Israel's Netanyahu draws his 'red line' for Iran

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - In his most detailed plea to date for global action against Iran's nuclear programme, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday the world has until next summer at the latest to stop Iran before it can build a nuclear bomb.

Mr Netanyahu flashed a diagram of a cartoon-like bomb before the United Nations (UN) General Assembly showing the progress Iran has made, saying it has already completed the first stage of uranium enrichment.

Then he pulled out a red marker and drew a line across what he said was a threshold Iran was approaching and which Israel could not tolerate - the completion of the second stage and 90 per cent of the way to the uranium enrichment needed to make an atomic bomb.

"By next spring, at most by next summer at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage," he said. "From there, it's only a few months, possibly a few weeks before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb."