Bijan Zanganeh, the Iranian Oil minister, told the country's IRNA news agency: "Iran will not back politically motivated decisions."Iran was supported by Algeria, which said there was no need for in an increase in output as there was already excess supply in the wake of earlier Opec decisions to increase production. Libya is also hostile to the Saudi plan.Yesterday, oil prices hit a two-year high of $34.55 in London as traders responded to the 17 March deadline for Iraqi compliance. Saudi Arabia has already indicated it is prepared to increase supply with or without Opec approval.Lawrence Eagles, an analyst at GNI Research, said: "Politically [the Opec talks] are important, but in practical terms few observers believe that there is any significant spare capacity outside of Saudi Arabia." Analysts said Saudi Arabia would be stretched to fill a shortage as it was already pumping more than 9 million barrels daily of its 10.5 million capacity.Iraq's 1.7 million barrels daily is almost certain to shut and Kuwait says it could close up to 700,000 barrel output near its northern border with Iraq.. The debt-laden German telecoms group Deutsche Telekom outdid France Telecom yesterday by reporting an even larger loss than its French peer – the biggest loss in German corporate history. The result reflects the grave situation that the company found itself in last year and is still facing today," the chairman Kai-Uwe Ricke said, adding: "We know what has to be done. And we will succeed."The loss was, however, even greater than the one reported by France Telecom last week. The French telecoms group, weighed down by €68bn of debt, unveiled a €20.7bn loss after an equally onerous array of writedowns.Among Deutsche Telekom's writedowns was a €9.3bn goodwill charge as well as an €11.6bn charge to cover telecoms licences in the US and the UK.

Mr Ricke dubbed 2002 as "the toughest year so far" for Deutsche Telekom.Nevertheless, City analysts described the group's figures as broadly in line with expectations and took heart at the company's debt position, which fell to €61.1bn at the end of the year from €64.3bn at the end of the third quarter.The company's chief financial officer, Dr Karl-Gerhard Eick, said the strides the company had taken to cut debt so far should give investors confidence that Deutsche Telekom could cut debt to €49.5bn to €52.3bn by the end of the year. And Mr Ricke stressed that the company did not need to raise money to cut debt. "We do not require any capital increase in order to reduce debt," he insisted.There was some disappointment, however, with the performance of the company's mobile phone division – T-Mobile – which turned out an underlying, or Ebitda, profit of €5bn for the year."The quarterly progression [in mobile] that we were anticipating has not materialised," analysts at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney said, noting that the UK and Germany had been weaker than expected.T-Mobile, which was known as One2One in the UK, is at the centre of a huge row over the ownership of Virgin Mobile – a joint venture in the UK with Virgin. Sir Richard Branson's company has started legal proceedings against T-Mobile for "material breaches" of their agreement that are "incapable of remedy". If successful, Virgin could end up buying up T-Mobile's 50 per cent stake of Virgin Mobile..

AstraZeneca's controversial cholesterol-lowering drug, Crestor, was dealt a new blow yesterday when the company admitted three European regulators were stalling its launch. The company has promised to spend "whatever it takes" to market the drug.The drug maker said that 13 more European countries, including the UK, have now given the green light for the product, which went on sale in the Netherlands at the start of March. But Germany, Spain and Norway have refused to agree.AstraZeneca refused to give reasons for the new delays, but concerns are likely to centre on the safety of the highest doses of the drug.Analysts said the news raised doubts over whether Crestor will be the blockbuster product that AstraZeneca needs to counter falling earnings from Losec, the ulcer drug which lost patent protection in 2001 and is now facing cheap copycat competitors.The company's shares, which have lost 40 per cent of their value in a year, fell 38p to 1,965p yesterday.The launch of Crestor in the US has already been delayed by a year. The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) told AstraZeneca it would have to carry out additional trials before it would approve the highest doses of the drug. The new data has been generated and a final FDA decision is due later this year.Applications to launch new drugs in Europe are filed with one country's regulators, whose decision is then usually rubber stamped by other countries in what is known as the Mutual Recognition Procedure. The withdrawal of Germany, Spain and Norway from this procedure is unusual, and highlights the extent of concerns over the safety of this type of cholesterol-busting drugs, called statins.A similar product, Bayer's Baycol, was withdrawn in 2001 after being linked with a muscle-wasting diseases that killed more than 100 people. Bayer is struggling to assess the financial impact of the d?cle, which has landed it with 7,800 lawsuits and forced the company to consider selling part of its pharmaceutical business.AstraZeneca argues Crestor is a safer and more effective product, which will be able to challenge the dominance of Pfizer's statin, Lipitor, the biggest-selling drug in the world.

Some 16,000 people have taken the drug in clinical trials, and it is now on the market in two countries.The global statin market is estimated to be worth about £12bn and growing at 15 per cent a year as health authorities encourage use of the drugs as a means of tackling heart disease.. More than half of the entire value of the London stock market has been wiped out since the peak of the boom at the end of the last millennium. Michael Howard, the shadow Chancellor, said: "It is time for the Chancellor to take responsibility for the effect of his policies on millions of holders of pensions and endowments."A Treasury spokesman said the UK was caught up in a global downturn but had not suffered as badly as France and Germany. "As the Chancellor said a few weeks ago, we understand the concerns that uncertainty causes for investors and consumers alike," he said.Dealers said trading was dominated by concern that a Middle East conflict could start within days, now Britain and the US had set a 17 March deadline for Iraq to comply. The uncertainty triggered a sell-off across North America and Europe.