Nuclear Weapon | featured news

An Iranian envoy voiced hope on Monday that talks with the U.N. nuclear watchdog in mid-May would help resolve "outstanding issues", but he again ruled out any halt to Tehran's controversial uranium enrichment program.

In what would be a significant concession, Obama administration officials say they could support allowing Iran to maintain a crucial element of its disputed nuclear program if Tehran took other major steps to curb its ability to develop a nuclear bomb.

Indeed, he suspects that "New Delhi's emphasis on China is more about slighting Pakistan than competing with China." China is already modernising its own nuclear-armed medium- and intermediate-range missile systems that could be used to target India. But as Taylor Fravel notes, "India and China have similar nuclear doctrines, as both emphasize no first use and achieving deterrence through development of a secure second-strike."

India announced plans Wednesday to test launch a new long-range missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as the Chinese capital Beijing for the first time. Officials and defense experts said if the tests of the Agni-V missile proved successful, it would mark a significant improvement in India’s nuclear deterrent capability, and would strengthen its hand in a hostile neighborhood, sandwiched between nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and China.

After a 15-month break, Iran and the world's major powers are about to start a new round of nuclear talks. During the last round of negotiations held in January 2011, Iran and the world powers agreed on almost nothing. In recent weeks, negotiators struggled even to agree upon where they should meet for this new round - for a while, Iran held out for Baghdad as a venue.

The United States will not go forward with planned food aid to North Korea, the White House said on Friday, after the impoverished nation unsuccessfully tried to launch a long-range missile which Washington had warned would have consequences.

North Korea said its much hyped long-range rocket launch failed on Friday, in a very rare and embarrassing public admission of failure by the hermit state and a blow for its new young leader who faces international outrage over the attempt.

A joke circulating among officials in Beijing pretty much underlines the bind China is in over North Korea's plans to send a satellite into space. North Korea's young ruler Kim Jong-un phones a Chinese leader to tell him about timing of the planned rocket launch. "When will it be?" asks the Chinese leader. Kim replies: "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four..."

Iran's nuclear chief signaled Tehran's envoys may bring a compromise offer to the talks this week with world powers: Promising to eventually stop producing its most highly enriched uranium, while not totally abandoning its ability to make nuclear fuel.

North Korea could carry out a controversial rocket launch this week, straining further the ties between the nuclear-armed state and other countries in the region.