Un as his successor. Kim Jong Il has ruled the country since taking over from his father, Kim Il Sung, in 1994.

The latest salvo from the reclusive communist nation comes as the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - plus Japan and South Korea, negotiate on a new resolution to impose tougher sanctions against Pyongyang for last month's underground nuclear test

The UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, says traces of undeclared man-made uranium have been found at a second site in Syria, at a reactor in Damascus.

The IAEA is investigating US claims that a Syrian site destroyed in a 2007 Israeli raid was a nuclear reactor that was not yet operational.

Separately, the agency says Iran is continuing to enrich uranium in defiance of the UN Security Council.

Last year, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) found particles of man-made uranium at the al-Kibar site in Syria, which was destroyed by Israeli missiles in September 2007.

Now in a confidential report obtained by the BBC, it says it has discovered new traces of uranium of a type not included in Syria's declared nuclear material.

The IAEA says it is not clear whether there is a link between the particles found at the two sites

Russia's military on Friday warned the US that it would not reduce its nuclear arsenal until Washington made clear whether or not it would go ahead with a controversial missile shield in Central Europe.

The comments by the country's top general exposed a potential hitch as the two sides hold talks on replacing a key Cold War-era nuclear arms reduction treaty by the end of the year.

‘While the situation in the world is unclear, including concerning the missile defense system, we will not touch our nuclear potential,’ Russian news agencies quoted the army's chief of staff Nikolai Makarov as saying.

Makarov was referring to the US plan to install missile defense facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland, which Moscow insists is a threat to its security even though Washington says it is directed against Iran.

The plan was initiated by the previous US administration of George W. Bush but President Barack Obama has pledged to press ahead with the missile shield but indicated he could drop the project if Iran is no longer deemed a nuclear threat.

‘We will be making practically no changes to the Russian strategic missile forces,’ added Makarov.

‘Strategic nuclear forces are a sacred question for us and we will give them as many resources as required to preserve stability in the world and keep it at an appropriate level,’ he added.

The announcement from Makarov comes as Russia and the United States hold talks aimed at cutting their nuclear arsenals and finding a successor a 1991 treaty due to expire at the end of the year

North Korea is reportedly moving closer towards launching another long-range missile.

According to South Korean media, the North has moved its most advanced missile to a new launch site and banned ships from waters off its west coast.

The move came after US and Japanese officials said they would not accept a nuclear-armed North.

A regional summit hosted by South Korea is expected to condemn the North's recent nuclear and missile tests.

The North could fire the missile as early as 16 June when South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and President Barack Obama hold a summit in Washington, suggested the Dong-a Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo newspapers.

They quoted unidentified sources as saying the missile is believed to be a version of the Taepodong-2 rocket fired on 5 April.

The Chosun Ilbo paper added that North Korea had also designated a large area off its west coast a ‘no-sail’ zone until the end of July.

Other reports say there has been increased activity around military bases in the area and that troops have been ordered to increase their stocks of ammunition.

Last week, South Korean officials said US satellites had detected apparent preparations to transport a missile for a test launch.

The missile being readied for launch is believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a range of up to 6,500 km (4,000 miles), the JoongAng Ilbo reported, citing an unnamed South Korean official. That would put Alaska within striking range.

Monday's newspaper reports said North Korea's construction of the new launch site at Dongchang-ni was near completion.

Previous long-range missiles have been fired from a site on the country's north-east coast.

The North Koreans may believe the new test site's location in the north-west, close to the Chinese border, makes it less vulnerable to attack, says the BBC's Chris Hogg in Seoul

The Military Intelligence research chief, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, warned on Monday that Iran would have enough enriched uranium to manufacture a nuclear bomb by the end of the year.

Baidatz made the comments at a meeting of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, during which he also said the Islamic Republic's nuclear program was outpacing the international negotiations aimed at thwarting it.

‘The Iranian clock is ticking faster than the clock of international dialogue,’ said the brigadier general.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at the same session on Monday, said that during his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama it was agreed that Tehran will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons

Russia is taking precautionary security measures, including military ones, because it fears tensions over North Korea's atomic test could descend into nuclear war, news agencies quoted an official as saying on Wednesday.

Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying that a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang's nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia's far eastern regions, which border North Korea.

‘The need has emerged for an appropriate package of precautionary measures,’ the source said.

‘We are not talking about stepping up military efforts but rather about measures in case a military conflict, perhaps with the use of nuclear weapons, flares up on the Korean Peninsula,’ he added.

North Korea has responded to international condemnation of its nuclear test and a threat of new UN sanctions by saying it is no longer bound by an armistice signed with South Korea at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted a Russian foreign ministry official as saying the ‘war of nerves’ over North Korea should not be allowed to grow into a military conflict, a clear reference to Pyongyang's decision to drop out of the armistice deal

North Korea has fired two more missiles, hours after the UN Security Council unanimously condemned its nuclear test, South Korean reports say.

The communist state fired two short-range missiles off an east coast base, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing an official.

The move came as UN diplomats began work on a resolution to punish North Korea for its underground nuclear test.

Diplomats said they were seeking ‘tough measures’, including further sanctions.

At least three missile tests accompanied Monday's nuclear test. Those on Tuesday involved one ground-to-ship missile and one ground-to-air missile, Yonhap said.

Earlier, North Korea, in a statement carried by its official news agency KCNA, said it was clear America's ‘hostile policy’ towards it had not changed.

‘Our army and people are fully ready for battle... against any reckless US attempt for a pre-emptive attack,’ it said in a piece criticizing US moves to relocate its fighter jets.

South Korea, meanwhile, announced it would become a full member of a US-led initiative aimed at controlling trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, despite warnings from Pyongyang

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran will not hold any further talks with world powers on its controversial nuclear program.

Mr. Ahmadinejad told a news conference in Tehran Monday Iran will only agree to discussions with major powers about cooperating in managing global problems. He said Iran will not participate in talks about nuclear issues outside the framework of the U.N. nuclear agency.

Six world powers have offered Iran a package of incentives to suspend uranium enrichment. Western nations fear Iran will use the enrichment process to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful.

President Ahmadinejad said that if he is re-elected next month, he is ready to debate U.S. President Barack Obama at the United Nations in New York

There have been expressions of international outrage after North Korea said it had successfully carried out an underground nuclear test.

After seismologists confirmed it had the power of a 4.5 quake, the US president said North Korea's programme posed a ‘grave threat’ to world peace.

The UN Security Council is to meet later in New York for emergency talks on how it should respond.

It is being reported that North Korea gave warning of an imminent test to the US less than an hour before it happened.

