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	<title>WorldCategory: iran &#124; World &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>WorldCategory: iran &#124; World &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>IAEA Report: Iran Expands Nuclear Technology</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/05/22/iaea-report-iran-expands-nuclear-technology/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/05/22/iaea-report-iran-expands-nuclear-technology/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 May 2013 22:20:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / George Jahn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=87339</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(VIENNA) — The U.N. atomic agency on Wednesday detailed rapid Iranian progress in two programs that the West fears are geared toward making nuclear weapons, saying Tehran has upgraded its uranium enrichment facilities and advanced in building a plutonium-producing reactor. In a confidential report obtained by The Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tehran had installed close to 700 high-tech centrifuges used for uranium enrichment, which can produce the core of nuclear weapons. It also said Tehran had added hundreds of older-generation machines at its main enrichment site to bring the total number to more than 13,000. Iran denies that either its enrichment program or the reactor will be used to make nuclear arms. Most international concern has focused on its enrichment, because it is further advanced than the reactor and already has the capacity to enrich to weapons-grade uranium. But the IAEA devoted more space to the reactor Wednesday than it has in previous reports. While its language was technical, a senior diplomat who closely follows the IAEA&#8217;s monitoring of Iran&#8217;s nuclear facilities said that reflected increased international concerns about the potential proliferation dangers it represents as a completion date approaches. He demanded anonymity because he wasn&#8217;t authorized to discuss confidential IAEA information. The report also touched upon a more than six-year stalemate in agency efforts to probe suspicions Tehran may have worked on nuclear weapons. It said that — barring Iran&#8217;s cooperation — it may not be able to resolve questions about &#8220;possible military dimensions to Iran&#8217;s nuclear program.&#8221; At Parcin, a military site where Iran is suspected of testing blasts to set off a nuclear charge, Iran has started paving over the area where the alleged experiments took place, the agency said, referring to satellite photos of the site. It was the latest detail in a series of moves the agency suspects were made to cover up evidence. The U.S., Israel and Iran&#8217;s other critics say the reactor at Arak, in central Iran, will be able to produce plutonium for several bombs a year once<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=87339&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>Iran&#8217;s Supreme Leader Tightens Grip After Disqualifying Two Top Presidential Candidates</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/05/22/irans-supreme-leader-tightens-grip-after-disqualifying-two-presidential-candidates/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/05/22/irans-supreme-leader-tightens-grip-after-disqualifying-two-presidential-candidates/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 May 2013 22:18:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Karl Vick</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iranian elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[katami]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[khomeini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mashaei]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[moussavi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rafsanjani]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tehran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=87310</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For the cleric who runs Iran, there’s no such thing as a pleasant surprise, especially on election day. Ayatullah Ali Khamenei was not pleased when a librarian named Mohammed Khatami was swept into the President’s office in 1997, leading a wave of reformists who challenged the status quo in which Khamenei, as the unelected Supreme Leader of the Revolution, was most heavily invested. In every election cycle since, the self-appointed portion of Iran’s government has done all it can to winnow the choices placed before Iranian voters. On Tuesday, that system tightened the screen once more, disqualifying the only two prominent candidates who dared to differ with the Supreme Leader. When Iranians go to the polls on June 14 to choose a successor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the ballot will run from Khamenei’s former policy director to the man who married his daughter. “We see in retrospect, the system was absolutely terrified at the possibility of a Gorbachev phenomenon,” says Ray Takeyh, who follows Iran at the Council on Foreign Affairs in Washington. He refers to Mikhail Gorbachev, who engineered the demise of the Soviet empire that its politburo selected him to protect. “Because of Khatami. They don’t want a repeat of that performance.” Consider the two most prominent candidates barred by the unelected Guardian Council, “the last two guys who weren’t going to completely tow the line,” says Takeyh. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 78, has served twice as Iran’s President already, in 1989 and 1993. He was an architect of the Islamic revolution that brought Grand Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini to power 34 years ago. At one point, when Khomeini thought he was about to be killed, he wrote a will ordering payment of his debts — Rafsanjani was owed the most. Khamenei owes him a good deal more. After Khomeini’s 1989 death, the assembly of clerics charged with naming a successor was deadlocked until Rafsanjani announced he’d heard Khomeini say Khamenei would be good in the job. But not even that bit of history was enough to undo Rafsanjani’s association with the reform movement<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=87310&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/408f510f00a7473a8b0dc9cae34d6dbb-0.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, registers his candidacy for the presidential election, at the election headquarters of the interior ministry in Tehran, on May 11, 2013.</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">karlvick</media:title>
