MOSCOW:
The last nuclear treaty between Russia and the United States is due to expire within hours, raising the risk of a new arms race in which China will also play a key role.
The web of arms control deals negotiated in the decades since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, considered the closest the world ever came to intentional nuclear war, were aimed at reducing the chance of a catastrophic nuclear exchange.
Unless Washington and Moscow reach a last-minute understanding of some kind, the world's two biggest nuclear powers will be left without any limits for the first time in more than half a century when the New START treaty expires.
COSTS COULD CONSTRAIN NEW ARMS RACE
There was confusion about the exact time it would lapse, though arms control experts told Reuters they believed this would happen at 2300 GMT on Wednesday - midnight in Prague, where the treaty was signed in 2010.
Matt Korda, associate director for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that if there was no agreement to extend its key provisions, neither Russia nor the United States would be constrained if they wanted to add yet more warheads.
