Tehran

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad voiced defiance on Tuesday as a deadline neared for Iran to halt work the West fears is a step toward building nuclear bombs, and challenged United States President George Bush to a televised debate. ”Peaceful nuclear energy is the right of the Iranian nation,” he told a news conference.

Iran is due to give its reply on Tuesday to a package backed by six world powers that aims to end a nuclear stand-off with the West and Iranian officials say Iran does not accept the key demand to suspend uranium enrichment. Refusing to suspend the work that has both military and civilian uses would be tantamount to rejecting the package of incentives offered in return, Western diplomats say.

Iran said on Thursday it was determined to produce nuclear fuel on its territory in defiance of international calls to halt the work, and accused the United States of trying to prevent a negotiated solution to its dispute with the West. ”Based on law, Iran has planned to produce 20 000MW of nuclear electricity in the next 20 years,” chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said.

Iran on Sunday rejected a deadline to respond to an international offer aimed at resolving a nuclear stand-off, saying it would answer during the next Iranian month which begins July 23. ”A deadline is not an issue. We think such statements are not constructive and they will not help resolve the problem,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

Iraqi Vice-President Adel Abdel Mahdi has met Iran’s top nuclear negotiator in Tehran in a bid to help mediate an end to Iran’s nuclear crisis, a source close to the Iraqi leader said on Saturday. He said the meeting with Ali Larijani took place on Friday, a day after Abdel Hadi met in Baghdad with the ambassadors of Britain, France and Germany.

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday mocked countries that are against Iran’s controversial nuclear programme as suffering from mental problems, the ISNA student news agency said. ”Those [countries] who get upset at the happiness and progress of others are suffering from a mental problem and should find a way to cure themselves,” Ahmadinejad said.

Making their third appearance in the World Cup finals this summer, Iran will be desperate to please their passionate supporters back home and the large Germany-based expatriate population by reaching the knockout rounds for the first time.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said that any new deal offered by European powers to halt Iran’s civilian nuclear activities will be rejected, state news agency Irna reported. ”Any offer which requires us to halt our peaceful nuclear activities will be invalid,” Ahmadinejad said after returning from a five-day visit to Indonesia.

Iran has managed to enrich uranium up to 4,8% purity, the head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization said on Tuesday, as envoys of the main world powers met in Paris to discuss how to halt the sensitive nuclear fuel work. Iran had already announced last month that it had enriched uranium to 3,6% purity, sufficient to produce reactor fuel.

A senior Iranian sports official said on Wednesday that a presidential order to end a ban on women spectators in stadiums did not apply to unmarried females. ”The plan to have women in stadiums is merely for families. It does not consider single women. They are still banned from entering stadiums,” said Mohammad Aliabadi, the head of Iran’s physical education organisation.

Iran’s defence minister warned the United States on Monday it would suffer a ”disgraceful defeat” if it took military action against the Islamic republic, the official Irna news agency reported. ”If the US chooses the military option, a disgraceful defeat worse than the failure in Tabas desert awaits them,” Mostafa Mohammad Najar said, referring to a failed US attempt in 1980 to rescue American hostages in the seized US embassy in Tehran.

Iran issued a stern warning to United Nations Security Council permanent members and Germany on Tuesday ahead of their talks in Moscow on its nuclear programme, saying no amount of pressure would make it back down.

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared on Tuesday that the Islamic republic will ”soon join the club of countries that have nuclear technology”, state television reported. The announcement came 15 days before the expiry of a United Nations Security Council deadline for Iran to slam the brakes on its uranium enrichment programme.

Iran’s paramilitary revolutionary guards (IRGC) said on Friday that a new missile was successfully tested during a naval manoeuvre, the news network Khabar reported. The IRCG air-force commander, General Hossein Salami, told Khabar that the new missile was among ”Iran’s new missile generation” and more modern than the previous Iranian missile types.

Three strong earthquakes followed by several aftershocks have jolted western Iran, killing at least 66 people and injuring at least 988, state media reported on Friday. The epicentre was in the mountainous villages south of Boroujerd and north of Doroud in western Iran.

At least 38 people were killed when a powerful earthquake struck western Iran before dawn on Friday, wiping out villages and sending panicked residents fleeing from their homes. Another 700 people were also injured in the quake, which hit the province of Lorestan near the border with Iraq with a force of six on the Richter scale, officials said.

Iran reiterated on Friday that its nuclear programme is not up for negotiation, despite possible calls by the United Nations Security Council for it to accede to demands by the UN nuclear watchdog and immediately halt all nuclear enrichment activities.

Two men convicted of carrying out a deadly a bomb attack in Iran’s restive oil city of Ahvaz were executed in public early on Thursday, state media announced. The two men — Ali Affrawi and Mehdi Navasseri — were hanged at the scene of their crime, committed last October.