It appears to have been a much more powerful blast than North Korea's first nuclear test, in October 2006.

BBC world affairs correspondent David Loyn says North Korea appears to have moved from a posture of negotiation to confrontation over the nuclear issue.

An official communiqué read out on North Korean state radio said another round of underground nuclear testing had been ‘successfully conducted... as part of measures to enhance the Republic's self-defensive nuclear deterrent in all directions’.

The North did not report the test site but South Korean officials placed it in the north-eastern region around the town of Kilju, the site of North Korea's first nuclear test

Israel has joined the West in condemning North Korea's latest nuclear weapons test.

‘Israel views the second North Korean nuclear test with extreme gravity, and is party to the global concern caused by this event,’ according to a Foreign Ministry statement released on Monday.

‘Furthermore, Israel is concerned with North Korea's nuclear proliferation, which has negative implications in this region,’ the statement read.

‘Israel expects the international community to respond decisively to the nuclear detonation by North Korea, so as to transmit an unambiguous message to other countries.’

In Pyongyang, North Korea said that it had carried out a powerful underground nuclear test - much larger than one conducted in 2006. The regime also test-fired three short-range, ground-to-air missiles later Monday from the same northeastern site where it launched a rocket last month, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed sources.

President Barack Obama assailed North Korea on Monday for the new missile tests, saying the world must ‘stand up to Pyongyang and demand that it honor a promise to abandon it nuclear ambitions.’

North Korea today risked further international isolation after it claimed to have successfully tested a nuclear weapon as powerful as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

The test comes less than two months after the North enraged the US and its allies by test firing a long-range ballistic missile.

The KNCA news agency, the regime's official mouthpiece, said: ‘We have successfully conducted another nuclear test on 25 May as part of the republic's measures to strengthen its nuclear deterrent.’

Officials in South Korea said they had detected a tremor consistent with those caused by an underground nuclear explosion. The country's Yonhap news agency reported that the North had test-fired three short-range missiles from a base on the east coast immediately after the nuclear test.

The underground atomic explosion, at 9.54am local time (0154 BST), created an earthquake measuring magnitude 4.5 in Kilju county in the country's north-east, reports said

Russia and the US are holding the first of three days of talks in Moscow on a new treaty aimed at reducing their stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

Senior diplomats need to hammer out a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start I) which expires in December.

The main sticking points are limits on the number of warheads and whether the treaty will cover bombers and missiles.

Analysts say a successful outcome would be a boost for relations before a visit to Moscow in July by US President Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev agreed last month to pursue a deal to replace the Cold War-era Start I, signed in 1991.

Tuesday's talks were being held behind closed doors at a 19th Century mansion in Moscow.

The Russian foreign ministry declined to comment on the talks and no press conferences have been planned, AFP news agency reported.

However, Russian news agencies quoted an unnamed foreign ministry official as saying: ‘We are seeking a constructive dialogue and hope that the optimism that is being expressed by both sides will feed through into practical results

The United States has a detailed plan for infiltrating Pakistan and securing its mobile arsenal of nuclear warheads if it appears the country is about to fall under the control of the Taliban, al-Qaeda or other Islamic extremists, American intelligence sources told Fox News.

According to the sources, the operation would be carried out by Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the ‘super-secret’ commando unit headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

The unit, which was instrumental in the assassination of al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq, is the military's chief terrorists hunting squad and has units now operating in Afghanistan on Pakistan's western border. But a secondary mission is to secure foreign nuclear arsenals - a role for which JSOC operatives have trained in Nevada, the sources said.

Fox News said in its report, published Friday, that the mission ‘has taken on added importance in recent months, as Islamic extremists have taken territory close to the capital of Islamabad and could destabilize Pakistan's shaky democracy.’

One of the sources told the news network, ‘We have plans to secure them (nuclear warheads) ourselves if things get out of hand; small units could seize them, disable them and then centralize them in a secure location.’

According to Fox News, a secret Defense Intelligence Agency document first disclosed in 2004 said Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal of 35 weapons. The document said it plans to more than double the arsenal by 2020.

‘What makes the Pakistan mission especially difficult is that the military has its missiles on Soviet-style mobile launchers and rail lines. US intelligence agencies, using satellite photos and communication intercepts, are constantly monitoring their whereabouts. Other warheads are kept in storage. US technical experts have visited Pakistan to advise the government on how to maintain and protect its arsenal,’ the report said

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told President Obama that nuclear sites in Pakistan's restive frontier province are ‘already partly’ in the hands of Islamic extremists, an Israeli journal has said, amid considerable anxiety among US pundits here over Washington's confidence in the security of the troubled nation's nuclear arsenal.

Claims about the high-level exchange between New Delhi and Washington were made in the Debka, a journal said to have close ties with Israeli intelligence, under the headline ‘Singh warns Obama: Pakistan is lost.’ The brief story said the Indian prime minister had named Pakistani nuclear sites in the areas which were Taliban-Qaida strongholds and said the sites are already partly in the hands of ‘Muslim extremists.’ A sub-head to the story said ‘India gets ready for a Taliban-ruled nuclear neighbor.’

There was no official word from either Washington or New Delhi about the exchanges, with India in the throes of an election and US winding down for the weekend. But US experts have been greatly perturbed in recent days about what they say is Washington's misplaced confidence in, and lackadaisical approach towards, Pakistan's nuclear assets. The disquiet comes amid reports that Pakistan is ramping up its nuclear arsenal even as the rest of the world is scaling it down.

‘It is quite disturbing that the administration is allowing Pakistan to quantitatively and qualitatively step up production of fissile material without as much as a public reproach,’ Robert Windrem, a visiting scholar with the Center for Law and Security in New York University and an expert on South Asia nuclear issues told ToI in an interview on Thursday. ‘Iraq and Iran did not get a similar concessions... and Pakistan has a much worse record of proliferation and security breaches than any other country in the world.’

U.S. President Barack Obama has sent a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that Israel not surprise the U.S. with an Israeli military operation against Iran. The message was conveyed by a senior American official who met in Israel with Netanyahu, ministers and other senior officials. Earlier, Netanyahu's envoy visited Washington and met with National Security Adviser James Jones and with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and discussed the dialogue Obama has initiated with Tehran.

The message from the American envoy to the prime minister reveals U.S. concern that Israel could lose patience and act against Iran. It is important to the Americans that they not be caught off guard and find themselves facing facts on the ground at the last minute.

Obama did not wait for his White House meeting with Netanyahu, scheduled for next Monday, to deliver his message, but rather sent it ahead of time with his envoy.

