Colin Powell says the U.S. still demands an end to North Korea's nuclear program:
Since the crisis erupted in October, the United States has insisted that North Korea must verifiably end both its nuclear programs based on plutonium and enriched uranium.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said that was still the case, even as Pyongyang fired another rhetorical salvo, accusing Washington of trying to scupper talks over the crisis.
"We do not want to see North Korea have a nuclear capability," said Powell after meeting NATO Secretary General George Robertson. "We believe that is also the opinion of all of North Korea's neighbors."
North Korea earlier threatened to scuttle all nuclear talks unless the United States responded positively to its offer to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for economic and diplomatic payoffs.
"If the US does not positively respond to the DPRK's (North Korea's) bold proposal, it will be held accountable for scuttling all efforts for dialogue and seriously straining the situation," the ruling Workers Party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said.

Reuters reports on the search for information about Iraq's nuclear facilities:
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said on Monday it had asked the United States to let it send a mission to Iraq to investigate reports of widespread looting at the country's nuclear facilities.
While most of the radioactive material found at these sites would be unusable for atomic weapons, the IAEA is concerned that some of the material could end up in the hands of terrorists who could use it for so-called dirty bombs.

Iran asks the U.S. to fight terrorists:
Iran urged the United States on Monday not to allow an Iranian opposition group to attack the country from Iraq.
The People's Mujahedeen is on the U.S. State Department's terrorist list, yet it still signed a truce with the United States on April 15 that allowed it to keep weapons to defend itself against Iranian-backed attacks.
The group also used to be backed by Saddam Hussein as a way to harass neighboring Iran, with whom he fought a bloody war from 1980-88.
"It is unacceptable that the United States uses the terrorist hypocrites as a partner," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said, referring to the Mujahedeen.
Asefi cited reports the group was operating in Iraq close to the border and planning armed attacks against Iran.

Pakistan is making an offer to India:
Pakistan will get rid of its nuclear arsenal if rival India does as well, a Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday.
"As far as Pakistan is concerned, if India is ready to denuclearize, we would be happy to denuclearize," Aziz Ahmed Khan said. "But it will have to be mutual."
India's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to Khan's remarks. New Delhi has said before that its nuclear program is not driven by Pakistan alone.

The CIA has redrawn its map of Kashmir:
The CIA's new map of Kashmir describes the region east of the Line of Control as "Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir" while it designates the territories to its west as "Pakistan-controlled areas of Kashmir," an Indian defence analyst noted on Sunday.
In the past, the United States has treated the whole Kashmir state as disputed, Air Commodore (retd) Jasjit Singh observed in a column in the Indian Express. "There are other notable changes from the past which would no doubt make many people wonder at the political signals implicit in the map," Mr Singh said.

Reports of a renewed link between India and Pakistan:
India is expecting resumption of air links with Pakistan within a fortnight in the wake of the recent peace initiative by India and Pakistan.
The resumption of flights would take place only after New Delhi and Islamabad formally decide to restore civil flights, said official sources here on Sunday.
Informed sources quoted the Civil Aviation Minister Shahnawaz Hussain as having said India would be in a position to start the process of resuming flights as early as Pakistan responds.
Indian Airlines would like to fly to Afghanistan using Pakistan's airspace if it opened it to India, he added.

A report on meetings in Baghdad's Tower of Babel Hotel regarding Iraq's future:
The US and British have been hosting a meeting in Baghdad with representatives of the five main Iraqi exile groups who met in London before the war
They have been in continuous session since Wednesday, putting together a blueprint for post-Saddam government.
But the meeting has angered Iraqi religious and political groups from inside the country, who complain of being marginalised or excluded and warn of political crisis ahead.
The blueprint being drawn up in the Babel hotel is for a western-style democracy in a state that will be secular rather than Islamist and will have a free market economy in which the dollar will be the main currency for at least the next two years.

A post-war update on the use of cluster bombs in Iraq:
The Pentagon has admitted using nearly 1,500 air-dropped cluster bombs during the war, but has not revealed information about ground-launched cluster munitions, which were far more numerous.
The Los Angles Times reported recently that the US does not keep track of ground-launched cluster munitions.
The MoD says the Israeli-made L20 cluster bombs fired by the army have a failure rate of about 2% and are designed to self-destruct if they fail to detonate. The older weapons used by the US army and the RAF's BL755s both have a far higher failure rate. About 10% of the latter fail to detonate.

The N.Y. Times reports on problems in Baghdad:
Confusion and frustration reign in most sections of Baghdad, a city of about 4.5 million people. Many businesses have yet to reopen and people are complaining of skyrocketing food prices and the lack of paychecks to buy staples.
The government, which used to be Iraq's biggest employer, is still almost completely shut down, leaving the American occupying force as the primary hope for employment.
Hundreds of angry Iraqis demonstrated today at the Palestine Hotel, where most foreign journalists here are staying, demanding order and jobs. Many protesters complained that they had filled out job applications only to learn that few if any jobs were available.

Some information on the U.N. and its role in Iraq:
Tony Blair yesterday seized the opportunity of his first meeting with US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime to press for a role for the UN in the reconstruction of Iraq.
However, it became clear last night he was struggling to get the US to agree to UN involvement. It also emerged that, whatever function the UN might have in post-Saddam Iraq, thousands of British troops will be deployed there for the foreseeable future.
"Nobody is going to put themselves in hock to this," senior British defence officials said yesterday. They were referring to American concern - shared in Whitehall - about being bound by future UN security council resolutions and being subjected to vetoes.
The issue is bound up with other concerns, including the existing oil-for-food programme, and huge debts owed by Iraq to Russia and France.