An unapologetic North Korea declared Tuesday that it had conducted a test of a nuclear bomb after the detonation was detected by the U.S. Geological Survey.

"On February 12th... we successfully conducted a third underground nuclear test in the northern underground nuclear test site," the Daily NK reported, in a translation of Pyongyang's announcement on the state-run news agency, KCNA.

By conducting the test, the isolated authoritarian regime made good on a Jan. 24 pledge by North Korea's top military organ, the National Defense Commission, in further defiance of admonitions from the international community to cease and desist in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

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The test was met with condemnation from around the globe. The White House called it a "highly provocative act" that warrants "further swift and credible action from the international community." Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Beijing was "strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed" to the move by its neighbor and long-time Communist ally.

 

South Korea and Japan convened emergency meetings of their top national security officials, while the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Tuesday, after which it promised to "begin work immediately" to draft a new resolution against the North.

The explosion was registered as a 5.1-magnitude seismic event by the USGS at 9:57 p.m. ET Monday. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence quickly judged that North Korea had "probably conducted an underground nuclear explosion" with a yield of "several kilotons."

In a statement, President Barack Obama said the test "undermines regional stability, violates North Korea's obligations under numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions, contravenes its [international] commitments … and increases the risk of proliferation" in the wake of what he described as a "ballistic missile launch" by North Korea on Dec. 12.

"North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs constitute a threat to U.S. national security and to international peace and security," Obama said. 

U.S. officials have previously told NBC News that North Korea has up to a "few dozen" nuclear weapons that could be fitted on ballistic missiles, far more than had previously been believed.

Obama on Tuesday said that "the danger posed by North Korea's threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community," adding that the U.S. would work with the international community to "pursue firm action."

'Vile hostile acts'
In a tit-for-tat that has characterized a diplomatic stalemate for decades, North Korea blamed the United States for forcing its hand.

"This nuclear test was conducted as part of measures to safeguard the country’s security and independence in order to deal with the vile hostile acts of the United States, which violated our Republic’s legitimate right to peaceful satellite launches,” according to the KCNA report.

The comment refers UN Security Council Resolution 2087, passed after to Pyongyang's Dec. 12 rocket launch, heaping sanctions on previous sanctions against North Korea, further deepening the regime's isolation.

The resolution called on North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and any weapons and allow verification; to conduct no more launches using ballistic missile technology; and to conduct no more nuclear tests.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the latest test was a "clear and grave violation."

Later, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported that North Korea threatened, citing an unidentified foreign ministry spokesman, to conduct more nuclear tests if the U.S. moves to penalize it for Tuesday's test.

At a disarmament forum in Geneva on Tuesday, a North Korean official said that his country would not change course in the current climate, Reuters reported.

"The U.S. and their followers are sadly mistaken if they miscalculate the DPRK would respect the entirely unreasonable resolutions against it. The DPRK will never bow to any resolutions," Jon Yong Ryong, first secretary of North Korea's mission in Geneva, told the Conference on Disarmament, referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

South Korea's government said in a statement that Tuesday's nuclear test, "poses a direct challenge to the whole international community as well as an unacceptable threat to the peace and security of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia."

It said the government would stand firm in that it "will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea" and added that it will "also accelerate expanding its military capability, including deploying at an early stage its extended-range missiles, currently being developed, which cover all of North Korea."

Major hostilities in the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with armistice, not a peace treaty. Today, North Korean forces and South Korean forces bolstered by about 28,000 U.S. troops remain faced off at the 38th parallel, where the Korean Peninsula was divided.

Between 2003 and 2007, North Korean took party in several rounds of the so-called "Six Party Talks" with South Korea, China, the United States, Russia and Japan, in an attempt to reverse Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development in return for fuel and progress towards normalization of relations. The talks went on hold and then fell apart for good in April 2009 and Pyongyang expelled UN inspectors from the country.

China 'humiliated'
A key unanswered question is what Beijing will do after North Korea's latest move. The long-time Communist ally and neighbor, which has strategic reasons to continue supporting the regime in Pyongyang, nonetheless expressed its strong opposition to the test.