It may be assumed that Obama is disturbed by the positions Netanyahu expressed before his election vis-a-vis Tehran - for example, Netanyahu's statement that ‘If elected I pledge that Iran will not attain nuclear arms, and that includes whatever is necessary for this statement to be carried out.’ After taking office, on Holocaust Memorial Day Netanyahu said: ‘We will not allow Holocaust-deniers to carry out another holocaust.’

Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak do not oppose American dialogue with Tehran, but they believe it should be conducted within a limited window of time, making it clear to Iran that if it does not stop its nuclear program, severe sanctions will be imposed and other alternatives will be considered.

The American concern that Israel will attack Iran came up as early as last year, while president George W. Bush was still in office. As first reported in Haaretz, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Barak made a number of requests from Bush during the latter's visit to Jerusalem, which were interpreted as preparations for an aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities

Israel and the US should be focusing more on the Taliban’s rise in nuclear Pakistan than on Iran’s nuclear aims, more and more experts are saying.

‘Pakistan must move to the top of our strategic agenda,’ writes former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton. Similarly, ‘Nuclear Taliban/Al Qaida is a far more ominous threat than nuclear Iran could ever be,’ writes Byron Ellis, who heads the international Jethro Project consulting company.

Bolton, writing in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, warns that the U.S. must take ‘hard steps’ to prevent Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal from falling into the hands of Taliban. U.S. President Barack Obama’s statement of confidence last week that the nuclear arsenal will not fall to the terrorists is ‘not reassuring,’ Bolton writes, ‘in light of the Taliban’s military and political gains throughout Pakistan.’

There is a ‘tangible risk that several weapons could slip out of military control,’ Bolton warns. ‘Such weapons could then find their way to Al Qaeda or other terrorists, with obvious global implications.’

Even graver is the possibility that Pakistan’s government could collapse entirely, enabling ‘a well-organized, tightly disciplined group to seize control of the entire Pakistani government.’

‘To prevent either scenario, Pakistan must move to the top of our strategic agenda, albeit closely related to Afghanistan,’ he wrote. ‘Neither greater economic assistance, nor more civilian advisers upcountry, nor stronger democratic institutions will eliminate the strategic threat nearly soon enough… We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistan's military so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks; roll back Taliban advances; and, together with our increased efforts in Afghanistan, decisively defeat the militants on either side of the border.’

In a similar vein, Ellis writes that ‘Israel’s focus on Iran’s nuclear pursuit is misplaced; [Israel] should be focusing on the rise of the Taliban in nuclear Pakistan. Nuclear Taliban/Al Qaida is a far more ominous threat than nuclear Iran could ever be.’

‘History indicates that Iran is… a rational nation,’ Ellis argues, while ‘the Taliban and Al Qaida are brutally irrational and will not hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction against Israel. Thus, the Taliban/Al Qaeda nuclear threat dwarfs any imaginary Iranian threat. The international community, including Iran and Israel, must collaborate to reduce this symbolic and real threat, which could affect any nation. The international community cannot afford to commit another Bushism, expending war resources on the wrong threat. The United States needs a coalition of nations to confront the looming potential of a nuclear Taliban/Al Qaida and cannot afford any more distractions in the Middle East

The US national security adviser has told the BBC that Washington needs guarantees from Pakistan that its nuclear arsenal is safe from militants.

General James Jones said Pakistan's army had repeatedly told him the stockpile was ‘under control’, but ‘this is very much an ongoing topic’.

The Pakistani government is fighting to stop Taleban militants expanding their power in the north-west of the country.

In an interview with the BBC's North America editor, Justin Webb, Gen Jones said that ‘things are moving in a more positive direction’ in Pakistan, but that more assurances were needed about the safety of the country's nuclear weapons.

‘If Pakistan doesn't continue in the direction that it presently is and we're not successful there then, obviously, the nuclear question comes into view.’

‘We have received many assurances from the military that this is something they have under control but this is very much an ongoing topic,’ he added.

‘The world would like to know that on this question, that there's absolute security and transparency.’

The safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has become more of a concern to the US government since Taleban fighters began expanding their influence in northern Pakistan beyond the Swat valley, which they already largely control

Senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal may be at risk from a rising Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgency in the vulnerable country, the New York Times reported Monday.

Officials told the Times they are worried militants could take possession of the arms during transport or by potentially infiltrating atomic laborites or fuel-production plants, but emphasized that there was no reason to believe that the arsenal faced an imminent threat.

The Taliban's recent incursion into Buner, a key region 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad, heightened global fears as the whereabouts of all of Pakistan’s nuclear sites is unknown.

According to The Times, the insurgency has left U.S. officials less willing to accept blanket assurances from Pakistan that the weapons are safe.

‘We are largely relying on assurances, the same assurances we have been hearing for years,’ an official told the newspaper. ‘The worse things get, the more strongly they hew to the line, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got it under control.’ ‘

Pakistanis, however, have continued to rebuff American requests for more details about the location and security of the country's nuclear sites, the report noted.

Some of Pakistan's reluctance stemmed from longstanding concern that the U.S. might be tempted to seize or destroy the nation's arsenal if the insurgency spread further, according to the paper

Japan is facing growing calls to scrap its constitutional ban on nuclear weapons in the face of an increasing threat from North Korea.

A senior Japanese politician has called for Japan to discuss allowing nuclear weapons within its pacifist constitution.

Shoichi Nakagawa, former finance minister, suggested that Japan should examine the possibility of defending itself from potential attacks from North Korea by obtaining nuclear weapons.

‘It is common sense worldwide that in a purely military sense it is nuclear that can counteract nuclear,’ Mr. Nakagawa, a conservative politician, was quoted as saying by Kyodo News in a speech in his constituency in northern Japan.

Mr. Nakagawa also said he believed that North Korea was in possession of nuclear warheads and medium range Rodong missiles capable of being delivered to any part of Japan.

‘North Korea has taken a step toward a system whereby it can shoot without prior notice,’ said Mr. Nakagawa, who resigned as finance minister two months ago after appearing to be drunk at a Group of Seven press conference in Rome, ‘We have to discuss countermeasures.’

His comments were made after North Korea announced plans to resume its nuclear programme in protest against a United Nations statement condemning its satellite rocket launch earlier this month.

A nation with a famously pacifist constitution since the end of the Second World War, Japan currently endorses a three-point policy of not possessing, producing or allowing entry of nuclear weapons into the country.

On Monday, the Japanese government moved swiftly to distance itself from Mr. Nakagawa's comments, emphasizing its stance against possession of nuclear weapons

North Korea has ordered United Nations nuclear inspectors to ‘immediately’ leave the country as it prepares to restart its atomic weapons programme.

