United Nations, Nuclear | featured news

North Korea on Thursday demanded the lifting of United Nations sanctions and an end to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises as preconditions for starting dialogue.

North Korea threatened the United States on Thursday with a preemptive nuclear strike, raising the level of rhetoric while the U.N. Security Council considers new sanctions against the reclusive country.

The United States set a March deadline on Thursday for Iran to start cooperating in substance with a U.N. nuclear agency investigation, saying it would otherwise urge reporting the issue to the U.N. Security Council.

Iran is ready to double the output at its underground uranium enrichment facility, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency says.

Iran is believed to have increased the number of centrifuges in an underground nuclear plant by nearly a third in three months, diplomats say, underlining the tough task facing major powers pressing Tehran to curb its atomic activity.

North Korea has made significant progress in the construction of a light water atomic reactor over the past year, a U.N. watchdog report said, a facility that may extend Pyongyang's capacity to produce material for nuclear weapons.

Iran has doubled the number of uranium enrichment machines it has in an underground bunker, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday, showing Tehran's defiance towards Western pressure to stop its atomic work and the threat of Israeli attack.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog has set up a specialized Iran Task Force to handle its inspections and investigation of the Islamic state's disputed atomic activities, an internal document showed on Wednesday.

U.N. nuclear inspectors displayed new satellite imagery on Wednesday indicating that some small buildings had been dismantled and other possible clean-up work undertaken at an Iranian military site they want to visit.

The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency said Tuesday that he has reached a deal with Iran on probing its suspected work on nuclear weapons and that the agreement will "be signed quite soon."