North Korea (its smug army personnel pictured above) has threatened a ”‘military response” after South Korea joined a US – led programme to intercept and search its ships for weapons of mass destruction. The country, which shocked the world with the explosion of a nuclear device the size of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs on Monday, said the South signing up to the proliferation security initiative was “tantamount to a declaration of war.” It has also declared that it no longer considers itself bound by the truce that halted the Korean War in 1953. Technically, the armistice has meant the war between the two countries never ended. North Korea’s nutcase leader Kim Jong-il launched the high stakes poker game of nuclear diplomacy with the explosion of the nuclear bomb on Monday. US President Barack Obama now has to consider a suitable response. It’s a pity Israel’s so far away from North Korea, isn’t it Barack ?

In Pakistan yesterday gunmen attacked a police headquarters in the city of Lahore (pictured above), setting off a car-bomb that killed at least 22 people in what the government said was revenge for its current military offensive against the Taliban. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack which wounded nearly 300 people and caused extensive damage, but it came after warnings of strikes in response to the Pakistani Army’s attack on Islamic militants in the Swat region in the north-west of the country. So in all probability, yet another triumph for the “Religion of Peace”. The bomb, which officials said was a suicide attack, brought down a government ambulance service building and damaged a nearby office of the military’s main intelligence agency. Now many people will now say Pakistan is reaping what it sowed by attacking the militants. But in reality it is paying a harsh and painful price for recklessly conceding Sharia Law in the Swat region in the first place. Appeasement never works and ordinary Pakistanis are suffering for their leaders’ failure to read history.

Iran has started tests on its first nuclear reactor, increasing fears about its ambitions to become an atomic power. The trial run was carried out with non-nuclear material at the country’s Russian-built Bushehr plant (pictured above), on the Gulf coast. Moscow’s involvement in the project has also provoked strong criticism from Western governments. Although Tehran insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful, many believe that the country is actually intent on producing a bomb. Iranian official Mr Mohsen Shirazi said the testing process involved dummy rods made from lead which will imitate the enriched uranium needed to power the plant. The site is due to be fully operational by the end of the year although its launch has been frequently delayed. I suspect it’s launch may soon be further, if not permanently, delayed by a visit from the Israeli Air Force.

A compensation scheme that would have seen payments of £12,000 to the families of dead terrorists in Norther Ireland has been rejected, the Government said yesterday. The controversial proposal would have given the same amount to the families of all those killed in the Northern Ireland troubles – including republican (above) and unionist paramilitaries. Yesterday Secretary of State Shaun Woodward said he had ruled out the “recognition payment”, the idea of which had provoked angry protests from families of those killed by terrorists when it was suggested last month. What’s this – the Government getting some common sense ? Or is it that the idea was so stupid, unpopular and lunatic, even by the craven terrorist-appeasing standards of New Labour, that our arrogant out-of-touch cabinet ministers came to the doubtless hand-wringing and reluctant conclusion that they were on a loser ?

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