Six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program have resumed in Beijing, with negotiators discussing how to implement a 2005 statement offering North Korea economic and security incentives in return for Pyongyang abandoning its nuclear weapons ambitions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on a Middle East tour, has urged Iranian leaders to return to negotiations on the country's nuclear program.

France has said a nuclear-armed Iran would be unacceptable, backtracking on earlier remarks by President Jacques Chirac.

U.S. President George W. Bush's choice for the No. 2 position in the State Department says the United States is reluctant to hold direct talks with Iran until there is progress in the dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.

The United States is opening formal negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic about basing elements of a U.S. anti-ballistic missile system in those countries. State Department officials say the system is intended to defend against missiles fired by so-called rogue states and not aimed against Russia and its large nuclear arsenal.

Iran has received a Russian air defense missile system, the Iranian defense minister said Wednesday.

Iran says it is still cooperating with the UN nuclear watchdog, a day after the country announced that it is barring 38 UN inspectors from working in Iran.

A senior U.S. diplomat says the international community needs to bring more pressure on Iran to end, what he describes as, its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Jim Teeple has details from our Jerusalem bureau.

The U.S. chief negotiator on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs says talks could re-start soon, after host China agreed to arrange them as quickly as possible. Daniel Schearf reports from Beijing.

An international group of atomic scientists is warning of the dual threats to the world posed by nuclear weapons and climate change. VOA's Stephanie Ho reports from Washington.

Israel's foreign minister says that Iran is a threat to all of the Middle East. Yuriko Nagano reports from Tokyo, where Tzipi Livni is meeting with Japanese leaders in a bid to strengthen ties between Israel and Japan.

A Sandia National Laboratories researcher has developed a simulation program designed to track the illicit trade in fissile and nonfissile radiological material well enough to predict who is building the next nuclear weapon and where they are doing it.