"China has been humiliated," according to Andrei Lankov, a veteran analyst of North Korea based in Seoul's Kookmin Unversity. That could prompt a change in Beijing's approach, he said.

"This time, China explicitly warned North Korea against conducting the test, but they were ignored," Landov added. "A Chinese government newspaper said two weeks ago that in the case of a nuclear test, China might significantly reduce its aid to North Korea."

China is a major source of aid to North Korea and key to keeping its decrepit economy afloat. China is also one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council with the power to veto sanctions.

The United States and other countries have urged China to put pressure on Pyongyang, but it remained to be seen how far Beijing would go to confront its old comrade.

"They are not happy about nuclear adventurism. At the same time though, a collapsing non-nuclear North Korea is far worse than a nuclear but stable North Korea," Lankov said.

North wants U.S. recognition
Professor Yan Xuetong, a top international security analyst at China's Tsinghua University, said "the key to the North Korean nuclear challenge is in the hands of the United States, not China."

"China is certainly opposed to North Korea's latest nuclear test and opposed to North Korea becoming a nuclear power, but the test was aimed at the Unite States with the aim of forcing the U.S. to normalize relations with North Korea, but if the U.S. doesn't want to play the  game of trade-off, then there is not much that China can do," he said.

Yan, who closely follows government policy thinking on the issue, argued that "the role of economic sanctions is limited," suggesting China will not stop economic assistance to North Korea because of the latest test.

"What China should do is to act as bridge between North Korea and the United States so that they will agree to a trade-off, with the U.S. granting recognition to the North Korean government in exchange for it giving up its nuclear program," he said.

"If the U.S. views North Korea's nuclear threat with the same seriousness as it views Iran's nuclear threat, then there will be hope for solving the North Korea's nuclear problem," he said.

NBC News staff writers Ian Johnston, Eric Baculinao, John Newland and Arata Yamamoto contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:11 PM EST

The inquiry, announced in London, will investigate 25 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories.

Most attacks with unmanned aerial vehicles have been by the United States. Britain and Israel have also used them, and dozens more states are believed to possess the technology.

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"The plain fact is that this technology is here to stay, and its use in theaters of conflict is a reality with which the world must contend," said inquiry leader Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights.

"It is therefore imperative that appropriate legal and operational structures are urgently put in place to regulate its use in a manner that complies with the requirements of international law."

Criticism of drone strikes centers on the number of civilians killed and the fact that they are launched across sovereign states' borders so frequently - far more than conventional attacks by piloted aircraft.

Retired U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, who authored the U.S. counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan, warned earlier this month against overusing drones, which have provoked angry demonstrations in Pakistan.

Data collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism say 2,600-3,404 Pakistanis have been killed by drones, of which 473-889 were reported to be civilians.

The U.N.'s Human Rights Council asked Emmerson to start an investigation following requests by countries including Pakistan, Russia and China to look into drone attacks.

The inquiry will examine photographic and forensic material as well as witness statements. The resulting report and recommendations will be presented at the U.N. General Assembly in New York in October this year, Emmerson said.

He said that it he did not expect the inquiry to result in a "dossier of evidence" that would directly point to legal liability, but would help support the relevant states' own independent investigations.

Emmerson said Britain's Ministry of Defense had agreed to fully cooperate and he was optimistic he would receive good cooperation from the U.S. and Pakistani governments.

"We welcome this investigation in the hopes that global pressure will bring the U.S. back into line with international law requirements that strictly limit the use of lethal force," said Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project.

"To date, there has been an abysmal lack of transparency and no accountability for the U.S. government's ever-expanding targeted killing program," she said.

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SEOUL - North Korea said on Thursday it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test that would target the United States, dramatically stepping up its threats against a country it called its "enemy".

The announcement by the country's top military body came a day after the United Nations Security Council agreed a U.S.-backed resolution to censure and sanction the country for a rocket launch in December that breached U.N. rules.

"We are not disguising the fact that the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire and the high-level nuclear test we will carry out are targeted at the United States," North Korea's National Defense Commission said, according to state news agency KCNA.

