The Chinese government has said it cannot confirm South Korean reports of unusual activity at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility, and indicated a dispute over North Korean bank accounts in Macau has yet to be resolved. Daniel Schearf reports from Beijing.

On Sunday, April 15, Russia began construction of its first floating nuclear power plant. The country plans to build at least six more despite long-standing environmental concerns that they are vulnerable to accidents at sea.

President Mahmud Ahmadinejad today vowed that Iran would resist "to the end" the standoff over the country's nuclear drive. In a televised speech in the southern city of Shiraz, Ahmadinejad warned world powers to give up "bullying methods" and not to "misuse" the UN Security Council.

An April 14 deadline has passed and there are no signs that North Korea has begun to shut down its main nuclear reactor, as it agreed to do in February. VOA's Luis Ramirez reports from Beijing, where diplomats have gathered to see where the nuclear disarmament negotiations are going next.

Today is the deadline for North Korea to shut down its main nuclear reactor under a February 13 six-party denuclearization agreement. The move was meant to be North Korea's first step toward giving up its nuclear weapons program in return for energy aid and better relations with the United States.

North Korea still says it intends to abide by a February agreement to shut down its main nuclear facilities - but not until it confirms the receipt of millions of dollars previously frozen in a Macau bank. Frustration at the lack of progress is showing, as the chief U.S. envoy to the North Korea nuclear disarmament talks, a usually talkative diplomat, brushed past reporters with hardly a word on his arrival in Beijing.

North Korea has until April 14 to begin dismantling its nuclear-weapons program. Pyongyang agreed to take the first step -- shutting down the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon -- under a deal it reached two months ago with the other members in the so-called six-party talks: China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.

The head of the U.N. nuclear agency says Iran is still in the early stages of creating a plant to enrich uranium. Mohamed ElBaradei says Iran is proceeding with its goal of installing 50,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear facility, but he says only hundreds have been installed to date.

An Iranian Revolutionary Guard general Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr who was listed for travel restrictions by a U.N. Security Council resolution has visited Russia without any difficulty, Iranian state television reported on its Web site Monday.

Iran announced that it has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges, that means expanding a program that the United Nations has demanded it halt. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony at the enrichment facility at Natanz that Iran was now capable of enriching nuclear fuel "on an industrial scale."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair sees the possibility of forging a different relationship with Iran, now that his country's sailors and marines have been released unharmed. And even before the British naval crew landed in London the European Union announced that the EU and Iran have begun discussing a possible reopening of discussions about Iran's controversial nuclear program.

Russia, which is helping build the Bushehr nuclear power plant, did not supply the fuel as planned in March because of what it said were Iran's payment delays. Iran says that a continued Russian refusal to deliver atomic fuel to its first nuclear power station would justify Tehran's uranium-enrichment activities.