“I am deeply troubled. As Secretary-General, it is my duty to prevent war and to pursue peace. It is also my responsibility to state that the current crisis has already gone too far,” Mr. Ban said at a news conference during his visit to Andorra.

“Nuclear threats are not a game. Aggressive rhetoric and military posturing only result in counter-actions, and fuel fear and instability.”

Nuclear threats are not a game. Aggressive rhetoric and military posturing only result in counter-actions, and fuel fear and instability.

Mr. Ban called for dialogue and negotiations, underlining that this is “the only way to resolve the crisis,” and expressed his readiness to help all the parties involved to this end.

In February, the DPRK conducted its third, long threatened nuclear test, a move that was in violation of Security Council sanctions and drew widespread condemnation, including from Mr. Ban.

The test prompted the Security Council to tighten sanctions on the country’s trade and banking, as well as travel by targeted officials. The DPRK then reportedly said it was cancelling the 1953 Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War.

“Things must begin to calm down, as this situation, made worse by the lack of communication, could lead down a path that nobody should want to follow,” he said.

“There is no need for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to be on a collision course with the international community. I am convinced that nobody intends to attack DPRK because of disagreements about its political system or foreign policy. However, I am afraid that others will respond firmly to any direct military provocation.”

According to an international nuclear organisation, the rising construction costs will push the price tag of Jordan’s first nuclear reactor to approximately $10 billion it warned.

However, Khaled Toukan, commissioner of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission, said the country’s nuclear programme will be unaffected by a parliamentary motion to halt the project, insisting the project’s activities fall in line with lawmakers’ demands, Jordan Times reported. Earlier in defending the controversial project Toukan put the cost of the reactor at about $5 billion.

Energy officials have highlighted the importance of the program which calls for the construction of up to four reactors over the next 20 years in order to reduce it dependency on imported energy which amounts to 96 percent pushing the national energy bill to a record 5.6 billion dollars, Arabiangazette reported. Jordan had signed several bilateral agreements over the years on nuclear cooperation with U.S, China, Japan, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Spain, Argentina and the United Kingdom. The Kingdom has also recently announced plans for building a liquefied gas terminal in Aqaba to import natural gas from Qatar in light of a rising demand on power.

Jordan has seen several campaigns in recent months by environmentalists and activists to stop building the nuclear plant on the grounds that the project requires large amounts of water as it constitutes the third poorest country in water and involved environmental risks.

Hokkaido Electric Power, which runs the plant, said they would at 5pm (0800 GMT) begin inserting control rods that would halt the chain reaction and bring the reactor to “cold shutdown” some time on Monday, AFP reports.

The closing down of the reactor marks the first time since the late 1960′s that  Japan has been nuclear-free, a technology that had provided a third of its electricity until meltdowns at Fukushima.

Now much of the shortfall is being made up with increased imports of fossil fuels, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, critics of Japan’s nuclear policy say authorities in Tokyo have not done enough to improve nuclear safety standards

George Dracoulis, the head of the nuclear physics department at Australian National University, told Al Jazeera that the loss of nuclear power was “a serious issue for Japan”.

“At the moment they’re surviving by increasing imports of gas, coal and oil, currently at the cost of about $40bn a year,” said Dracoulis

“One of the results of this is that greenhouse gas emissions will rise by about 16 per cent.”

Environmental groups see the closure of the country’s last operational plant as an chance to rid Japan off atomic energy and follow the German model. However, creating the infrastructure for green energy is time consuming and  needs significant investment.