The rogue state has vowed to pull out of peace talks and bolster its nuclear deterrent after it was condemned by the United Nations Security Council on Monday for launching a new rocket.

Pyongyang has now ordered inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to leave the country as quickly as possible and to remove seals and cameras from the Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear reactor. Yongbyon is capable of processing weapons-grade plutonium.

North Korea told the IAEA it was ‘immediately ceasing all cooperation’ and ‘has decided to reactivate all facilities and go ahead with the reprocessing of spent fuel,’ according to a statement from the UN agency.

All 15 members of the UN Security Council signed a statement earlier this week condemning North Korea's missile launch and threatening to enforce existing sanctions more forcefully.

North Korea claims it launched a satellite on April 5, but critics say it was in fact a ballistic missile test. The US deployed two anti-missile warships to the waters off Japan in anticipation of the launch. Pyongyang said UN condemnation was an ‘unbearable insult’.

The fact that both Russia and China, traditionally sympathetic to Pyongyang, signed the statement was seen as a diplomatic coup

The United States Monday said it welcomed a conciliatory Iranian statement about possible new talks with world powers on its nuclear program. But the State Department says it remains skeptical that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful.

The Iranian state news media reported Monday that the Tehran government's chief nuclear negotiator had spoken by telephone with European Union chief diplomat Javier Solana over the weekend.

Jalili is said to have told Solana Iran would welcome dialogue on ‘constructive cooperation’ on the nuclear issue with the five permanent U.N. Security Council member countries and Germany, the so-called P-5 Plus 1.

Last week, the Obama administration said it was ready to take full part in the big power dialogue with Iran, breaking with the Bush administration which had insisted that Iran first suspend uranium enrichment

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to announce advances in his country's nuclear programme in a speech to mark national nuclear day.

His address in the city of Isfahan, home to a uranium conversion facility, comes a day after Tehran was invited by six world powers for fresh talks.

A top adviser to President Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that the Iranian government was considering the offer.

It insists its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes and is purely peaceful.

President Ahmadinejad is expected to give details of the latest developments in Iran's atomic programme in his speech in Isfahan.

On Wednesday, the US, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain announced they would ask EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to approach Iran with the offer of new talks.

In a statement, they said they ‘strongly urge Iran to take advantage of this opportunity to engage seriously with all of us in a spirit of mutual respect’.

Signaling a policy shift, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US would be a ‘full participant’ in talks.

‘Obviously we believe that pursuing very careful engagement on a range of issues that affect our interests and the interests of the world with Iran makes senses,’ she said

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to announce Iran has mastered the final stage of nuclear fuel production when the country celebrates its National Nuclear Day on Thursday.

‘I will have good nuclear news for the respectful Iranian nation tomorrow (April 9),’ Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday in a televised speech at the central city of Isfahan.

Analysts expect he will announce that Iran has completed the long process of uranium enrichment, enabling the country to produce its own fuel.

‘A possible announcement will be production of natural uranium pellets for Iran's Arak heavy water reactor and also production of fuel rods and assembling rods into bundles,’ said an analyst, who asked not to be named. ‘It is the final stage in a long process to produce nuclear fuel.’

The nuclear fuel cycle includes mining and milling of uranium ore, uranium enrichment, fabrication and use of nuclear fuel, reprocessing of used nuclear fuel, and disposal or management of radioactive waste or unreprocessed spent fuel.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its February 19 report said it could not verify Iran's planned Arak heavy water reactor was being designed only for peaceful uses. Tehran says the complex will be geared to produce solely isotopes for medical care and agriculture.

Iran's Students News agency ISNA said Ahmadinejad would inaugurate a nuclear fuel fabrication facility in central Iran.

‘This factory produces nuclear fuel pellets and rods,’ ISNA reported on Wednesday without giving a source.

Iran's nuclear chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh said in 2007 the Islamic state had produced and tested nuclear fuel pellets of enriched uranium

Iran criticized on Monday U.S. President Barack Obama for saying Tehran posed a threat with its nuclear program and urged Washington and other countries possessing atom weapons to dismantle their arsenals.

‘It seems that the repetition of the past U.S. administration's accusations [against Iran] would be in contrast with the slogan of change [by Obama],’ Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told a news conference. ‘And such a thing - nuclear armament - does not exist in Iran to be inferred as a threat.’

Qashqavi made the comments a day after Obama, who is seeking to engage Iran diplomatically in a sharp policy shift from George W. Bush's approach, set out his vision for ridding the world of such arms.

North Korea launched a rocket on Sunday, in defiance of warnings from the U.S. and its Asian neighbors, saying it was putting a communications satellite called Kwangmyongsong-2 into orbit. Analysts surmise that the launch was effectively a test of a ballistic missile designed to carry a warhead as far as the U.S. state of Alaska.

Delivering a speech in Prague given new urgency by North Korea's rocket launch, Obama also said the United States would go ahead with plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe as long as Iran posed a threat with its nuclear activities.

Qashqavi on Monday stressed the lack of any links between Tehran's and Pyongyang's missile programs, and urged countries in that ‘sensitive region’ to stay calm and apply their efforts to securing peace and stability.

‘We believe all countries in the sensitive region of East Asia must maintain their efforts to help securing peace and stability there,’ he told a news conference.

‘Especially the current global economic crisis requires that differences in that sensitive region turn into peace and friendship.’

Tehran insists the nature of its missile program is completely peaceful and for scientific purposes. ‘Our missile program is quite separate and independent from North Korea's programs ... There is no link between these two programs,’ Qashqavi insisted

U.S. President Barack Obama is appealing to other nations to join in an effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons. In Prague, the Czech capital, Mr. Obama said the United States will lead the effort, but cannot do it alone.

The president went straight to the European public to urge support for a difficult task. He told a crowd of about 20,000 people in a city square near Prague castle that it is time for the nations of the world to join in a common cause. ‘Today, I state clearly and with conviction, America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,’ he said.

He said all states with nuclear weapons should be involved. But he said it is clearly fitting that the United States takes the initiative. ‘As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it,’ he said.

He said the process should have three components: reduce existing nuclear stockpiles, prevent further proliferation, and protect vulnerable nuclear materials to keep them from falling into the wrong hands.

The president spoke just hours after North Korea defied the international community and launched a long-range rocket. He called the launch a provocation, and said it underscores the need for action. ‘Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons,’ he said.

Mr. Obama also spoke about Iran's nuclear intentions, saying they pose a real threat. He said that is why the United States has proposed a missile-defense system with components in Poland and the Czech Republic. ‘As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost effective and proven. If the Iranian threat is eliminated we will have a stronger basis for security and the driving force for missile defense construction in Europe will be removed,’ he said

Russia and the US are to reopen negotiations about reducing their nuclear warheads, presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama have said.

Mr. Obama said earlier there were very real differences between Washington and Moscow, but that there was also a broad set of common interests.

The announcement came on the fringes of the G20 summit of world leaders which is convening in London.

Mr. Medvedev has invited his American counterpart to visit Moscow in July - an invitation Mr. Obama has accepted.

Russia and the US have also agreed to discuss ‘mutual international co-operation’, the two presidents said.

After their meeting, Mr. Medvedev said he viewed prospects for future bilateral relations ‘with optimism’.

In a joint statement, the two leaders said they had ordered nuclear negotiators to report first results in July.

Mr. Obama said the US and Russia would be in a much stronger position to strengthen the non-proliferation treaty if they were to lead by example and reduce their own nuclear arsenals.

It is hoped the talks will produce a new arms control treaty to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) that expires at the end of the year.

Agreed in 1991, Start limits the world's two largest nuclear arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads

US President Barack Obama and his South Korean counterpart have agreed a ‘stern, united response’ must follow any rocket launch by North Korea.

Mr. Obama and President Lee Myung-bak discussed the issue on the sidelines of the G20 summit in London.

North Korea says the rocket will launch a satellite between 4-8 April, but critics suspect it is a missile test.

North Korea has threatened Japan with immediate retaliation if it makes any effort to intercept the rocket.

North Korea has also warned that any attempts to impose UN sanctions would be seen as a hostile act.

The US and South Korean leaders met before global talks on the economic crisis got under way.

‘They agreed on the need for a stern, united response from the international community if North Korea launches a long-range rocket, and to work together in the course of that,’ the South Korean presidential office said in a statement.

There was no immediate word on the launch from the White House, but President Obama told journalists that South Korea was one of ‘America's closest allies and greatest friends’.

Ahead of the G20, President Lee also met Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso in London to discuss the issue.

They affirmed their intention to refer Pyongyang to the UN Security Council for sanctions if a launch is carried out - a move backed by the US.

Mr. Lee stressed the need for a ‘united response’ among world leaders to the threat from the North

The primary imperative for the United States and President Barack Obama is to put an end to Iran's nuclear race, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said before his swearing-in Tuesday, adding that if the US failed to do so Israel would be forced to resort to a military strike on the Islamic Republic's nuclear installations.

‘The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,’ Netanyahu told The Atlantic. The Iranian drive for a nuclear weapon was a ‘hinge of history,’ he said, emphasizing that all of ‘Western civilization’ was responsible for preventing an Iranian bomb.

‘You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs,’ Netanyahu said of the Iranian regime. ‘When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.’

Netanyahu suggested that Israeli preemptive strikes against perceived threats were the result of the Jewish people learning from a long history of grappling against those who threatened their collective existence. He cited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls to ‘wipe Israel off the map,’ as well as a recent remark by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to the effect that Israel was a ‘cancerous tumor.’

However, despite Iran's singling-out of Israel, he said, the rest of the world would be well advised to take the threat emanating from Teheran seriously. He voiced support for Obama's strategy of engaging Iran in dialogue, as long as the negotiations worked swiftly to convince Iran to relinquish its nuclear program.

‘How you achieve this goal is less important than achieving it,’ he said, although he was not optimistic regarding the chances that dialogue could persuade Iran to reconsider its interests. Nevertheless, he said, economic sanctions could still make a difference. ‘I think the Iranian economy is very weak, which makes Iran susceptible to sanctions that can be ratcheted up by a variety of means,’ he said.

Iran's leadership, Netanyahu added, was not immune to pressure, but fanatic elements made it extremely dangerous to risk relying on economic sanctions alone

The US has deployed two warships with anti-missile capabilities in the waters off Japan as tensions mount over North Korea's plans to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile capable of striking Alaska.

The deployment comes as America, Japan and South Korea threaten North Korea with 'serious consequences' if it proceeds with plans to conduct the missile test in defiance of a 2006 UN resolution.

North Korea, which has informed international agencies of its plan to fire the missile between April 4 and 8, says the launch is a ‘satellite test’ which it is entitled to make under international law.

Recent satellite imagery has shown that the North Korea has now assembled two stages of the three-stage Taepodong-2 missile on a launch pad in the country's northeast. Experts estimate that missile could be ready to fire within four days.

Japan has threatened to shoot down the missile if it crosses over Japanese territory, a move which Pyongyang has already said it would consider an ‘act of war’.

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has warned any launch would threaten to end the six-party talks over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme. The talks have been stalled since December in a dispute over how to verify its disarmament.

‘This provocative action, in violation of the United Nations mandate, will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences,’ she said while on a visit to Mexico, warning that the US would put the issue before the UN Security Council for additional sanctions.

It is unclear if China, Pyongyang's only major ally which has held talks with senior figures from both North and South Korea in the last week, would support a US move to deepen sanctions

Director of Military Intelligence Major-General Amos Yadlin spoke before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday and warned yet again against Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Iran is biding its time on manufacturing a nuclear weapon for diplomatic reasons, he said, adding that Israel could still prevent the Islamic republic from gaining atomic capabilities.

‘It all boils down to fissionable matter,’ he explained. ‘The Iranians have finished developing surface-to-surface missile which can carry a nuclear warhead and Tehran has mastered uranium enrichment technologies and can pursue nuclear military capabilities, but ultimately it is a decision the Iranian regime has to make.

‘The Iranian strategy is not to get one nuclear bomb as soon as they can, so as not to give the world a reason to act against them,’ said Yadlin. ‘They are trying to get within short term reach of a bomb and they are enriching uranium in a rate meant to make it very hard to incriminate them.’

Tehran's uranium enrichment rate, added the MI chief, stands at 4.5% – below nuclear weapon grade.

‘They have 4000 centrifuges in a facility monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). They have the knowledge to enrich uranium to 93%, making it weapon grade. The rate they are going, they will only need a few months to go from 4.5% to 93%.’

Britain faces a renewed threat of attack by terrorists with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, a major new government report states.

An increase in the theft and smuggling of dangerous materials means that terrorists are more likely to be able to use weapons such as a dirty bomb, according to the report.

The warning comes in the Government's counter-terrorism strategy document called Contest 2, the most significant redrafting of the Government's fight against violent extremists for six years.

The report warns: ‘Contemporary terrorist organizations aspire to use chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear weapons.