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North Korea is believed by South Korea and other observers to be "technically ready" for a third nuclear test, and the decision to go ahead rests with leader Kim Jong-un who pressed ahead with the December rocket launch in defiance of the U.N. sanctions. 

"Whether North Korea tests or not is up to North Korea," Glyn Davies, the top U.S. envoy for North Korean diplomacy, said in the South Korean capital of Seoul as KCNA released its statement.

"We hope they don't do it. We call on them not to do it," Davies said. "This is not a moment to increase tensions on the Korean peninsula."

The North was banned from developing missile and nuclear technology under sanctions dating from its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

The concern now is that Pyongyang, whose only major diplomatic ally, China, endorsed the latest U.N. resolution, could undertake a third nuclear test using highly enriched uranium for the first time, opening a second path to a bomb.

North Korea's propaganda poets stay true to their muse despite world's laughter

Its previous tests have been viewed as limited successes and used plutonium, of which the North has limited stocks.

North Korea gave no time-frame for the coming test and often employs harsh rhetoric in response to U.N. and U.S. actions.

Its long-range rockets are not seen as capable of reaching the United States mainland and it is not believed to have the technology to mount a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile.

"The UNSC (Security Council) resolution masterminded by the U.S. has brought its hostile policy towards the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) to its most dangerous stage," the commission was quoted as saying.

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UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says his top hopes for 2013 are to reach a new agreement on climate change and to urgently end the increasingly deadly and divisive war in Syria.

The U.N. chief told The Associated Press that he's also hoping for progress in getting the global economy humming again, restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, promoting political solutions in Mali, Congo and the Central African Republic, and providing energy, food and water to all people.

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Ban laid out this ambitious wish list in an interview before heading to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, saying he plans to take "the uncommon opportunity" of being with some 2,500 government, business and civil society leaders in the Swiss ski resort to exchange frank views on these issues.

"The world is now experiencing unprecedented challenges," Ban said.

"Climate change is fast happening — much, much faster than one would have expected," he said. "Climate and ecosystems are under growing strain."

Ban spoke before President Barack Obama, in his inaugural address Monday, put a similar emphasis on tackling climate change in his second term.

'Mobilize the political will'
Two-decade-old U.N. climate talks have so-far failed in their goal of reducing the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions that a vast majority of scientists says are warming the planet.

In December, a U.N. climate conference in Doha, Qatar, agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that limits the greenhouse gas output of some rich countries, and affirmed a previous decision to adopt a new global climate pact by 2015.

"I will do my best to mobilize the political will and resources so that the member states can agree to a new legally binding global agreement on climate change," Ban said.

Ban urged progress in getting nations and people to use the world's limited resources without waste and in ways to ensure their replacement, so that all people will have enough to eat and drink and there will be electricity for their homes — and have energy to spare to promote economic growth.

"We have to have sustainable development," he said. "That's our number one priority together with climate change."

Momentum for fighting climate change has stalled amid recessions, financial meltdown and government debt crises of the past five years.

"At the same time, we need to see some economic dynamism," Ban said. "The world is still suffering, struggling to overcome its economic crisis."

The forum at Davos, opening Wednesday, focuses this year on how to ensure a more sturdy economic recovery that can withstand the kind of shocks the past few years have wrought.

Among the world leaders he may rub elbows with at Davos are Microsoft founder Bill Gates, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The secretary-general expressed hope that the major powers will be able to revitalize growth, which will help developing countries meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to combat poverty by the target date of 2015.

The goals include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring a primary school education for every child, reducing maternal and infant mortality, and halting and reversing the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

On the political front, Ban said he is deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in Syria where the conflict will soon be entering its third year.

"I believe that world leaders must address this issue with a top priority and a sense of urgency. We cannot go on like this," he said. "More than 60,000 people have been killed, and if the situation continues like this way, we will have to see more and more death, more and more people who are fleeing Syria."

The secretary-general said he is also mobilizing U.N. envoys and others to try to make progress on the Mideast peace process; in Mali, where a French-led military operation is fighting Islamist extremists; the deteriorating political situation in Congo where M23 rebels have gained ground; and in the Central African Republic where rebels recently signed a peace agreement with the president.