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		<title>Iran&#8217;s Ahmadinejad Looks to Outsider Options</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/05/22/irans-ahmadinejad-denounces-election-decision/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/05/22/irans-ahmadinejad-denounces-election-decision/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 May 2013 09:26:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / Ali Akbar Dareini and Brian Murphy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=87215</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(TEHRAN, Iran) — By now, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is well-accustomed to enduring blows from Iran&#8217;s ruling clerics as his reputation fell from favored son to political outcast. But their intended parting shot — barring his chief aid from the presidential race — may be just the opening act in Ahmadinejad&#8217;s reinvention as a self-styled opposition force. Ahmadinejad vowed Wednesday to use what clout he has left to challenge the ruling by election overseers to block his protege from the June 14 ballot to pick Iran&#8217;s next president. His chances of success are likely very small. Yet his refusal to accept the ruling clerics&#8217; judgment is a sign that his political transition is already underway from an insider at odds with the leadership to an outsider with the potential to be even more disruptive. &#8220;The election will be as much about what Ahmadinejad does as the candidates running to replace him,&#8221; said Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. &#8220;He still remains in the spotlight.&#8221; Ahmadinejad — once seen as firmly within the theocracy&#8217;s fold — is now viewed by the leadership as a troublesome maverick after trying to challenge the authority of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The rejection Tuesday of his confidant Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei — though widely expected and greatly overshadowed by former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani also being ruled unfit for the race — marks an important crossroads for Ahmadinejad. He is left politically adrift with no clear candidate to back and a highly uncertain future after he steps down. He could seek an alliance with one of the eight candidates approved by the ruling clerics — nearly all close allies of Khamenei — by offering his still significant popular base, mainly in rural and poor areas that benefited from his government&#8217;s development projects and handouts. More likely, however, is that Ahmadinejad could try to carve out his own political movement as an alternative voice in a country facing a multitude of problems, including an economy dragged down in part by<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=87215&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>France May Aid Syrian Rebels Unilaterally If EU Doesn&#8217;t Lift Arms Embargo</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/03/14/france-may-aid-syrian-rebels-unilaterally-if-eu-doesnt-lift-arms-embargo/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/03/14/france-may-aid-syrian-rebels-unilaterally-if-eu-doesnt-lift-arms-embargo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:32:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Crumley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[arab uprisings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E.U.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[France]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaddafi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Germany]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Qatar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saudi Arabia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.K.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bashar al-Assad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Britain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[civil war]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Damascus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Embargo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[European Union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[François Hollande]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[London]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UK]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=75356</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[France has significantly upped its efforts to unblock Western military support for rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by calling for the European Union to lift its arms embargo in the conflict. In the most emphatic sign yet that Paris intends to get weapons and ammunition flowing to anti-Assad fighters, French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius said March 14 that if the E.U. and other international partners fail to heed that call, France may act on its own to bolster rebel fighting capacity. “The position we’ve taken, with [President] François Hollande, is to demand a lifting the arms embargo… [as] one of the only ways to get the situation moving politically,” Fabius told France Info radio Thursday morning. Asked what France would do if its partners refused that request, Fabius indicated Paris would act unilaterally, reminding listeners that “France is a sovereign nation”. (MORE: Syria’s Many Militias: Inside the Chaos of the Anti-Assad Rebellion) That push isn’t the first time France has sought to extend aid to Syrian civilians and anti-Assad militias beyond the medical and humanitarian assistance it now provides. During a Jan. 28 conference on Syria in Paris, Fabius warned that continuing to withhold armaments to democratic forces within the Syrian resistance risked seeing large and powerful Islamist members of the anti-government coalition seize control of the country once the conflict ended. Fabius more recently escalated the tone of that message in a March 13 editorial in the daily Libération by describing what he called a Franco-British initiative. That consisted, Fabius said of seeking to bring a swifter end to the escalating massacre of the civil war by offering military as well as political and moral support to rebel forces. &#8220;More than 70,000 dead and a million refugees, the systematic destruction of a country: the second anniversary of the launch of the Syrian revolution is an anniversary of blood and tears,” Fabius wrote Wednesday. “We must convince our partners, particularly in Europe, that we no longer have any other choice than to lift the embargo on arms to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=75356&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Syria</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/syria/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/67f00307c3e683663920b007dcd7b736?