Stefan Smith
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/ 22 February 2007

Indian Kashmir: Phenomenal skiing and big risks

Laurie Bowles, a dreadlocked 24-year-old Englishman, clipped his boots to his snowboard and lunged from the roof of the world into a gaping narrow gully of ice, sugar and powder. His 2 000m vertical descent to Gulmarg, a village in revolt-hit India-administered Kashmir, is what many ski devotees rank as among the best skiing on the planet. Just ignore the travel warnings.

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/ 24 April 2006

Iran defies UN on nuclear drive

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday rejected a United Nations Security Council demand to halt sensitive nuclear work and warned that the Islamic republic could quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In a show of defiance just days away from a Friday deadline set by the Security Council for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment, Ahmadinejad confidently dismissed the threat of sanctions.

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/ 15 April 2006

Iran issues stark warning to the US

Iran said on Friday it could defeat any American military action over its controversial nuclear drive, in one of the Islamic regime’s boldest challenges yet to the United States. ”You can start a war but it won’t be you who finishes it,” said General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the head of the Revolutionary Guards and among the regime’s most powerful figures.

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/ 12 April 2006

Iran says nuclear drive is unstoppable

A defiant Iran vowed on Wednesday that nothing could halt its controversial nuclear programme, in a direct challenge to the United Nations Security Council that could risk international sanctions. With the country basking in national pride after scientists successfully enriched uranium to make nuclear fuel, officials pledged to move rapidly to industrial-scale work.

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/ 25 January 2006

German, French pair get 18 months in Iran jail

An Iranian court has jailed two men from France and Germany for 18 months for illegally entering the Islamic republic’s Gulf waters, as the government insisted the case was not linked to mounting tensions with Europe. ”The verdict is imprisonment. They also face another accusation,” said Justice Minister Jamal Karimi-Rad.

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/ 5 December 2005

Iran won’t back down over nuclear programme

Iran will not submit to Western demands to limit its disputed nuclear fuel drive and is prepared to maintain a freeze on sensitive activities only for a few more months, said national security official Ali Larijani. The Islamic republic’s top nuclear negotiator also asserted that Iran was powerful enough to dissuade its critics from considering military action.

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/ 21 September 2005

Iran raises nuclear stakes

Iran has yet again raised the stakes in its long stand-off with the West over its nuclear programme and the risk of being referred to the United Nations Security Council, but this time the hardline regime does not appear to be bluffing. The Islamic republic’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, vowed on Tuesday to respond to being hauled to New York by resuming uranium enrichment work.

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/ 30 December 2003

Quake deaths could top 50 000

The death toll from the earthquake in southeast Iran could top 50 000, a local government official said on Tuesday, making it one of the most devastating natural disasters of modern times. The assessment came as bulldozers cleared away rubble in a race against the risks of epidemic caused by rotting corpses.

  • Rescuers’ colleague among dead
  • Iran quake: 28 000 bodies recovered