"We think it's important to keep the focus on Pyongyang, which after all is the source of this problem, and to provide maximum support for, and leverage on the Chinese mission to Pyongyang," he said.

On July 5, North Korea test-fired seven missiles, apparently including a long-range one that potentially could reach the United States.

The United States wants North Korea to return to the moratorium on ballistic missile launches from the Korean peninsula and to not only return to the six-party talks but implement the joint statement agreed to by the six parties in September, he said.

In that statement, North Korea made a commitment to abandon "all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date" to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The six parties - the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia - also reaffirmed that the goal of the talks "is the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner."

According to a Japanese news report, Japan and the United States suggested to China that a vote on the sanctions resolution could be avoided if North Korea renewed the moratorium on missile testing and returned to six-party talks.

Asked about the Kyodo News agency report, which cited unidentified Japanese officials, Bolton replied, "Well I think that's basically what I've stated somewhat differently. The point is, we want to keep the spotlight on Chinese diplomacy in Pyongyang, which is the source of this problem."

But when pressed, he refused to say whether the United States would agree to drop the sanctions resolution if North Korea returned to talks, agreed to implement the September agreement, and reimposed the moratorium. He said there were "a lot of ifs" and Washington wants to wait to see what comes out of the Chinese meetings in Pyongyang.

That's why the sponsors of the resolution "will reevaluate on a daily basis whether to proceed" with a vote on the Japanese draft, Bolton said.

The Chinese delegation, which is led by Vice Premier Hui Liangyu and includes China's main nuclear negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, arrived in Pyongyang on a six-day visit to celebrate the 45th anniversary of a friendship treaty between the neighbors. A North Korean delegation was also expected in China on Tuesday to mark the treaty anniversary.

China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters after Monday morning's meeting with envoys from Russia, the United States, Britain, France and Japan that "the members have different views so we agreed that we will continue consultations about that."

China and Russia oppose sanctions and have been pressing for a weaker Security Council presidential statement, which is not legally binding. But Wang indicated for the first time that China might be prepared to consider a weaker resolution.

"If they wish to have a resolution, they should have a modified one, not this one," Wang said.

Bolton said Washington would look at any Chinese suggestions for changes in the Japanese draft.

The Japanese draft, under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter which allows military enforcement, demands that North Korea immediately stop developing, testing, deploying and selling ballistic missiles.

It would ban all U.N. member states from acquiring North Korean missiles or weapons of mass destruction - or the parts or technology to produce them - and order all countries to take steps to prevent any material, technology or money for missile or weapons programs from reaching the North.

The draft resolution also urges North Korea to immediately return to six-party talks, which have been stalled since September.

Japanese officials also said Monday that negotiations may not be enough, using rhetoric unprecedented in the country that adopted a pacifist constitution after its defeat in World War II.

"If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack ... there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense. We need to deepen discussion," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said.

"It's irresponsible to do nothing when we know North Korea could riddle us with missiles," echoed Tsutomu Takebe, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. "We should consider measures, including legal changes" required for such an attack, he said.

Japan's constitution foreswears the use of war to settle international disputes, but the government has interpreted that to allow defensive forces. The question is whether such a pre-emptive strike could be defined as self-defense.

Even if Japan resolves the constitutionality issue, its military capability to launch such a strike is another issue. The Defense Agency has said Japan does not own weapons such as ballistic missiles that could reach North Korea, only defensive ground-to-air and ground-to-vessel missiles.

Two oil reserve bases will be located in the eastern province of Zhejiang while another two will be located in Shandong and Liaoning provinces respectively, the report said.

Last month, China Daily said one of the stores in Zhejiang, located in the coastal city of Zhenhai, would be completed in August.

The four strategic oil reserve bases are expected to hold supplies for at least 30 days, it said.

Ma said the construction of oil reserve facilities will accelerate between now and 2010, with a second and third phase -- each with a capacity of 28 million tons -- already in the pipeline, according to the report.

Ma also said overseas cooperation in crude oil production will be strengthened in future.

China, the world's second-biggest oil consumer after the United States, used about 318 million tons of oil last year, of which 40 percent, or about 127 tons were imported, according to earlier reports.

Fuel tanks could be seen near the launch pads, the report said.

The report said the satellite photos were taken after last week's tests of seven missiles, but did not give a specific date.

"We think North Korea can launch missiles whenever it wishes," the top-selling daily quoted a government source as saying.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso on Sunday suggested Tokyo would have the right to launch a pre-emptive strike to protect its citizens from a missile launch by Pyongyang.

He said there were "visible signs" of activity at a North Korean missile base from which North Korea launched a Rodong missile last week.

Japan submitted a draft binding resolution in the United Nations Security Council that would impose sanctions on North Korea over the missile tests.

But on Monday, the Security Council put off a vote on the resolution to allow more time for Chinese diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis.