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">girondins33</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Assad’s Big Ally: How Deeply Entrenched Is Iran in Syria?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/26/assads-big-ally-how-deeply-entrenched-is-iran-in-syria/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/26/assads-big-ally-how-deeply-entrenched-is-iran-in-syria/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Feb 2013 08:00:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Masih Alinejad and Azadeh Moaveni</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Hizballah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bashar Assad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hizballah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tehran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=71062</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The killing last week of a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps commander near the Lebanon-Syria border has rekindled speculation about Iran’s activities in Syria, particularly its ties to the militia groups fighting alongside the Syrian government. With rebel forces having gained control of vast swaths of northern and eastern Syria in recent weeks, and the U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warning that Syria is being transformed into “a playground for competing regional forces and governments,” the precise nature of Iran’s role in the conflict is being held to more scrutiny than perhaps any moment since the conflict began 22 months ago. Though Western and Iranian officials will not discuss Syria when they sit down for talks on Iran&#8217;s nuclear program in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, Iran&#8217;s ability to shape that conflict will hang over the negotiations, strengthening both Tehran&#8217;s perception of its position and the West&#8217;s resolve to deny Iran meaningful sanctions relief. Iran says it is seeking a cease-fire in Syria and has offered its own proposal to end hostilities and bring about a negotiated end to the conflict, with the ultimate aim of holding a national referendum on how the country should be governed. Iranian officials say Tehran’s interests lie in restoring stability, not sowing further chaos. “For us, the worst-case scenario is civil war and the fracture of Syria, and we’ll do everything we can to prevent that,” Hossein Sheikholeslam, Iran’s former ambassador to Syria and foreign policy adviser to the head of parliament, told TIME. But Washington blames Iran for prolonging the country’s bloody civil war, alleging that it is propping up the government of President Bashar Assad with a steady supply of weapons and cash. American officials say Tehran is also busy on the ground cultivating a network of proxies, in coordination with its ally Hizballah, that can advance its interests should the Assad regime eventually fall. U.S. officials have linked Tehran with the proregime militia Jaysh al-Sha’bi, which Washington designated as a terrorist group in December. David Cohen, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=71062&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Syria</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/syria/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/rtr3df2j.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">timeadmin</media:title>
		</media:content>
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		<item>
		<title>Spy Fail: Why Iran Is Losing Its Covert War with Israel</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/13/spy-fail-why-iran-is-losing-its-covert-war-with-israel/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/13/spy-fail-why-iran-is-losing-its-covert-war-with-israel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Feb 2013 08:00:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Karl Vick</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=68470</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Slumped in a Nairobi courtroom, suit coats rumpled and reading glasses dangling from librarian chains, the defendants made a poor showing for the notorious Quds Force of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ahmad Abolafathi Mohammed and Sayed Mansour Mousa had been caught red-handed and middle-aged. And if the latter did them a certain credit — blandly forgettable always having been a good look for a secret agent — the prisoners still had to explain why they had hidden 15 kg of the military explosive RDX under bushes on a Mombasa golf course. Created to advance Iran’s interests clandestinely overseas, the Quds Force has lately provided mostly embarrassment, stumbling in Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, Kenya and most spectacularly in Thailand, where before accidentally blowing up their Bangkok safe house, Iran’s secret agents were photographed in the sex-tourism mecca of Pattaya, one arm around a hookah, the other around a hooker. In its ongoing shadow war with Israel, the Iranian side’s lone “success” was the July 18 bombing of a Bulgarian bus carrying Israeli tourists — though European investigators last week officially attributed that attack to Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hizballah. That leaves the Islamic Republic itself with a failure rate hovering near 100% abroad and an operational tempo — nine overseas plots uncovered in nine months — that carries a whiff of desperation. A Tehran government long branded by U.S. officials as the globe’s leading exporter of terrorism may be cornering the market on haplessness. Within Iran’s own borders, however, the story is different. Twice in the past two years Iranian intelligence has cracked espionage rings working with Israel’s Mossad, Western intelligence officials tell TIME. In both cases, the arrests were the furthest thing from secret: announced at a news conference, each was later followed up by televised confessions broadcast on Iranian state television in prime time. Given Iran’s history of trumped-up confessions, skepticism is more than justified. But the arrests appear to be solid. One intelligence official said the captured Iranians provided “support and logistics” to the Mossad operatives who carried<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=68470&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>israel</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/israel-middle-east/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/161332564.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">karlvick</media:title>