‘Changing technology and the theft and smuggling of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive materials make this aspiration more realistic than it may have been in the recent past.’

Launching the report, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said: ‘Failed states, conflict and technology contribute to our concern about the threat, including what we know about what terrorists want to do and are planning to do.’

The report adds that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have allowed terrorists to develop more sophisticated types of improvised bombs.

‘Terrorists have also developed new types of explosives and new ways of using them,’ the report says. ‘Technology has developed in conflict areas overseas and is rapidly shared by terrorist organizations around the world.’

Britain is at most risk from the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan and from groups associated with al-Qaeda in North Africa, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iraq, as well as ‘self-starting networks or even lone individuals motivated by an ideology similar to that of al-Qaeda,’ according to the report

There is nothing in the Iranian nuclear program to suggest there is an effort to develop a military component, a Russian defense official said.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters that Moscow did not believe Iran was attempting to develop a nuclear-weapons program, RIA Novosti reports.

‘The Russian Federation continues to believe that there are no signs of the (Iranian nuclear) program being switched toward military goals and that it is of an exclusively peaceful nature,’ he said.

Iran is plagued by sweeping economic sanctions endorsed by the United States in part due to its controversial nuclear program.

A February report by the regulatory International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had slowed its enrichment activity, but it found the Iranian nuclear program ambiguous in its intent despite years of monitoring.

Russia, however, has offered assistance for Iran to develop a civilian nuclear program without violating international regulations.

Russia may freeze the sale of state-of-the-art S-300 missile systems to Iran, a Moscow source was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying Tuesday.

‘Such a possibility cannot be ruled out. A decision on this issue should be made at the political level, because the contract has moved outside the purely commercial framework,’ an unnamed source told the news agency. He emphasized that the contract was signed in 2005, but that delivery of the anti-missile systems had still not taken place.

The planned delivery of the S-300 to Iran has been met with fierce criticism from both Israel and the United States.

The news came as the US and Russia announced efforts to improve their relations.

There are indications that US President Barack Obama is reconsidering placing a controversial US missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

In a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Obama said Russia's impeding of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons would reduce the need for a US missile-defense system in Europe.

The project is meant to counter potential missile attacks from Iran or North Korea.

Moscow opposes this project, because it fears the radars could threaten its defense and be used to spy on Russia.

It is possible Russia is reconsidering the sale of the S-300 system in order to please Washington and persuade the US to backtrack on the radar deployment

The stand-off over the disputed Iranian nuclear program cannot be resolved without the engagement of Iran's Arab neighbors, United Nations atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Monday.

He said a U.S. policy turnabout towards direct talks with Iran has boosted chances of a peaceful solution but the involvement of Arab states was crucial. Arabs have historically mistrusted Iran but are split over how to deal with it.

‘I find it surprising that the Arab countries are not engaged in dialogue between Iran and the West. The neighbors so far have been sitting on the fence. Any solution to the Iranian issue has to engage the neighbors,’ ElBaradei said.

Middle East analysts say Gulf Arab states had little love for ex-U.S. President George W. Bush's hawkish, no-negotiations stance on Iran, fearing it could lead to a ruinous regional war.

But now they worry that any U.S. rapprochement with Iran could ultimately produce a nuclear-armed, non-Arab, Shi'ite Muslim superpower in their back yard and squeeze Sunni Muslim Arabs between two non-Arab nuclear power hubs, Iran and Israel.

Any collective Arab action on Iran, however, appears mired in chronic divisions over other issues including a 2002 Saudi-sponsored peace offer to Israel, opposed by some hard-line or militant Arabs backed by Iran.

ElBaradei also said a Middle East security structure drawing in Iran, all Arabs and Israel, believed to have the region's only nuclear arsenal, would be an indispensable part of any Middle East peace arrangement

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak urged North Korea on Sunday to return to dialogue with the international community and abandon a planned missile launch which threatens to push regional tensions to the brink.

North Korea has claimed it preparing to launch a telecommunications satellite, the Kwangmyungsung No 2, but South Korea, the United States and other countries believe it is actually planning to test-fire the Taepodong-2, a long-range ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear weapon as far as Alaska.

''What protects North Korea are not nuclear weapons and missiles, but cooperation with the South and the international community,’ Lee said in a speech marking an national uprising against the 1910-1945 Japanese occupation of the peninsula.

‘The door to unconditional dialogue remains open,’ he said. ‘The South and North should hold a dialogue at an early date.’

His remarks came before urgent talks were held on Monday between senior generals from the North and United Nations (UN) Command at the North-South border over the launch, the first such negotiations in six years. The talks were requested by North Korea ‘to discuss tension reduction’, the UN command said in a statement

Diplomats say Syria has revealed that a suspected nuclear site destroyed by Israeli warplanes in 2007 is now a missile facility.

The diplomats, who requested anonymity, said Syrian nuclear chief Ibrahim Othman spoke at a closed-door meeting Tuesday of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Othman rejected an IAEA report last week about particles of man-made uranium found at the al-Kibar facility. Syria maintains the uranium, which can be used in a nuclear reactor, came from the Israeli weapons used to destroy the site. The IAEA said that was not likely.

The IAEA said last year that al-Kibar had ‘features’ characteristic of a nuclear site

A number of U.S. institutions with licenses to hold nuclear material reported to the Energy Department in 2004 that the amount of material they held was less than agency records indicated.

But rather than investigating the discrepancies, Energy officials wrote off significant quantities of nuclear material from the department's inventory records.

Auditors found that Energy could not accurately account for the quantities and locations of nuclear material at 15 out of 40, or 37%, of facilities reviewed.

Iranian and Russian nuclear officials have begun a test run of Iran's first nuclear power plant.

The test - carried out in front of international journalists - involves the reactor being switched on and loaded with dummy rods made of lead.

The non-nuclear material is meant to imitate the enriched uranium needed to run the Russian-built plant at Bushehr.

The test is likely to fuel fears in the West about Iran's nuclear ambitions, though Tehran says they are peaceful.

Operations of the 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor have been long delayed, although the reactor is expected to start generating power later this year.

‘The construction stage of the nuclear power plant is over, we are now in the pre-commissioning stage, which is a combination of complex procedures,’ said Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's nuclear agency.

‘Today we visited the reactor and saw fuel rod imitators being loaded in the active zone,’ he added during a visit to Bushehr with his Iranian counterpart Gholam Reza Aghazadeh.

The official Irna news agency reported that a date for the plant to become operational would be announced during the pre-commissioning process

Modernization of Russia's strategic nuclear forces is a top priority for the government, a senior Cabinet official said Wednesday.

Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said that upgrading ground, sea and air components of the nation's strategic forces is costly but necessary.

"It's expensive, it's very expensive, but there is no other way," Ivanov told lawmakers in the lower house of parliament. "We will develop and modernize our strategic deterrent forces."

North Korea has recently completed the deployment of new medium-range missiles capable of reaching more parts of Asia, South Korea says.

The communist nation also bolstered its special forces and its navy, a Ministry of Defense white paper said.

North Korea and its 1.19 million troops constituted a ‘direct and serious threat’, the report said.

The white paper comes amid speculation that Pyongyang could be planning to test-fire a new long-range missile.

It also comes amid heightened tension between the two Koreas, over South Korean leader Lee Myung-bak's decision to link economic aid to progress on denuclearisation.

Observers believe Pyongyang could test-fire its Taepodong-2 missile in a bid to improve its bargaining power with the new US administration over the stalled aid-for-disarmament deal.

The industry journal, Jane's Defense Weekly, is reporting that its analysis of satellite imagery suggests a test launch could take place within the next few days

The United Nations nuclear agency says it has found more traces of uranium at a Syrian site that Israel bombed because of suspicions it was a covert nuclear plant.

A report to members of the International Atomic Energy Agency board in Geneva Thursday said the uranium was processed and not naturally occurring. It also gave only a ‘low probability’ that the element came from missiles.

Syria argued that traces of uranium found there were from Israeli weaponry used to bomb the al-Kibar site in 2007.

Damascus has long denied the facility was related to nuclear activities, a charge leveled by the United States. The IAEA said last year that al-Kibar had ‘features’ characteristic of a nuclear site.

In a separate report, the IAEA noted Thursday that Iran continues to enrich uranium, in defiance of international demands

Expressing fears about cross-border terrorism in the wake of the November 26 Mumbai attack and keeping a close eye on China's military expansion, India announced plans this week to hike its defense budget by 34% to 1.4 trillion rupees (US$30 billion) and last week revealed that its project to build three nuclear-powered submarines is nearing completion.

‘Things are in the final stage now in the Advanced Technology Vessel [nuclear-submarines] project. There were [mainly technical] bottlenecks earlier ... they are over now,’ Defense Minister A K Antony said on February 12.

The Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) project is part of India's $3 billion plan to build five submarines and complete what it calls a ‘triad’ of nuclear weapon launch capability - from air, land and sea. India is concurrently developing the K-15 ballistic missile, which can be nuclear-tipped and launched from submarines.

Defense sources have told Asia Times Online that New Delhi has been actively seeking out assistance from France in the implementation of the ATV project, and that Russian engineers are already involved. The sources said that the sea trials of the nuclear-powered submarines should begin this month and that the submarines should be operational within the next three years.

The secretive ATV nuclear backed ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) project began in the late 1970's and is being implemented at a secret dry dock in Visakhapatnam, India's Eastern Naval command base. Observers have said that the submarines are a critical addition to India's weapons capabilities.

In a grim reminder of the possible dangers facing India from the sea, India's Naval chief Admiral Suresh Mehta warned this week that terrorists could smuggle ‘dirty’ nuclear bombs via the nation's ports as they lack adequate security measures. Terrorists also used a sea route to infiltrate Mumbai.

Nuclear-powered submarines with their greater speed, power, range and the length of time they can stay submerged compared to conventional diesel-electric submarines are effective for sudden strikes as well as fast and stealthy protection from attacks

North Korea has apparently started assembling its longest-range missile and it could be ready for launch late this month, a South Korean newspaper said Friday.

Chosun Ilbo, quoting an unidentified Seoul government official, said the first and second stages of the Taepodong-2 missile had been transported by train to the launch site at Musudan-ri on the northeast coast.

‘It seems that the first- and second-stage rockets are now being assembled,’ the official was quoted as saying.

The missile is then expected to be moved to the launch pad, put in an upright position and fuelled for test-firing, the official said, adding that the earliest it could be launched is February 25.

The date is the first anniversary of the inauguration of South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak. The North views Lee as a bitter enemy because he has taken a firmer stance on cross-border relations than his predecessors.

Chosun said increased activities by vehicles and people had been spotted at Musudan-ri but the missile is inside a plant, out of sight of satellites.

It was not possible to confirm the report. South Korean authorities refuse to comment on intelligence matters

On Full Alert: Russia can launch ICBMs at minute's notice - missile forces chief*

Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in service with the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) could be launched within a minute if Russia's security is threatened, the SMF commander has said.

"Over 6,000 servicemen are on 24/7 combat duty, and at least 96% of all missile systems are ready for deployment within several dozen seconds.

It is the highest readiness level among the components of the Russian nuclear triad," Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov said in an interview published by the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

At present, six types of silo-based and mobile ICBM systems of the fourth and the fifth generation, including the heavy Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan), capable of carrying 10 warheads, and the Topol-M (Stalin) systems, are on combat duty with the SMF.

According to open sources, the total arsenal of Russia's SMF comprises 538 ICBMs, including 306 SS-25 Topol (Sickle) missiles and 56 SS-27 Topol-M missiles.

US intelligence does not know whether Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons, but at a minimum Tehran is keeping that option open, the new US intelligence director said.

Retired admiral Dennis Blair said US intelligence assesses that Iran has not restarted nuclear weapons design and weaponization work that it halted in late 2003.

‘Although we do not know whether Iran currently intends to develop nuclear weapons, we assess Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop them,’ he said in an annual threat assessment to Congress.

The assessment essentially reaffirmed a 2007 intelligence report that at the time was widely seen as a setback to international efforts to put pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program.

Blair's predecessor, retired admiral Mike McConnell, later said it had been a mistake to make public the key judgments of the intelligence assessment because it suggested Iran was no longer pursuing nuclear weapons.

Asked about it at a Senate hearing, Blair acknowledged it was a difficult question to deal with in a public setting.

‘I can say at this point that Iran is clearly developing all the components of a deliverable nuclear weapons program – fissionable material, nuclear weaponizing capability and the means to deliver it,’ he said.

‘Whether they take it all the way to nuclear weapons and become a nuclear power will depend a great deal on their own internal decisions,’ he said

Russia and India have agreed deals totaling $700m by which Moscow will supply uranium pellets to Delhi, Indian and Russian officials say.

Russia's state-owned Atomenergoprom said its TVEL arm had signed the deals on Wednesday with Indian officials.

The deal follows the decision by the Nuclear Suppliers Group in September last year to lift restrictions on uranium deliveries to India.

Atomenergoprom says the deals are the first long-term nuclear fuel contracts signed with India in recent years.

