A GUY walks into a bar and shouts: “Drinks all around: my wife’s next in line for the Nobel Peace Prize!”

South Korean officials travelled today to North Korea for the first meeting between the two governments in more than a year, amid tension over Pyongyang's moves to restart its nuclear programme following a defiant rocket launch.

UN inspectors have verified that North Korea has shut down its sole functioning nuclear reactor, the chief of the watchdog agency said today, confirming Pyongyang's first step to halt production of atomic weapons in nearly five years.

IRAN has invited an International Atomic Energy Agency team to Tehran to work on clearing up suspicions about its nuclear programme, an IAEA spokeswoman said yesterday.

The UN nuclear watchdog agency today suspended nearly half of the technical aid it now provides Tehran in line with UN sanctions slapped on the Islamic republic for its refusal to mothball its uranium enrichment programme.

CHIEF nuclear inspector Mohamed El Baradei, the winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, has grown over the years into a dogged campaigner for non-proliferation.

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 father of Iraq’s nuclear programme said his nation would have developed atomic weapons in the early 1990s had Saddam Hussein not ordered the invasion of Kuwait.

Iran has given the UN a written promise to fully suspend uranium enrichment, according to diplomats and Iranian officials, in an apparent bid to dispel suspicions that Tehran wants to build a nuclear bomb.

The US has said that it will conduct “a full investigation” along with the Iraqi government of the reported disappearance from Iraq’s nuclear facilities of high-precision equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Using technology and know-how acquired through the black market, Libya was able to process uranium into plutonium, the UN nuclear watchdog said today.

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.

Iran was signing a deal today to open up its nuclear activities to international scrutiny, agreeing to intrusive inspections in a bid to challenge US claims that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

Iran has suspended its enrichment of uranium and has accepted additional inspections of its nuclear facilities, a senior official said today.

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.

Ahead of a key trip to Teheran by the chief of the UN atomic watchdog agency, an Iranian opposition group said it had evidence of a new secret site used by Teheran to test equipment for a nuclear weapons programme.

IRAN’S foreign ministry said on Sunday that Tehran would not give up its nuclear program, including uranium enrichment, despite international pressure to prove it is not developing atomic weapons.

French President Jacques Chirac today said he was willing to accept a 30-day deadline for Iraq to disarm – provided the move was endorsed by the chief UN weapons inspectors.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday said “time is running out” for efforts to prevent war on Iraq.

IRAQ must fully disarm to avoid war, President George W Bush said yesterday, as he urged the United Nations to “honour its word” and back US action against Saddam Hussein.

U2 singer Bono has been placed on a list of 150 nominations for this year's Nobel peace prize.

THE hawks of the United States and Britain found themselves outgunned by the doves in the UN Security Council yesterday as global resistance to war gathered ground.

THE divide between permanent members of the UN Security Council over the looming war with Iraq grew ever wider yesterday.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell today told the United Nations Security Council that Washington had evidence that Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi regime were concealing efforts to produce more 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.

Copies of a massive Iraqi document detailing the country’s chemical, biological and nuclear activities were today flown out of Baghdad for analysis by experts at the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency.

UN weapons inspectors returning to Iraq plan to search up to 1,000 sites where they suspect chemical, biological and nuclear arms have been produced.

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.