NUCLEAR WEAPONS

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.

North Korea will shift to collective rule from a strongman dictatorship after last week's death of Kim Jong-il, although his untested young son will be at the head of the ruling coterie, a source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing said.

Iran will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told CBS News on Monday, adding that despite efforts to spoil Iran's nuclear program the country has already progressed enough to assemble a bomb within a year or less.

North Korea will shift to collective rule from a strongman dictatorship after last week's death of Kim Jong-il, although his untested young son Kim Jong-un will be at the head of the ruling coterie.

North Korea's new young leader will have to share power with an uncle and the military after the death of his father Kim Jong-il as the isolated country shifts to collective rule from strongman dictatorship, a source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing told Reuters.

The International Atomic Energy Agency must redeploy its inspectors in North Korea to help with the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Yukiya Amano, director general of the U.N. nuclear agency, was quoted as saying by Kyodo news agency Tuesday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, revered at home by a propaganda machine that turned him into a demi-god and vilified in the West as a temperamental tyrant with a nuclear arsenal, has died, North Korean state television reported Monday.

North Korea's longtime leader, Kim Jong Il, died at age 69 from a heart attack according to state-owned TV stations. We collected ten quotes from Kim Jong Il on North Korean, communism, the internet and the United States to commemorate the leader's death and shed light on his policies in North Korea.

On Monday, two countries mourned for their deceased leaders; and while North Korea's Kim Jong-il and Czech Republic's Václav Havel were very different men, they are akin in their larger-than-life personae.

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il from a heart attack over the weekend has prompted an avalanche of reaction from around the globe.

Kim Jong-il, North Korea's Dear Leader, died on Saturday.