Seoul: North Korea sent one of its top military officials to Beijing on Wednesday as a "special envoy" of its leader Kim Jong-un, state news agency KCNA reported. There were few details of Choe Ryong-hae's visit, which came amid strained relations between China and North Korea after Beijing backed UN sanctions on Pyongyang for its February nuclear test.
Choe is the most senior North Korean official to visit Beijing since Kim's uncle Jang Song-thaek made the trip in August 2012.
Jang had been seeking a visit to China for Kim Jong-un and to bolster Chinese investment in the impoverished and isolated North. Choe is part of a powerful circle around the North's young leader that is headed by Jang. He is a long-time political administrator and was surprisingly made a vice marshal in the army last year despite having no military background.
China, the North's only major diplomatic ally, publicly condemned the nuclear test and Bank of China recently said it had ceased dealings with the North Korean Foreign Trade Bank, an institution that has been identified as a conduit for Pyongyang's weapons programme....
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08:59 AM, May 22, 2013
Seoul: North Korea fired two short-range missiles on Monday, making six launches in three days, and it condemned South Korea for criticising what it said were its legitimate military drills. South Korea's Defense Ministry said North Korea had fired one missile on Monday morning and a second one in the afternoon. Both were fired into the sea off North Korea's east coast, a ministry official said. The launches come hard...
03:17 PM, May 20, 2013
United Nations: A combination of increasingly tough financial sanctions, an arms embargo and other international restrictions on trade with North Korea have not stopped Pyongyang's illicit nuclear arms program but appear to have significantly delayed it, according to a confidential report by a UN panel of experts seen by Reuters on Tuesday. "While the imposition of sanctions has not halted the development of nuclear and ballistic missile programs, it has...
05:06 AM, May 15, 2013
Chennai: Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd has postponed the expected date of commissioning of the first unit of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant to June. With a physical progress completed upto 99.66 per cent, the 1,000 MW first unit is expected to be commissioned in June, NPCIL website said. Earlier, NPCIL expected it to be commissioned by May. NPCIL is building two 1,000 MW VVER nuclear power units with Russian...
01:26 AM, May 15, 2013
Chennai: India's atomic power plant operator, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) has shifted the commissioning of the first 1,000 MW unit at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) to June 2013. According to NPCIL's website, the first unit, whose physical progress is at 99.66 per cent, will be commissioned next month, not in May as earlier announced. Soon after the Supreme Court gave its nod to the project...
10:57 PM, May 14, 2013
Chennai: The first unit of the 1,000 MW Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP), set up by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL), is almost ready for beginning the fission process, said a top official of the country's atomic regulator. "As of now, the test reports and the results submitted by NPCIL relating to the first unit of KNPP are satisfactory. A team of experts will be going to KNPP...
11:25 PM, May 07, 2013
New Delhi: Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy on Monday welcomed the Supreme Court verdict on Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project and said government should now crackdown on any further agitation which disrupts the schedule of its completion. He said that from the very beginning he had termed the agitation against implementation of KNPP as "anti-national". "I welcome the long overdue judgement of the Supreme Court on the validity and importance for...
06:05 PM, May 06, 2013
Chennai: With the apex court giving its nod Monday for the first 1,000 MW unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP), it is now for the regulatory board to give its sanction to operationalise it, an official said. The ball is now in the court of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) to give its sanction to operationalise the first unit of KNPP near Chennai, said the official of...
03:56 PM, May 06, 2013
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has given a go ahead to the commissioning of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. The court has observed that the plant has been set up for the welfare and sustainable growth of the people. The apex court verdict came on a plea seeking halt to the commissioning of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant till the implementation of key additional safety measures suggested after an n-accident...
11:00 AM, May 06, 2013
New Delhi: Ahead of the Supreme Court verdict on the Kudankulam nuclear reactor, sources confirm that the reactor has been fully loaded and tests are presently underway. The reactor is expected to start functioning sometime in May, but full production of 1,000 megawatts will take between six to eight months as the power generation will be in phases beginning with 50 megawatts which will then be gradually scaled up. Meanwhile,...
