NORTH KOREA may have enough weapons-grade plutonium to make up to half a dozen nuclear bombs, the head of the UN atomic watchdog agency said yesterday in another warning about the reclusive regime’s secretive nuclear programme.

THE world faces a “race against time” to prevent nuclear terror, the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog chief said yesterday, citing an extensive illicit market in nuclear and radioactive materials after the September 11 attacks.

LIBYA has agreed to open its nuclear activities to pervasive inspection by the UN atomic agency as early as next week, a key step toward honouring a promise to scrap its nuclear weapons programme.

With a deadline fast approaching, European Union foreign ministers today reiterated calls for Iran to meet its previous commitment to suspend uranium enrichment and allow spot checks of its nuclear programme.

Iran today turned over to the UN nuclear agency documents on its past atomic energy activities, but the dossier apparently did not include the origin of traces of weapons-grade uranium found in the country.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell is continuing his submission to the United Nations Security Council that Washington has evidence that Iraq is trying to make weapons of mass destruction.

By Christopher Torchia, Seoul

IRAQ'S nuclear arms dossier appears to echo Saddam Hussein's claims that his country poses no atomic threat, but only an exhaustive analysis and new inspections can judge whether the declaration is truthful, the UN nuclear agency said yesterday.

The UN atomic agency’s chief today urged world leaders to act quickly to safeguard radioactive materials, pleading for governments to impose stringent new controls to avert nuclear catastrophe.