World Highlights

• President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran should stand up to the world and pursue its nuclear programme, after Tehran ignored a UN deadline to stop nuclear work which the West says will be used to make atom bombs. The UN Security Council had given Iran until February 21 to halt uranium enrichment, a process that can make fuel for power plants or material for warheads.

• US Vice President Dick Cheney said the US retains all options in keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons but the White House stressed it was seeking a diplomatic outcome. Reaffirming longstanding US policy, Mr Cheney told ABC News in an interview while on a trip to Australia: "As we've said, we're doing everything we can to resolve it diplomatically, but we haven't taken any options off the table."

• Gunmen shot dead a Lebanese engineer and kidnapped two Italians in two separate incidents in Nigeria's oil city Port Harcourt, authorities said. The Italian Foreign Ministry recommended that its nationals leave the Niger Delta, Africa's largest oil producing region where kidnappings and attacks on oil facilities are on the rise.

• Rearmed with new guns the Taliban vowed this would be the deadliest year for foreign soldiers in Afghanistan since the Islamists were toppled in 2001. "This year will prove to be the bloodiest for the foreign troops. It is not just a threat, we will prove it," senior commander Mullah Dadullah told Reuters by satellite phone.