07:21 AM, May 06, 2013
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday is expected to pronounce its verdict on a plea seeking halt to the commissioning of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant till the implementation of key additional safety measures suggested after an n-accident in Japan. The petitioner, Chennai-based IT professional G Sunderrajan, wants the government to implement 11 of the 17 additional safety measures recommended for the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) by a...
11:15 PM, May 05, 2013
Seoul: North Korea sentenced an American citizen to 15 years of hard labor on Thursday for crimes against the state, prompting a US call for his amnesty in hopes of avoiding him becoming a bargaining chip between the two countries. Kenneth Bae, 44, was born in South Korea but is a naturalized US citizen and studied psychology for two years at the University of Oregon. His sentencing comes after two...
07:42 AM, May 03, 2013
New Delhi: India's nuclear deterrent is based on a credible nuclear doctrine and is sustained by a "systematic drive to operationalize" its various delivery components, including a sea-based one by 2015-16, Shyam Saran, chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, said in Delhi on Wednesday. Countering critics of India's nuclear weapons programme that it was driven by notions of prestige rather than considerations of national security, Saran, also a former...
04:20 AM, Apr 25, 2013
New Delhi: The Supreme Court was moved on Tuesday, seeking a direction to the government not to take steps for commissioning the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu till allegations of use of sub-standard equipment and the impact on the reactor and the public safety were probed. The application by G Sundarrajan has sought directions to the government not to bring the nuclear power plants reactors to initial criticality till...
04:29 AM, Apr 24, 2013
Washington: In the late 1970s, Central Intelligence Agency had information that China might have provided a fairly comprehensive package of proven nuclear weapons design information to Pakistan, a recently declassified document has revealed. According to recently declassified CIA data, obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA had evidence suggesting close Pakistan-China nuclear cooperation, to the point of facilitating a nuclear weapons capability, although...
12:47 AM, Apr 24, 2013
New Delhi: An anti-nuclear activist on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court seeking to restrain the Centre from commissioning the Kudankulam nuclear plant alleging that sub-standard equipment have been used in the plant making it unsafe. The petitioner, on whose plea against the plant the apex court has reserved its verdict, filed an application alleging that new "revelation" has come to light which raises questions on the safety of the plant....
07:45 PM, Apr 23, 2013
Thiruvananthapuram: Contending serious defects are now surfacing at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP), CPI-M leader VS Achuthanandan on Sunday demanded theta it should be commissioned only after a probe to find out lapses in safety measures. In a statement issued here, the former Kerala chief minister and veteran Communist party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader said that the atomic regulator, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board's former chairman A Gopalakrishnan and a...
04:38 AM, Apr 22, 2013
Jerusalem: US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel held out hope on Sunday for a nonmilitary way to ending the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, but he also emphasized Washington's willingness to let Israel decide whether and when it might strike Tehran in self-defense. Hagel, on his first visit to Israel as Pentagon chief, seemed intent on burying the image that Republican critics painted of him as insufficiently supportive of the Jewish...
01:25 AM, Apr 22, 2013
Mumbai: India's nuclear regulator ordered replacement of four defective valves of the system that cools the reactor of Kudankulam nuclear power plant after the problem was detected during ongoing pre-commissioning tests. The defect in the components of the four valves--there are thousands of such devices in a nuclear reactor--was found during pre-commissioning tests early this year, officials said. "During testing of thousands of valves installed in the plant, the performances...
02:14 AM, Apr 20, 2013
Dubai: A major 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Iran near the border with Pakistan on Tuesday and tremors were felt in India and Gulf states. The US Geological Survey said the quake hit at 10:44 GMT at a depth of 15.2 km (9.4 miles). The epicenter was in southeast Iran in an area of mountains and desert. It was located 201 km (125 miles) southeast of the Iranian city of Zahedan...
05:19 PM, Apr 16, 2013
