Tis the season to be selfish. Right after the global financial crisis exploded in 2008, many economists fretted that countries looking to hold on to their share of a shrinking pie would become more self-interested and protectionist, plunging the planet into an even sharper downturn, just as happened in the 1930s after the Great Depression. Thanks to panic-fueled crisis management by policymakers, it didn't happen. But after three years of pain and very little economic gain, it may be happening ...

Family of slain Iranian protester wants answers The images of Neda Agha Soltan's death on the streets of Tehran transformed her into an icon for Iran's opposition movement. But very few know of Ramin Ramezani, who was killed five days before Neda during last year's post-election demonstrations in the Iranian capital. "I always say Neda is the miracle of the century," Ramin's mother Zahra Ramezani told CNN by phone. "Neda was destined to be known to everyone. If Ramin isn't known to everyone, ...

When Iranian Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work as a lawyer and human-rights activist, the regime in Tehran faced a dilemma. The award infuriated the country's hard-liners, but the regime privately acknowledged that it had also earned Ebadi the admiration of most Iranians. Reluctant to arrest or openly target such a popular figure, the government tolerated Ebadi's activities and limited itself to low-level harassment of her legal office. That tacit policy has now ...

The United States on Friday sought clarification from Iran in response to its counter-offer involving shipping low-enriched uranium for refining abroad, senior administration officials said.Clinton told CNN that Western officials were working to determine what the Iranians are willing to do -- whether Tehran's decision is final or an interim statement. Iran sent its response Thursday to the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. The agreement was designed to reduce the amount of material Iran has to possibly make a nuclear ...

President Barack Obama has a personal stake in the outcome of Monday's meeting in Vienna between Western and Iranian nuclear experts on the future of Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium. That's because, Administration sources tell TIME, Obama personally weighed in three times during secret, multiparty negotiations with the Iranians over the last four months — in what has become not just a test of Iran's nuclear intentions but also a test of Obama's effort to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions through a combination of sanctions ...

Iran's supreme leader endorsed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term in office on Monday, state-run Press TV reported. Under Iran's constitution, the incoming president must receive the supreme leader's approval before being sworn into office. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's endorsement is the first step in that process. Ahmadinejad will be sworn in as president Wednesday in a ceremony to be held in parliament. The incumbent was declared the winner of the June 12 election with almost two-thirds of ...

Human rights supporters in dozens of cities around the world plan to rally Saturday to show solidarity with Iranians seeking democracy and civil rights, one of the organizing groups said. United4Iran said it expects protests at Iranian embassies and other sites to condemn the Iranian government's violent response to citizens who claim the June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was fraudulent. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets after the election, and many were met with brutality ...

Since the earliest days of his Administration, President Barack Obama has sought to engage Iran's leaders in the search for diplomatic solutions to the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program and other points of conflict. But in the days since protests exploded in the streets following the re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, many U.S. observers have suggested that prospects for engagement and reconciliation have dimmed. Republicans and even centrist Democrats have pressured the Administration to take a harder ...

Five Iranians held in Iraq by the United States since 2007 went back to Tehran on Sunday, Iran's government-backed Press TV reported.

No Iranian presidential candidates had filed complaints as a Monday deadline approached in the country's disputed presidential election, state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported. The powerful conservative Guardian Council last week extended the deadline for filing complaints after two candidates -- Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi -- questioned the legitimacy of the June 12 vote count. Separately, the council -- a body of judges and religious scholars that oversees elections -- ordered a "partial recount of 10 percent ...