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		<title>Iran Releases Video Seized from &#8216;Downed U.S. Drone&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/02/07/iran-releases-video-seized-from-downed-u-s-drone/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/02/07/iran-releases-video-seized-from-downed-u-s-drone/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Feb 2013 19:15:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Charlie Campbell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[drones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=67860</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Video footage supposedly filmed by a downed U.S. drone has been released by Iran. The black and white recording shows aerial views near Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan, claims a man identified as Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who narrates a section of the footage. (MORE: What Happens When Drones Return to America) Iranian state-run television broadcast the clip on Wednesday evening to promote the country&#8217;s advances in drone technology. The report boasted that the nation’s scientists were able to decode the film, which they claim had been taken from an RQ-170 Sentinel drone disabled through electronic interference in eastern Iran in December 2011. The footage was subsequently published on Youtube. “This aircraft has carried out many operations in the countries around Iran,” says Hajizadeh, the commander of the Iranian airspace division, according to CNN. “We were able to definitively access the data of the drone, once we brought it down,” he adds. “After we decrypted the data … we realized that this aircraft had made a lot of flights inside regional countries.” Iran claims to have downed the unmanned surveillance device on Dec. 4, 2011, near Kashmar in the country&#8217;s northeast, some 225 km (140 miles) from the Afghan border. U.S. officials acknowledged that a drone was missing at the time and President Barack Obama even asked the Iranian authorities to return it. “We aren&#8217;t able to confirm the authenticity of the video,” a spokesman from the Department of Defense told Fox News. “As you know, we don&#8217;t provide details regarding matters of intelligence.” News organizations have similarly struggled to independently authenticate the film, which at times seems to show the inside of a U.S. military base. Iran has recently claimed advances in drone technology on the back of a number of U.S. and Israeli drones that it says were seized while flying over Iranian territory, reports the Guardian. (PHOTOS: Everyday Drones: Photographs by Gregg Segal)<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=67860&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://world.time.com/2013/02/07/iran-releases-video-seized-from-downed-u-s-drone/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/int_dronevideo_0208.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Drone video.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timecontributor2</media:title>
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		<title>Iran&#8217;s Agenda: Why Tehran Plays Hard to Get on Nuclear Diplomacy</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2013/01/24/irans-agenda-why-tehran-plays-hard-to-get-on-nuclear-diplomacy/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2013/01/24/irans-agenda-why-tehran-plays-hard-to-get-on-nuclear-diplomacy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Jan 2013 08:00:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tony Karon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benjamin Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bomb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diplomacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[engagement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enrichment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Khamenei]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[negotiations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[p5+1]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[talks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tehran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uranium]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=64172</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;A decade of war in now ending,&#8221; President Barack Obama told Americans on Monday, vowing to &#8220;show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully &#8211; not because we are naive about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.&#8221; That was widely taken as a reference to Iran, against which Obama has said he would be willing to order military action should that become necessary to stop Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons. But while the President&#8217;s inaugural speech underscored his preference for diplomacy, prospects for a breakthrough in negotiations with Iran remain gloomy. Indeed, Western diplomats have been struggling, since last December, to even get Tehran even to commit to a time and place for a new round of nuclear talks they had hoped to hold on Jan. 15. &#8220;We proposed concrete dates and a venue in December,&#8221; Reuters was told by Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton who coordinates negotiations between Iran and the major powers. &#8220;Since then, we have been very surprised to see Iran come back to us again and again with new pre-conditions on the modalities of the talks, for example by changing the venue and delaying their responses.