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In 1970, when Waris Dirie was a 5-year-old in Somalia, her mother held her down on a rock. She gave her a piece of root from an old tree.

"Bite on this," she said. Her mother leaned over and whispered: "Try to be a good girl. Be brave for Mama, and it will go fast." Then, an old woman who was with them in the African bush cut off parts of her genitals with a broken razor blade.

With this graphic description, in her 1997 book "Desert Flower" an international bestseller, Dirie became one of the leading activists in a global campaign against female genital mutilation, or FGM — a practice that millions of girls are subjected to each year.

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On Thursday, in a major victory for that campaign, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for a global ban on FGM.

The resolution urges the 193 U.N. member states to condemn the practice, and to launch educational campaigns to eliminate it. It urges all countries to enact and enforce legislation to prohibit FGM, to protect women and girls "from this form of violence" and to end impunity for violators. Although not legally binding, UN General Assembly resolutions carry considerable moral and political weight.

Activists hailed the U.N. move.

"This an important moment for everyone engaged in the fight against FGM — and most particularly for all the girls and women who have been affected by this grotesque practice," said José Luis Díaz, U.N. representative for the non-profit rights group Amnesty International, which was among the groups that pushed for the resolution.

"The UN resolution places FGM in a human rights framework and calls for a holistic approach, stressing the importance of empowerment of women, promotion and protection of sexual and reproductive health and breaking the cycle of discrimination and violence.”

The procedure, as detailed in Dirie’s book, is often crude, painful and dangerous — leading to many fatal infections.

After cutting her genitals, the old woman used "thorns from the Acacia tree to puncture holes in my skin, then poked a strong white thread through the holes to sew me up,” she wrote. “My legs were completely numb, but the pain between them was so intense that I wished I would die."

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"Lying there alone with my legs still tied, I could do nothing but wonder, why? What was it all for? At that age I didn’t understand anything about sex. All I knew was that I had been butchered with my mother’s permission."

Dirie fled her Somali community, and an arranged marriage, at 13, and went on to become a top model, and an actress in one of the James Bond movies. In 2002 she set up Desert Flower Foundation in Vienna to support her work against FGM.

FGM is often undertaken to reinforce traditional beliefs about what is considered proper sexual behavior, according to the World Health Organization. Many communities believe the process, also called female circumcision, reduces a woman's libido and therefore reduces the chances of her engaging in premarital or extramarital sex.  

When a vaginal opening is closed off or narrowed through the process, the pain of opening it, and the fear that it would be found out, is considered further deterrent to "illicit" sexual intercourse.

Though no major religious writings prescribe the practice, practitioners often believe the practice has religious support. Religious leaders take varying positions with regard to FGM: some promote it, some consider it irrelevant to religion, and others condemn it and contribute to its elimination.

The World Health Organization estimates that about 140 million girls and women worldwide are living with the consequences of FGM. In Africa, an estimated 92 million girls age 10 and older have undergone FGM.

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Amnesty International estimates 3 million girls face FGM each year. The group says the practice is commonplace in 28 countries in Africa, as well as in Yemen, Iraq, Malaysia, Indonesia and in certain ethnic groups in South America. It also occurs in among immigrant communities, including those in Europe and the United States, though it is unclear how frequently.

Thursday’s U.N. resolution could have a significant impact on halting FGM, according to Amy Fairbairn, director of communications for Tostan, a non-profit development organization working in Africa.  But because FGC is a social norm in some countries and regions, she believes change requires more work on the grassroots level. (The organization  prefers to use term "female genital cutting" because it is less judgmental.)

"The ban reaffirms an important message that the international community does not believe female genital cutting should continue," she said. "At the country level, it may help more countries to look at this practice and to look at the most effective ways of approaching it."

She said that Tostan promotes the end to GFC within communities as part of an overall human rights program, which generates more homegrown incentive for change.  

"There is tremendous progress under way," she said. "Most notably for us, there is historic progress in the growing movement to end FGC in West Africa, where to date nearly 6,000 communities have publicly abandoned the practice, over 5,000 of those in Senegal alone where the FGC-Free Senegal movement is really gaining momentum."