"We know that 22 people died when a mail train hit a bus," superintendent of Joypurhat district police Abdullah al Azad told AFP on Tuesday.

The bus with around 50 passengers on board was broken in two after hitting the train and shunted down the track for more than 300 meters (yards).

Bangladesh Railway spokesman Shafiqul Alam said the accident happened at an "unauthorised level crossing" used as a short cut by bus and truck drivers.

An investigation has been launched.

"The bus was going across the level crossing when it was hit by the front of the train," said al Azad, adding that all of the dead were on the bus.

Firefighters using heavy equipment cut some 30 injured people from the crushed bus.

Seven were in a critical condition in Joypurhat central hospital, said resident medical officer Saidur Rahman.

No-one on board the train was hurt.

Separate talks between North and South Korea, and China and the United States, were held a day after a vote on the resolution was postponed by the Council -- where China holds the veto power to block it.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu did not mention any veto but said such a legally binding Council resolution would "undermine the progress" on North Korean disarmament talks and needed to be thoroughly re-worked.

"China believes this draft resolution represents an overreaction and, if adopted, it will cause a further escalation of the problem," Jiang said Tuesday.

The resolution could "undermine the progress made in the six-party talks. There should be a substantial revision of the draft," she said, referring to stalled talks on persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.

President Hu Jintao said China was seriously concerned about tensions over North Korea and called on all parties to refrain from any actions that could inflame the situation.

The secretive state test-launched seven missiles last week in the direction of Japan, which has since pressed for a Council resolution that would clear the way for sanctions and in theory even military action.

North Korea in response said sanctions would be an "act of war". But late Tuesday it appealed for cooperation from South Korea over the issue.

"Calamities do not stem only from within. They also come from the outside... We need to make best efforts to prevent calamities that may come from the outside," North Korea's chief delegate Kwon Ho-Ung said as he met his South Korean counterpart for talks.

South Korea, maintaining its policy of engaging its communist neighbor while condemning the launches, agreed to the high-level talks in the port city of Busan. But it ruled out discussing North Korea's requests for further fertilizer and rice aid, saying it will instead tackle the missile issue.

The volleys of rhetoric have been accompanied by intensive diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff with Pyongyang, which has boycotted the six-nation disarmament talks since November.

At the Security Council on Monday, Japan said it had decided to postpone a vote and instead await word from a high-level Chinese delegation currently holding six days of negotiations in the North Korean capital.

China, the North's main ally, countered with a so-called presidential statement -- a Council document that carries no legal force -- that was rejected.

"It did not respond sufficiently robustly to actually what the present threat is," said Britain's ambassador to the
United Nations, Emyr Jones Parry. "Indeed it did not recognize that there was a threat."

Meanwhile the top US envoy on North Korea, Christopher Hill, returned to Beijing on Tuesday for the second time in a week, making another stop on a busy tour trying to muster diplomatic consensus.

"Obviously we are in a rather crucial period," Hill told reporters on arrival.

"The Chinese government has an important diplomatic mission going on, so we want to be in close consultation with the Chinese government," he said.

State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan told US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice on Monday that China still placed its hopes in the six-party talks, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

North Korea has announced it has nuclear weapons and the talks were intended to get the North, one of the most isolated and impoverished nations in the world, to abandon its atomic programmes.

But an agreement in September to do that in exchange for energy and security guarantees was never implemented before the North began boycotting the talks less two months later to protest US financial sanctions.

Japan's push for further sanctions over the missiles has also run into opposition from South Korea -- which, like China, often criticises what it sees as a Japanese failure to apologise for its wartime behaviour in the 20th century.

Top Japanese spokesman Shinzo Abe on Monday suggested a possible pre-emptive strike on North Korea, drawing more criticism on Tuesday.

"It is a serious development that Japanese cabinet ministers have made a series of comments that justify a possible pre-emptive strike and the use of military power against the Korean peninsula," said a spokesman for South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun.

South Korea in 2000 launched a "sunshine policy" of reconciling with its longtime Northern adversary.

The blasts hit trains and stations in the Matunga, Khar, Santa Cruz, Jogeshwari, Borivali and Bhayendar areas of Mumbai during rush hour.

Police said the blasts were in the first-class carriages of the commuter trains.

"The blasts happened when the trains were most crowded," said DK Shankaran, chief secretary of the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital.

All trains have been suspended and railway officials appealed to the public to stay away from the city's stations.

"It is a sad day," VK Duggal, the Indian home minister told reporters before a meeting with the prime minister. "Security has been definitely put on high alert."

Mumbai has been hit by a series of bomb blasts in the past decade. More than 250 people died in a series of bomb explosions in the city in 1993 which authorities blamed on criminal gangs.

Police in New Delhi said they were prepared for violence in the Indian capital.

"We have mobilised our entire forces who are conducting checks in all areas such as buses, bus stops, train stations and religious institutions," Anil Shukla, deputy commissioner of police for South Delhi, told Reuters.