Nuclear | featured news

Saudia Arabia would move quickly to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran successfully tests an atomic bomb, according to a report. Citing an unidentified Saudi Arabian source, the Times newspaper in the U.K. (which operates behind a paywall) said that the kingdom would seek to buy ready-made warheads and also begin its own program to enrich weapons-grade uranium.

Construction of a nuclear plant was last approved a year before the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.

After two days of rare and intensive talks in Tehran, senior U.N. nuclear officials may have felt they were finally making headway towards getting Iran to address suspicions that it is bent on developing the ability to make atom bombs.

Panetta won't dispute a report that he believes Israel may attack Iran this spring in an attempt to set back Iran's nuclear program.

The Japanese government's worst-case scenario at the height of the nuclear crisis last year warned that tens of millions of people, including Tokyo residents, might need to leave their homes, according to a report obtained by the Associated Press. But fearing widespread panic, officials kept the report secret.

North Korea says that before Kim Jong Il's death the United States offered to provide food aid if Pyongyang halted its uranium enrichment program. North Korea responded angrily to the offer Wednesday, with a Foreign Ministry spokesman accusing Washington of "politicizing" food shipments.

Japan says it will soon require atomic reactors to be shut down after 40 years of use to improve safety following the nuclear crisis set off by last year's tsunami....

European governments have agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian oil, EU diplomats said on Wednesday, dealing a blow to Tehran that crowns new Western sanctions months before an Iranian election.

Iran warned the United States Tuesday not to return a U.S. aircraft carrier "to the Persian Gulf region." U.S. officials rejected the "warning" and another recent threat from Tehran that it could close the Strait of Hormuz. The White House and U.S. State Department called the latest threats signs that sanctions against Iran, the result of a standoff over its nuclear activities, are working.

Firefighters extinguished a massive fire aboard a docked Russian nuclear submarine Friday as some crew members remained inside, officials said, giving assurances that there was no radiation leak and the vessel's nuclear-tipped missiles were not on board....