NBC News' Kari Huus contributed to this report.

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The White House  and the State Department said on Friday a new Israeli settlement expansion plan was "counterproductive" and could make it harder to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

"We reiterate our longstanding opposition to settlements and East Jerusalem construction and announcements," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland reiterated this position, adding: "We're going to be evenhanded in our concern about any actions that are provocative, any actions that make it harder to get these two parties back to the table."

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Israel plans to build thousands of new homes for its settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, an Israeli official said earlier, defying a U.N. vote that implicitly recognized Palestinian statehood there.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conservative government had authorized the construction of 3,000 housing units and ordered "preliminary zoning and planning work for thousands" more.

"We believe these actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations or achieve of a two state solution," Vietor said. "Direct negotiations remain our goal and we encourage all parties to take steps to make that easier to achieve."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is meeting senior Israeli and Palestinian officials Friday to try to plot a path forward.

Clinton is seeing Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. She is also talking to Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, a key mediator.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest says only "face-to-face" Israeli-Palestinian negotiations can lead to progress on a two-state solution.

Israeli media, including Haaretz newspaper, said the government sought to emphasize its rejection of Thursday's upgrade by the U.N. General Assembly of the Palestinians to "non-member observer state" from "entity."

Israel and the United States had opposed the resolution, which shored up the Palestinians' claim on all of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, saying territorial sovereignty should be addressed in direct peace talks with the Jewish state.

Those negotiations have been stalled for two years, however, given Palestinian anger at continued Israeli settlement expansion. The Israelis insist they would keep West Bank settlement blocs under any final accord as well as all of Jerusalem as their capital.

That status for the holy city has never been accepted abroad, where most powers consider the settlements illegal for taking in land captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

The 193-nation General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the world body to issue what he said was its long overdue "birth certificate."

The State Department called Thursday's vote "unfortunate" and "counterproductive," and said it doesn't take the Palestinians any closer to a state.

Spokesman Earnest rejected talk of cutting U.S. aid to the Palestinians.

 

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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GOMA -- Rebels widely believed to be backed by Rwanda claimed control of Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Tuesday, parading through this frontier city of a million people past United Nations peacekeepers who did nothing to stop them.

Hundreds of fighters from the M23 group entered Goma after days of clashes with U.N.-backed Congolese soldiers that forced tens of thousands of residents to flee.

A senior U.N. source told Reuters that international peacekeepers had given up defending the city after the Congolese troops left.

"There is no army left in the town, not a soul... Once they were in the town what could we do? It could have been very serious for the population," he said, asking not to be named.

The rebellion has aggravated tensions between Congo and its neighbor Rwanda, which Kinshasa's government says is orchestrating the insurgency as a means of grabbing the chaotic region's mineral wealth.

Rwanda denies the assertion.

However, Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende ruled out talks with the rebels, suggesting they were proxies of the Rwandan government.

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"We will continue (resisting) until Rwanda has been pushed out of our country ... There will be absolutely no negotiations with M23," Mende said, adding that Kinshasa would talk only directly with Rwanda.

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U.N. experts say Rwanda, a small but militarily capable neighbor that has intervened in Congo repeatedly over the past 18 years, is behind the M23 revolt.

Congo's mineral wealth, including diamonds, gold, copper and coltan, a metal used in mobile phones, has inflamed the conflict and little has been spent on developing a country the size of western Europe.

Goma's capture will also be an embarrassment for President Joseph Kabila, who won re-election late last year in polls that provoked widespread riots in Kinshasa and that international observers said were marred by fraud.

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Congolese state television reported on Tuesday that Kabila, who has made few public comments on the rebellion in recent weeks, is travelling to Uganda, the mediator in the conflict with the eastern rebels.

In the capital Kinshasa, security forces used tear gas and fired shots in the air to disperse a few hundred youths protesting the fall of Goma in a central square. Residents in Congo's second city, Kisangani, attacked Kabila's local party headquarters in frustration.

