NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic measure of how near the human species is to self-destruction, probably as a result of nuclear weapons programs or climate change, was adjusted, on Jan. 9, to five minutes to midnight - or doomsday!

The Doomsday Clock, a clock face used as a symbol of imminent apocalypse, has been moved one minute closer to midnight because of inadequate progress on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and continuing inaction on climate change.

The hands of a symbolic doomsday clock fell back one minute Tuesday to five minutes to midnight, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group that monitors global threats such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and human-caused disasters.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad started his four-nation Latin American tour Sunday with a pit stop in Venezuela for a powwow with his ally, President Hugo Chavez, who defended his counterpart by saying Iran is facing U.S. warmongering threats amid tensions over its nuclear program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency -- the United Nations' atomic watchdog -- said that Iran has started enriching uranium at a fortified underground site in Fordow, near the city of Qom.

Amir Mirzai Hekmati, an American of Iranian descent, “confessed” to espionage before the court in Teheran.

Iran will in the near future start enriching uranium deep inside a mountain, a senior official said Sunday, a move likely to further antagonize Western powers that suspect it is seeking nuclear weapons capability.

China has publicly rejected new U.S. sanctions on Iran.

The latest threat comes days after U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law sanctions against Iran's central bank which processes most of the country's oil-export payments. Obama and other leaders, including European Union foreign ministers set to meet in Brussels on Jan. 30 to consider a oil-export ban on Iran, hope more sanctions will slow the country from further developing its nuclear weapons program.

France wants tougher sanctions against Iran like the ones imposed by the United States.

Saying the Korean peninsula was at a turning point, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday urged North Korea to embrace a new era by using its new change of government head to transform Korean ties.

Iran symbolically threatened the U.S. and Israel on two fronts Monday: the testing of new long-range rockets and the production of a nuclear fuel rod.

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum believes bombing Iranian nuclear facilities will teach Iran some lessons it badly needs.

North Korea will not change its stance toward the South.

The Middle East saber-rattling heightened Friday as Iran's Revolutionary Guards fired salvos at the West and claimed the United States could not frighten them out of blocking the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The sale coincides with rising tensions in the Middle East between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and its Shia-dominated enemy Iran, which is believed to be developing nuclear weapons.

The United States warned the Iranian government that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz will not be tolerated after Iran threatened to do so if sanctions were put in place.

Who will be the five people to shape 2012? It could be anyone on list, or it could be none of them. Such is the state of geopolitics at this important moment in history.

Kim Jong-il's successor will have his finger on north Korea's nuclear button.

The United States is urging the United Nations Security Council to implement greater sanction on Iran, saying harsher action could slow down the country's nuclear program.

Kim Jong-Il died on Dec. 17, 2011, ending his brutal reign over North Korea. Experts have determined that he exhibited the so-called big six personality disorders that include being sadistic, antisocial, paranoid, narcissistic, schizoid, and schizotypal. Now they reveal the impact this will have on his son, Kim Jong-Un.