&#8221; Despite Iranians&#8217; suffering under the burden of ever-tightening Western sanctions, analysts believe Tehran has been evading a new round of nuclear talks with the P5+1 — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany — because it believes Western powers don&#8217;t plan to offer substantially more than the package rejected by Iran at the previous round of talks in Moscow last June. (MORE: Five Tips for President Obama on Nuclear Negotiations with Iran) &#8220;There&#8217;s been a gulf between the expectations of the two sides until now,&#8221; says Reza Marashi, a former State Department official now research director at the National Iranian-American Council. &#8220;Iran is demanding an end to sanctions as their starting point without clearly putting concessions of their own over 20% enrichment and the Fordow underground enrichment facility on the table, while the U.S.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=64172&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/iran_nuke_0124.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Iran</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">tkaron2010</media:title>
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		<title>Why Iran’s Capture of a “U.S. Drone” Matters — to Iran</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/12/05/why-irans-capture-of-a-u-s-drone-matters-to-iran/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/12/05/why-irans-capture-of-a-u-s-drone-matters-to-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Dec 2012 18:33:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Azadeh Moaveni</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=58139</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Iran&#8216;s Revolutionary Guards claimed to have &#8220;hunted down&#8221; an American drone over Iranian airspace on Tuesday, but there may be a lot of internal politics involved in the all-out propaganda fest launched on state media to declare Tehran&#8217;s military prowess in the Persian Gulf. For its part, the United States Navy said none of its drones in the region were missing. State television, as well as Iran&#8217;s Arabic and English language networks, broadcast images of Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards&#8217; naval forces, inspecting the drone before a large map of the Gulf bearing the text: &#8220;We shall trample on the U.S.&#8221; Fadavi said the ScanEagle drone, roughly the size of a seagull, was hunted down after violating Iranian airspace. Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran&#8217;s foreign minister, said the country had warned the United States against &#8220;invading our territories,&#8221; and said would use the drone as evidence in its complaint to international organizations. (MORE: Susan Rice and the Modern Secretary of State) Iranian officials used the alleged intrusion throughout the day to highlight what they called America&#8217;s spying activity against Iran, effectively turning the media conversation into a celebration of the Guards&#8217; strength and focusing public attention away from a host of thorny subjects the regime has struggled with recently. Between the collapse of its currency, a sharp warning from the United States against Tehran&#8217;s ally Syria, open rifts between factions of its own regime, and the embarrassing death of a blogger under torture, Iran has faced unusually intense pressure in just the past month. The capital itself has been officially shut down for two days, choked by extreme air pollution. &#8220;The regime needs to change the topic,&#8221; says Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University. &#8220;The hype of the new &#8216;hunt&#8217; might eclipse stories of other &#8216;hunts.&#8217;&#8221; Without Washington&#8217;s confirmation of the seizure or definitive proof that the drone was American (a number of Persian Gulf nations also run ScanEagle drones), it is difficult to gauge whether the incident marks an escalation in tensions<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=58139&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/int-iran-drone-1204.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">image: An image grab taken from Iran&#039;s state television Al-Alam is said to show U.S. drone that penetrated its airspace over Gulf waters, Dec. 4, 2012.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">timeadmin</media:title>
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		<title>Riding the Thermals: Inside Hizballah&#8217;s Drone&#8211;Mostly Hot Air</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/10/23/riding-the-thermals-inside-hizballahs-drone-mostly-hot-air/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/10/23/riding-the-thermals-inside-hizballahs-drone-mostly-hot-air/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 22:12:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Karl Vick and Aaron J. Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Hizballah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=51296</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What’s in a drone? In the case of the unmanned aircraft that Hizballah sent over Israel earlier this month,  the answer is: Pretty much just the headlines.  The aircraft produced a great many photographs, but they were all of its own wreckage, scattered across the wastes of the Negev Desert after an Israeli fighter sent a missile into its fuselage.  The camera on board the drone went down with it the morning of Oct. 6, along with any images taken during its brief foray over Israeli territory, according to Asaf Agmon, head of Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, an Israeli think tank.  Despite the bold posturing of Hizballah, which sent the drone, and Iran, which manufactured it, the aircraft had no ability to transmit images back to its base.  It was, in effect, a passenger pigeon, slow, vulnerable and with a net military effect of almost nil. “This is the technology of the late ‘80s,” Agmon, a retired brigadier general in the Israeli air force, tells TIME.  “It’s a nuisance, but it forces us to deal with it.” In the publicity realm, however, the aircraft caused a sensation. Launched from Lebanon, it cruised across the southeast corner of the Mediterranean and entered Israeli air space between the coastal cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon – not by way of the Gaza Strip, as originally reported, an Israeli security source tells TIME.   