Hundreds of M23 fighters accompanied their leader Sultani Makenga into Goma, where they were greeted by cheering crowds shouting "welcome" and "thank you."

"We've taken the town, it's under control," said Colonel Vianney Kazarama, a spokesman for the rebels. "We're very tired, we're going to greet our friends now."

Congo crisis exacerbated by heavy rains

On Monday, Kazarama had denied the rebels would take the city.

The U.N. has about 6,700 peacekeeping troops in North Kivu, including some 1,400 troops in and around Goma, and the mission had previously promised to defend the town.

On Tuesday afternoon, armored U.N. vehicles continued to circulate in the town offering help to residents, but troops did not try to block the rebels. No government troops were to be seen.

Before the rebels seized the city, streams of residents headed for the nearby border with Rwanda. More than 50,000 people who fled fighting earlier this year have abandoned refugee camps around Goma.

"With the war, we're suffering so much, I've never seen anything like this in my life," a woman who gave her name only as Aisha told Reuters, clutching her three children. 

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Discriminatory implementation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has left many countries feeling that being a party to the anti-atom bomb pact hinders cooperation in the field atomic energy, Iran's U.N. ambassador said on Monday.

Western diplomats and analysts have long expressed concern that Iran might one day follow North Korea's example and pull out of the NPT and produce a bomb. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 and tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009.

Speaking at a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on the annual report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee sought to assure countries that despite Tehran's reservations about the way the treaty is enforced, Iran does not plan to pull out.

"Iran ... is fully committed to its legal obligations, and its nuclear activities are, and have always been, exclusively for peaceful purposes," Khazaee said. He added that Tehran considers development of the full nuclear fuel cycle an "inalienable right" under the NPT.

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Western intelligence sees 'small signs of wavering' on Iran nuclear policy

Western powers and their allies fear Iran is amassing the capability to produce atomic weapons, an allegation Tehran rejects. The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt nuclear-fuel work, but Tehran has pressed ahead with uranium enrichment.

Khazaee accused the United States, Britain and France of supplying Israel - which is not a party to the 1970 treaty aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear arms and is widely assumed to be the Middle East's sole nuclear power -- with atomic "assistance and cooperation."

"The application of a discriminatory, selective, highly restrictive and politically motivated approach in nuclear cooperation ... has given rise to this impression that being an NPT party is not a privilege, because rather than facilitating, it impedes nuclear cooperation," he said.

Israel neither confirms nor denies having nuclear arms.

Nuclear discrimination?
In a written message to the 193-nation assembly, IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano reiterated his oft-stated concerns about the agency's decade-long probe of Iran's nuclear program.

"Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation to enable us to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities," his statement said. "Therefore, we cannot conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."

Some analysts agree the non-proliferation regime is discriminatory, since the five permanent U.N. Security Council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- are all permitted to maintain nuclear arsenals, although they have pledged under the NPT to negotiate on eradicating such arms.

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Russia and the United States, which possess the bulk of the world's nuclear weapons, have reduced the size of their atomic arsenals, although both still possess thousands of warheads. None of the other five permanent members has yet given up their capability.

The NPT bars non-nuclear weapons states from developing or acquiring them.

The IAEA statement expressed similar frustrations about the agency's investigations into North Korea and Syria. It said Pyongyang's statements about uranium enrichment and construction of a light-water reactor were "deeply troubling."

In a typically fiery speech, North Korea's deputy U.N. envoy Ri Tong Il told the assembly the IAEA was irrelevant to the situation in Asia because the agency was a puppet of Washington.

"The situation on the Korean peninsula is on the brink of explosion and nobody knows when the war will break out," he said, adding that the United States and South Korea were to blame. He said six-party aid-for-disarmament talks with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea were nearly "dead."

With Iran issue simmering, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu calls early elections

North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors at the end of 2002 when it restarted its mothballed Yongbyon nuclear facilities.

Pakistan, which like its neighbor India has nuclear arms but is not a member of the NPT, also complained to the General Assembly about the discriminatory way in which atomic technology is made available to some states, but not others.