A statement released by the Indian department of atomic energy said that deals comprise the long-term supply of 2,000 tones of natural uranium pellets for India's pressurized Heavy Water Reactors, in addition to another contract for Low Enriched Uranium pellets for Boiling Water Reactor units operated by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India.

The statement said that imported natural uranium from Russia would be used under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

It said that the deal with Russia was the second major agreement India had made relating to the supply of nuclear fuel since the Nuclear Suppliers Group allowed international civil nuclear trade with India

Russia plans to start up a nuclear reactor at Iran's Bushehr plant by the end of the year, Interfax news agency quoted the head of Russia's state nuclear corporation as saying on Thursday.

‘If there are no unforeseen events ... then the launch will go according to the timetable,’ Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko was quoted as saying. ‘The launch is scheduled for this year.’

A spokesman for Rosatom said Kiriyenko was talking about the so called ‘technical’ start-up, which will be the first time the reactor is fully switched on and aims to test its systems before electricity is supplied to the grid.

The launch of the Bushehr plant's nuclear reactor has been delayed numerous times. Russian and Iranian officials have given different dates for the start-up.

Russia has already delivered nuclear fuel under a $1 billion contract to build the Bushehr plant on the Gulf coast in southwest Iran

North Korea's military vowed Monday to keep atomic weapons until the United States removes its nuclear threat, reiterating a tough stance amid stalled disarmament talks.

‘The DPRK (North Korea) will never 'dismantle its nuclear weapons' unless nukes in South Korea are dismantled to remove the nuclear threat from the US,’ a spokesman for the North's General Chiefs of Staff was quoted as saying by the official Korea Central News Agency.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency, which monitors media in the communist state, said the spokesman's statement was carried on state television.

The spokesman said denuclearization of the Korean peninsula does not only mean disarmament of the North but should also include verification of alleged nuclear facilities in South Korea, according to KCNA.

‘There are no nuclear weapons in South Korea,’ defense ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae told Yonhap.

The foreign ministry in Pyongyang, staking out a tough position for the incoming US administration, took a similar stance last month.

It said it may not give up its atomic weaponry even if ties with Washington are established, until the US completely removes its nuclear threat

The civilian nuclear deal between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States may fulfill the formers long-term desire to develop alternative energy sources and the latter’s intention to promote a model for peaceful nuclear energy that sends a hint to Iran.

The Jan. 16 deal, one of the last diplomatic decisions of the Bush administration, is known after Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, which establishes a legal framework for commerce in civilian nuclear energy technology and material

Iran will have enough enriched uranium to make a single nuclear weapon later this year, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) predicts.

The North Korean military declared an ‘all-out confrontational posture’ against South Korea on Saturday as an American scholar said he was told by officials in North Korea that it had ‘weaponized’ 30.8 kilograms of plutonium.

South Korea ordered its military to heighten vigilance along the border with North Korea, the world's most heavily armed frontier, said a spokesman of the South Korean military Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

North Korea's saber-rattling oratory against the South has been common, especially after Lee Myung Bak came to office as president of South Korea a year ago vowing to take a tougher stance on the North in a reversal from 10 years of his liberal predecessors' efforts to engage Pyongyang with economic aid. But what made the threat on Saturday unusual was the way it was delivered: a statement read on North Korean television by a uniformed spokesman for the North Korean military Joint Chiefs of Staff.

‘Strong military measures will follow from our revolutionary armed force,’ the spokesman, a colonel, said, according to Yonhap, South Korea's national news agency, which monitors North Korean broadcasts…

Thirty kilograms of plutonium, the amount North Korea declared to the United States last year, is enough to make four or five bombs, according to nuclear experts. Reuters reported that the American scholar, Selig Harrison, a North Korean expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, said at a news conference in Beijing that North Korean officials had told him in the past week that the weapons made from the plutonium ‘cannot be inspected.’

Harrison just returned from a trip to Pyongyang, where he met North Korean officials, including Li Gun, the Foreign Ministry official in charge of relations with Washington. Harrison said the North Koreans would not say how the plutonium had been ‘weaponized’ but indicated it was used for missile warheads. Harrison said he could not vouch for the credibility of North Korea's claim, Reuters said.

South Korea had no immediate reaction to North Korea's latest threat or to Harrison's report.

If the claim is true, it will further complicate Washington's efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program

There were growing fears in Israel last night that Hamas missiles could threaten its top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona.

Rocket attacks from Gaza have forced Israelis to flee in ever greater numbers and military chiefs have been shaken by the size and sophistication of the militant group’s arsenal…

Israeli officials say that Hamas has also acquired dozens of Iranian-made Fajr-3 missiles with an even longer range. Many fear that as the group acquires ever more sophisticated weaponry it is only a matter of time before the nuclear installation at Dimona, 20 miles east of Beersheba, falls within its sights. Dimona houses Israel’s only nuclear reactor and is believed to be where nuclear warheads are stored.

‘Maybe Hamas will get a big present from Iran or Hezbollah, a few good long-range missiles and they’ll use it,’ said Limor Brina, 40, a jeweler who is learning the lessons of life under rocket threat: she sleeps with her clothes on and heads to a shelter whenever the siren sounds.

Israel’s worst nightmare is that soon all its cities will be within range either of the Hezbollah Katyushas arrayed on the Lebanese border to the north or the increasingly sophisticated missiles stockpiled by Hamas to the south. Both groups have links to Israel’s archenemy Iran.

Israel has said that its aim is to smash Hamas’s rocket-firing capability but also to topple the hardline Islamist regime that seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007 after bloody street battles with its secular rivals Fatah. Until that goal is achieved, many in Beersheba are packing their bags and heading for Tel Aviv or Eilat

The number of test launches for Russia's Bulava ICBM will be increased from three or four to at least five next year, a senior Navy official said on Tuesday.

The intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of breaching anti-missile defense systems, failed a test launch from a submarine earlier on Tuesday.

‘In connection with today's less than successful test launch, the overall number of Bulava test-launches in 2009 will be increased from three to four to a minimum of five,’ the official said adding that telemetry and trajectory measurements of the latest launch would be analyzed before the end of this year.

A source at the Belomorsk naval base said earlier in the day that the submerged launch from the Dmitry Donskoi strategic nuclear-powered submarine in the White Sea, off Russia's northwest coast, had been unsuccessful. The missile had been targeting the Kura firing range in Russia's Far Eastern Kamchatka region.

‘The launch was a failure,’ the official said. ‘The crew performed well. The missile left the tube, but went off course due to a malfunction after the first stage separation.’

A naval commission will investigate the cause of the failure, Navy spokesman Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said.