Israeli radar – which reaches as far as 300 miles – tracked it electronically, and pilots in scrambled fighters followed it visually. (MORE: Drones: A Non-Issue in U.S. Debate Riles Pakistan) It was not moving fast.  Driven by a propeller, the drone’s top speed was that of a small car, perhaps 100 mph. It could climb no higher than 10,000 feet.  When it passed beyond populated areas, and there was no risk of damage from falling debris, the order was given to shoot it down.  The first missile missed.  The explosion of the second, released as a gunsight video,  blew it into so many pieces that Bedouin<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=51296&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>israel</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/israel-middle-east/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/gs_resp_drone.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">gs_resp_drone</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">karlvick</media:title>
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		<title>Whether It&#8217;s Romney or Obama, U.S. Will Consider Direct Talks with Iran</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/10/23/whether-its-romney-or-obama-u-s-will-consider-direct-talks-with-iran/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/10/23/whether-its-romney-or-obama-u-s-will-consider-direct-talks-with-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:37:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tony Karon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[debate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Khamenei]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[negotiations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[p5+1]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[talks]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=50444</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here&#8217;s a little secret about the future of U.S. Iran policy, regardless of who wins the presidential election: direct talks between Washington and Tehran may be inevitable — notwithstanding the Obama Administration&#8217;s insistence, in response to media reports last weekend, that no such talks are currently planned or the denials by Iran that it wants to talk. The reason that the winner on Nov. 6 may face little alternative but to try direct talks with Iran for the first time since 1979, is quite simply that both President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney have made clear their desire to avoid taking the U.S. into a third elective war in a Muslim country in the space of a decade. &#8220;It is essential for us to understand what our mission is in Iran,&#8221; Romney said in Monday&#8217;s foreign policy debate, &#8220;and that is to dissuade Iran from having a nuclear weapon through peaceful and diplomatic means.&#8221; His leverage of choice: &#8220;crippling sanctions&#8221; with the threat of military action as a last resort should Iran cross a red line toward developing &#8220;nuclear-weapons capability.&#8221; That&#8217;s broadly the same policy the Obama Administration has followed. Asked to differentiate himself, in the debate, Romney didn&#8217;t even raise the ambiguous question of where to draw the red line. (Obama sets his red line for action at Iran moving to acquire a nuclear weapon; Romney uses the phrase nuclear-weapons capability &#8211; although it&#8217;s not exactly clear whether this means the capability to build nuclear weapons, which Iran perhaps already has in latent form, or the capability to rapidly assemble and deploy nuclear warheads atop missiles.) Instead Romney simply insisted he&#8217;d have imposed tighter sanctions sooner. According to Politico, just last month Romney told reporters on his campaign plane that he does &#8220;not believe that in the final analysis we will have to use military action&#8221; against Iran. &#8220;I can&#8217;t take that option off the table &#8212; it must be something which is known by the Iranians as a possible tool to be employed to prevent them from becoming nuclear. But I<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=50444&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/iran_policy_1023.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Iran</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">tkaron2010</media:title>
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		<title>Iran&#8217;s Poker Game: What Can Direct Talks Achieve?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/10/22/irans-poker-game-what-can-direct-talks-achieve/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/10/22/irans-poker-game-what-can-direct-talks-achieve/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:21:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Karl Vick</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Diplomacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ali Larijani]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Argo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ayatollah Ali Khamanei]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Carnegie Endowment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[direct talks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Grand Bargain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hostage crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iranian nuclear program]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Karim Sadjadpour]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[people-to-people diplomacy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=50744</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In 10 visits to Iran from 2002 to 2006, I was summoned to the office of a government official only once. The office had airy ceilings and a gorgeous silk carpet. It was in a palace that had belonged to the brother of Shah Reza Pahlavi, who used it as a casino. The preferred game was said to be poker, specifically five-card stud. And, true to tradition, on the March day I showed up, its current resident laid some cards on the table. Ali Larijani, then the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, took