Latest Nuclear tests Stories
By Jon Herskovitz SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. and South Korean troops began military drills on Monday that are likely to increase regional tensions already high due to the North's July 5 missile launches and reports it is preparing for a nuclear test. The annual exercises, dubbed Ulchi Focus Lens, have been held without major incident in South Korea for decades. Yet the North has branded them a prelude to invasion and nuclear war, vowing to boost its own nuclear deterrent in response. Some...
By Jon Herskovitz SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. and South Korean troops started military drills on Monday that are likely to increase regional tensions already high due to the North's July 5 missile launches and reports it is preparing for a nuclear test. The annual exercises, dubbed Ulchi Focus Lens, have been held without major incident in South Korea for decades. Yet the North has branded them as a prelude to invasion and nuclear war, vowing to boost its own nuclear deterrent in response....
By Jon Herskovitz SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. and South Korean troops start military drills on Monday which are likely to increase regional tensions already high due to the North's July 5 missile launches and reports it is preparing for a nuclear test. The annual drills, dubbed Ulchi Focus Lens, have been held without incident in South Korea for decades. Yet the North brands them as a prelude to invasion and nuclear war, vowing to boost its nuclear deterrent to counter threats of this sort....
By Tabassum Zakaria CAMP DAVID, Md (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Friday warned that North Korea would pose a threat to the world if it tested a nuclear bomb for the first time, following reports that the reclusive government was considering such a move. Bush also pressed participants in six-party talks to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear-weapons program, while a senior U.S. official played down the chances of an early nuclear test. "If North Korea were to conduct...
By Jon Herskovitz SEOUL (Reuters) - Reclusive North Korea, which last month defied the international community by test-firing missiles, could now be preparing its first test of a nuclear bomb, U.S. media cited U.S. officials as saying. Analysts said on Friday North Korea could be trying an even more extreme form of sabre-rattling to force the international community, and Washington in particular, into making concessions to the poor and isolated state. But a diplomatic official in Seoul...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Activity at a North Korean facility suggests Pyongyang could be preparing its first test of a nuclear bomb, U.S. media on Thursday cited U.S. officials as saying. But U.S. officials told Reuters they had no new evidence of such a plan, and a diplomatic official in Seoul familiar with the North's nuclear program said he was skeptical of the reports. ABC News quoted an unidentified senior military official as saying a U.S. intelligence agency had observed...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea may be preparing an underground test of a nuclear bomb, ABC News reported on Thursday, but U.S. officials told Reuters they had no new evidence of such a plan. ABC quoted an unnamed senior military official as saying a U.S. intelligence agency had recently observed "suspicious vehicle movement" at a suspected North Korean test site. A senior State Department official, who was also not identified, told the network, "It is the view of the intelligence...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A test of a nuclear weapon by North Korea would have a "negative though not cataclysmic" impact on South Korea's economy and could pose strains on China, said a study on Tuesday by a leading U.S. economist. An analysis by Marcus Noland of the Institute for International Economics found that among North Korea's neighbors, South Korea was the most economically vulnerable to a nuclear breakout by the North. A test by isolated North Korea, which declared itself a...
By Sue Pleming DOHA, Qatar (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday she did not anticipate six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear arms activities on the sidelines of the ASEAN conference. "I have said any time people want to talk in the six-party framework I am ready to do it but I don't have any indication that the North Koreans intend to," Rice told reporters on her way to Malaysia for meetings with Asian ministers. "I don't anticipate any six party...
SEOUL (Reuters) - The United States has formally requested North Korea to attend six-country talks on ending its nuclear program at a regional security meeting in Kuala Lumpur, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday. The United States made the request earlier this week through the North Korean mission to the United Nations in New York, Yonhap cited diplomatic sources as saying. Talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs among the two Koreas, China, Japan,...
