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North Korea defied the United States, China and a series of United Nations resolutions by launching a rocket on Sunday that the country said was designed to propel a satellite into space, but that much of the world viewed as an effort to prove it is edging toward the capability to shoot a nuclear warhead on a longer-range missile. North Korea launched the rocket at 11:30 a.m. local time, or 10:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, said the office of the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak. Early reports from the Japanese prime minister's office indicated that the three-stage rocket appeared to launch successfully, with the first stage falling into the Sea of Japan and the second stage into the Pacific. South Korea vowed a ''stern and resolute'' response to the North's ''reckless act.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran's main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran's suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials. White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office. But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran's major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country's only known uranium enrichment plant is located. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The groundbreaking message to Iran that President Obama delivered by videotape on Friday was part of a strategy intended to emphasize a positive message to Iran in the prelude to that nation's presidential election this summer, according to administration officials and European diplomats. Among other measures being weighed are a direct communication from Mr. Obama to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and an end to a prohibition on direct contacts between junior American diplomats and their Iranian counterparts around the world, the officials and diplomats said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the capitals of two staunch allies last week, top intelligence officials spoke about the nuclear threat from Tehran. Differences were clear. ''Iran has crossed the technological threshold,'' the chief of Israeli military intelligence, Amos Yadlin, told the cabinet in Jerusalem last Sunday, in words that were immediately leaked to the press. Now, he added, ''its reaching military nuclear capabilities is a matter of adapting its strategy to the target of manufacturing a nuclear bomb.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran took up President Obama's oft-repeated invitation for direct talks between the United States and Iran -- something that hasn't happened in 30 years -- he seemed to be signaling the start of a long-delayed war-or-peace drama that may define the Obama administration's first engagement with the rest of the world. It was only three weeks ago today, in his inaugural address, that Mr. Obama promised a new relationship with nations willing to ''unclench their fist,'' an offer he repeated at his news conference on Monday evening. And it is too early to know quite how to read Mr. Ahmadinejad's declaration that ''Our nation is ready to hold talks based on mutual respect and in a fair atmosphere.'' After all, it's never exactly clear who is running the country's foreign policy, and there is good reason to question whether the fiery Iranian president will overcome his mismanagement of the country's economy to survive the June 12 elections there. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

South Korea placed more soldiers at frontier guard posts and told its fishermen to refrain from sailing near North Korean waters on Sunday, a day after the North Korean military declared an ''all-out confrontational posture'' against the South and threatened a naval clash. The North Korean threat on Saturday came in the same day when an American scholar said North Korean officials told him that they had ''weaponized'' enough plutonium for roughly four or five nuclear bombs. Also Saturday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the country would maintain its ''status as a nuclear weapons state'' as long as it perceived a nuclear threat from the United States.American intelligence officials have previously estimated that the North had harvested enough fuel for six or more bombs, although it has never been clear whether the North constructed the weapons. The scholar, Selig S. Harrison, said the officials had not defined what ''weaponized'' meant, but the implication was that they had built nuclear arms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The North Korean military declared an ''all-out confrontational posture'' against South Korea on Saturday as an American scholar said North Korean officials told him they had ''weaponized'' enough plutonium for roughly four or five nuclear bombs. American intelligence officials have previously estimated that the North had harvested enough fuel for six or more bombs, although it has never been clear whether the North constructed the weapons. The scholar, Selig S. Harrison, said the officials had not defined what ''weaponized'' meant, but the implication was that they had built nuclear arms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]