"Pakistan believes in an equitable, non-discriminatory and criteria-based approach to advance the universally shared goals of non-proliferation and promotion of peaceful uses of nuclear energy," Pakistani Ambassador Masood Khan said.

Pakistan, which was embarrassed after it was revealed in 2003 that Pakistani technology had been sold to both Iran and North Korea, has long been irritated by a bilateral U.S.-India deal on the transfer of civilian nuclear technology to India.

That agreement went against a long tradition according to which countries producing nuclear technology pledged not to supply atomic equipment to states outside the NPT, or to treaty signatories in violation of it.

Frustrated by its status as a nuclear pariah, Pakistan has been turning to China for nuclear cooperation.

The IAEA statement also said that the agency continued to have questions about a site in Syria's desert Deir al-Zor region that U.S. intelligence reports say was a nascent, North Korean-designed reactor designed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons before Israel bombed it in 2007.

Amano's statement reiterated his request for information about Deir al-Zor, which Syria says was a conventional military site, and other locations in Syria.

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AMMAN, Jordan -- Syrian jets bombed suburbs of Damascus and a car bomb killed 10 people in the capital on Monday, the last day of a four-day truce that U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon acknowledged had failed.

Each side blamed the other for breaching the Eid al-Adha truce arranged by international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who nevertheless promised to pursue his peace efforts.

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"I am deeply disappointed that the parties failed to respect the call to suspend fighting," Ban said in Seoul, where he was visiting to receive the Seoul Peace Prize.

"This crisis cannot be solved with more weapons and bloodshed ... the guns must fall silent," he said.

Brahimi, after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, voiced regret that the cease-fire had not worked better. Asked whether U.N. peacekeepers might be sent to Syria, he said there was no immediate plan for that.

Watchdog: 420 people killed since Friday
Although President Bashar Assad's government and several rebel groups accepted the plan to stop shooting over the Muslim religious holiday, it failed to stem the bloodshed in a 19-month-old conflict that has already cost at least 32,000 lives.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition watchdog, 420 people have been killed since Friday.

Damascus residents reported heavy air raids on the suburbs of Qaboun, Zamalka and Irbin overnight and on Monday that they said were the fiercest since jets and helicopters first bombarded pro-opposition parts of the Syrian capital in August.

Syrian state television said women and children were among those killed or wounded by a "terrorist car bomb" near a bakery in Jaramana, in the southeast of Damascus. Damascus residents say the district is controlled by Assad loyalists.

More photos: Car bomb hits Syrian capital as truce comes to bloody end

Accusations exchanged
State media said Assad's armed opponents had broken the truce throughout the Eid.

"For the fourth consecutive day, the armed terrorist groups in Deir al-Zor continued violating the declaration on suspending military operations which the armed forces have committed to," state news said, later adding that rebels had attacked government forces in Aleppo and the central city of Homs.

The Damascus air raids followed what residents said were failed attempts by troops storm eastern parts of the city.

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"Tanks are deployed around Harat al-Shwam (district) but they haven't been able to go in. They tried a week ago," said an activist who lives near the area and who asked not to be named.

Big power conflicts
Brahimi, who will visit Beijing after Moscow, said the renewed violence in Syria would not discourage him.

"We think this civil war must end ... and the new Syria has to be built by all its sons," he said. "The support of Russia and other members of the Security Council is indispensable."

Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad's government for the violence.

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Beijing has been keen to show it does not take sides in Syria and has urged the government there to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change. It has said a transitional government should be formed.

Big-power rifts have paralyzed U.N. action over Syria, but Assad's political and armed opponents are also deeply divided, a problem that their Western allies say has complicated efforts to provide greater support.

"There has been a lack of desire to take the tough decisions," said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center think tank.

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"In Washington, they've only been focused on the narrow political goal of their own elections, trying to convince a war-wary public inside the U.S. that we are actually disengaging from the conflicts of the Middle East," he said.

Syrian opposition figures, including Free Syrian Army commanders, started three days of talks in Istanbul on Monday in the latest attempt to unite the disparate groups.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Damascus residents reported artillery barrages by Syrian troops on Thursday, hours before the scheduled start of a cease-fire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, according to Reuters.

