North Korea to be pressed on checking nuclear claims

By Chris Buckley BEIJING (Reuters) - Five regional powers will press North Korea into allowing them to check the account it has given of its plutonium production when sputtering disarmament talks open in Beijing on Thursday for the first time in nine months. The talks have made historic progress, with the North taking the first steps to dismantle facilities that make bomb-grade fissile material. But the meetings have yet to produce answers on the secretive state's nuclear weaponry, uranium enrichment plans and whether it proliferated technology to the likes of Syria. The talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States are scheduled to run for three days and several of those countries' nuclear envoys have already arrived in Beijing for meetings ahead of the formal discussions. Christopher Hill, the chief... [read full story]