Iran has carried out secret tests of ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in breach of UN resolutions, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday.

Hague's comments came a day after Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said they had fired 14 missiles in an exercise, one of them a medium-range weapon capable of striking Israel or US targets in the Gulf.

In a statement to lawmakers, Hague said: "Iran has also been carrying out covert ballistic missile tests and rocket launches, including testing missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in contravention of UN resolution 1929."

He said Iran had also announced plans to triple its capacity to produce 20 percent enriched uranium, adding: "These are enrichment levels far greater than is needed for peaceful nuclear energy.

"We will maintain and continue to increase pressure on Iran to negotiate an agreement on their nuclear programme," including sanctions, he said.

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.

The nuclear group's new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

The announcement will not change plans for how to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the agency said.

Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced a full meltdown, it said.

The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., admitted last month that nuclear fuel rods in reactors 2 and 3 probably melted during the first week of the nuclear crisis.

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant said Tuesday that fuel rods inside three of the facility’s reactors likely melted in the days immediately after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Tokyo Electric Power Co said last week that repaired water gauges showed that fuel rods in Unit 1 at the plant had mostly melted and fallen into a lump at the bottom of the pressure vessel - a state that TEPCO officials have described as a meltdown - after the complex’s cooling system was knocked out by the tsunami.

Fresh data from Units 2 and 3 indicate that fuel rods in those reactors are in a similar state, spokeswoman Aya Omura said Tuesday.

In all three reactors, the melted fuel is mostly covered with water and remains at temperatures far below dangerous levels, officials say.

The president of the utility behind the world's worst nuclear disaster ince Chernobyl said Friday he was stepping down in disgrace after reporting the biggest losses in company history.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Masataka Shimizu apologized at his company's Tokyo headquarters and said he was taking responsibility for the nuclear crisis.

"I wanted to take managerial responsibility and bring a symbolic close," he told reporters, bowing several times during the news conference. "We are doing our utmost to settle the crisis."

Three reactors at the company's Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant went into meltdown after a March 11 earthquake triggered a tsunami that destroyed the plant's cooling systems. Efforts to stop leaking radiation and get the reactors under control have been a perilous struggle and are expected to continue into next year.

Criticality is the stage in a nuclear reaction when the fissile material is self-sustaining.

"This stage lasts for two months. We hope the plant will gain some 40 percent of its power within the next one or two months," Salehi added.

Criticality is the stage in a nuclear reaction when the fissile material is self-sustaining.
"This stage lasts for two months. We hope the plant will gain some 40 percent of its power within the next one or two months," Salehi added.

Japan said on Thursday it would ban anyone entering a 20-km (12-mile) evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant north of Tokyo, weeks after the tsunami-wrecked facility began leaking radiation.

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