Residents said the shelling by troops stationed on a mountain overlooking the Syrian capital targeted Hajar al-Aswad, a poor neighborhood inhabited by refugees from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

"Consecutive artillery volleys from Qasioun shook my home," said Omar, an engineer who lives in al-Muhajereen district on a foothill of the mountain.

A Free Syrian Army commander had earlier given qualified backing to the truce, proposed by U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, but he demanded that President Bashar al-Assad free detainees. An Islamist group said it was not committed to the truce, due to start on Friday, but may halt operations if the army did.

Brahimi proposed the temporary truce to stem, however briefly, the bloodshed in a conflict that began as popular protests in March last year and has escalated into a civil war that activists say has killed more than 32,000 people.

Syria agrees to cease-fire during Eid holiday, says mediator

The fighting pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad, from the Alawite faith which is linked to Shiite Islam, and threatens to draw in regional Sunni Muslim and Shiite powers and engulf the whole Middle East, Brahimi has warned.

"On the occasion of the blessed Eid al-Adha, the general command of the army and armed forces announces a halt to military operations on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, from Friday morning ... until Monday," an army statement read on state television said.

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It reserved the right to respond if "the armed terrorist groups open fire on civilians and government forces, attack public and private properties, or use car bombs and explosives."

It would also respond to any reinforcement or re-supplying of rebel units, or smuggling of fighters from neighboring countries "in violation of their international commitments to combat terrorism."

Qassem Saadeddine, head of the military council in Homs province and spokesman for the FSA joint command, said his fighters were committed to the truce but demanded the release of opposition prisoners on Friday.

Syrian opposition skeptical of 'feeble' ceasefire plan

Abu Moaz, spokesman for Ansar al-Islam, said the Islamist group doubted Assad's forces would observe the truce, though it might suspend operations if they did.

"We do not care about this truce. We are cautious. If the tanks are still there and the checkpoints are still there then what is the truce?" he said of the organization, which includes several brigades fighting in the capital and Damascus province.

Brahimi's predecessor, former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, declared a cease-fire in Syria on April 12, but it soon became a dead letter, along with the rest of his six-point peace plan.

Report: At least 20 killed in Aleppo as rebels battle Syria army

Violence has intensified since then, with daily death tolls compiled by opposition monitoring groups often exceeding 200.

The U.S. State Department said it hopes the opposition forces and the government in Syria will put down their weapons and abide by the call for a cease-fire.

"What we are hoping and expecting is that they will not just talk the talk of cease-fire, but that they will walk the walk, beginning with the regime and we will be watching very closely," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.  

Nuland called any day in Syria without violence progress and expressed hope that if the cease-fire is in place, there may be "space for more work to be done on a transition."

But Nuland also expressed skepticism, saying: "The Syrian regime in particular is good at making promises and less good at following through."

China urged all sides to respect a cease-fire, an idea also backed by Syria's main regional ally Iran.

Aid window
U.N. aid agencies have geared up to take advantage of any window of opportunity provided by a cease-fire to go to areas that have been difficult to reach due to fighting, a U.N. official in Geneva said.

"UN agencies have been preparing rapidly to scale up especially in areas that have been difficult to reach due to active conflict and which may become accessible as a result of these developments," he told Reuters.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said that it had prepared emergency kits for distribution for up to 13,000 families - an estimated 65,000 people - in previously inaccessible areas including Homs and the northeastern city of Hassaka.

"We and our partners want to be in a position to move quickly if security allows over the next few days," UNHCR Syria Representative Tarik Kurdi in Damascus said in a statement.

The U.N. World Food Programme has identified 90,000 people in 21 hot spots from Aleppo to Homs and Latakia in need food parcels and will try to reach them through local agencies, the U.N. official said.

Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general, welcomed the planned cease-fire, according to Al Jazeera.

"We would simply fervently hope that the guns do fall silent, that there is a suspension in the violence so that humanitarian workers can help those who are most in need," Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters, according to Al Jazeera.

"The world is now watching," he added.

Reuters and NBC's Catherine Chomiak contributed to this report.

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