World IN BRIEF : AUSTRIA : N. Korea Concealing Atom Data, U.N. Says

North Korea has refused to give the United Nations’ atomic watchdog agency details on the amount of plutonium it holds in spent radioactive fuel and is delaying visas for inspectors, the agency’s head said. Hans Blix, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the Communist government has so far declined to shed light on the nuclear material present at atomic facilities now subject to a freeze. The Vienna-based IAEA believes the spent fuel in uranium rods extracted 18 months ago from North Korea’s only operating reactor could reveal whether Pyongyang had in the past attempted to manufacture a nuclear bomb.