US ambassador to UN chides N. Korea, Iran, Syria

UNITED NATIONS – The US ambassador to the United Nations says the regimes that most threaten the world today with weapons of mass destruction -- North Korea, Iran and Syria -- also deny their people human rights, promote conflict and regional instability and "aid terrorists and militant groups."

Nikki Haley told the UN Security Council Thursday that North Korea poses the greatest threat to nuclear proliferation and is continuing "its reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons ... while its people starve and to threaten other nations while intimidating its own citizens."

Haley called Iran "the leading cause of instability in an unstable part of the world." She said it supports "terrorists, proxy militants and murderers like Bashar Assad," the Syrian president.

And she accused Russia of vetoing three council resolutions and preventing the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons from holding Assad's government accountable for the use of chemical weapons in Syria.