Secretary General Warns of Nuclear Danger.

A deadlock in global negotiations on fissile material has increased the risk that nuclear weapons could spread or fall into the hands of violent political groups, the head of the United Nations warned on Wednesday. Addressing the Conference on Disarmament, which has been unable to launch negotiations on any issue for more than a decade, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the longer that the impasse persisted, ''the graver the nuclear threat -- from existing arsenals, from the proliferation of such weapons and from their possible acquisition by terrorists.'' Halting production of bomb-making fissile material is widely seen as the next step in multilateral nuclear arms control. But for the past year, Pakistan has blocked consensus on starting talks to halt production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. It insists that existing fissile stocks should be included, to counter India's perceived strategic advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]