a seat on the sofa and announced that Iran was ready to talk directly to Washington. The immediate topic, he said, was Iraq, which in the spring of 2006 was being pulled to bits by sectarian warfare. But Larijani made it clear Tehran had an appetite to open the discussion to the whole range of issues that had kept Iran and America enemies for more than a quarter-century: “If Americans stop making trouble in the region and take a more concrete look at what they’re doing, many things can happen.” Nothing did, of course, but the Iranian appetite for what’s often called a grand bargain is useful to bear in mind in light of the weekend&#8217;s New York Times report that Tehran and Washington are on the cusp of direct talks once again. This time, the topic at hand is Iran’s nuclear program. But the Times reports that the Iranian side would prefer to open the floor — “to broaden the agenda to include Syria, Bahrain and other issues that have bedeviled relations between Iran and the United States since the American hostage crisis of 1979.” The article also hints that the Iranian official promoting direct talks is Larijani, which makes sense. Though he&#8217;s held a variety of top positions — including head of state broadcasting and his current job as Speaker of the Majlis, or Iranian parliament — Larijani&#8217;s power has always stemmed from his access to the man who runs Iran: Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=50744&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/600_larijani_1022.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/600_larijani_1022.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">Ali Larijani</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">karlvick</media:title>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Iran Policy: Why Diplomacy Remains the Likely Course</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/10/10/is-the-white-house-weighing-a-military-strike-on-iran/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/10/10/is-the-white-house-weighing-a-military-strike-on-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:00:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tony Karon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ahmadinejad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[air strike]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enrichment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[military action]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[red line]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uranium]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=48807</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Have some members of the Obama Administration been quaffing a ten-year-old jug of Kool Aid left in a White House basement fridge by Bush Administration officials? That&#8217;s certainly an impression conveyed by one unnamed source briefing Foreign Policy magazine&#8217;s David Rothkopf  on talks between the Administration and the Israeli government. According to Rothkopf&#8217;s source, Washington is now considering plans for a limited U.S.-Israeli raid on Iran&#8217;s nuclear facilities, a strike so &#8220;surgical&#8221; that it could be over in a matter of hours. This ostensible military cakewalk would, according to &#8220;one advocate&#8221; cited by Rothkopf have a &#8220;transformative outcome: saving Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, reanimating the peace process, securing the Gulf, sending an unequivocal message to Russia and China, and assuring American ascendancy in the region for a decade to come.&#8221; Both the language and the thinking in that quote are reminiscent of the giddiest fantasies of the Bush Administration&#8217;s Iraq-war zealots. It appears that for some, at least, the failure of the Iraq invasion to transform the Middle East and assure &#8220;American ascendancy&#8221; simply requires a shock-and-awe do-over. Rothkopf&#8217;s piece on the ostensible emergence of a war-lite option on Iran begins from the premise that President Obama is vulnerable to political attacks from Mitt Romney over his handling of Iran, and might benefit from letting it be known that he&#8217;s considering a &#8220;surgical strike&#8221; on Iran — a scenario ostensibly more believable because it supposedly requires less of a military commitment. &#8220;It may be that the easiest way for the Obama team to defuse Romney&#8217;s critique on Iran is simply to communicate better what options they are in fact considering,&#8221; Rothkopf writes. &#8220;It&#8217;s not the size of the threatened attack, but the likelihood that it will actually be made, that makes a military threat a useful diplomatic tool. And perhaps a political one, too.&#8221; (MORE: How Many Civilians Would Be Killed in an Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Sites?) But that assumes Obama faces a major political problem on Iran — an assumption unlikely to be shared by the president&#8217;s reelection team at<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=48807&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://world.time.com/2012/10/10/is-the-white-house-weighing-a-military-strike-on-iran/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/ap120305144608.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">tkaron2010</media:title>
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		<title>The Revolt of the Bazaar: Will Angry Merchants Change Iran?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/10/04/the-revolt-of-the-bazaar-will-angry-merchants-change-iran/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/10/04/the-revolt-of-the-bazaar-will-angry-merchants-change-iran/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:37:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jasmine A. Soren / Tehran</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ahmadinejad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grand bazaar of tehran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tehran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=48134</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Grand Bazaar of Tehran was in limbo on Wednesday as the merchants who make it the &#8220;beating heart&#8221; of Iran’s economy — as it is popularly described — shouted &#8220;Allahu akbar&#8221; (God is great) and shut down their shops. The trigger was the collapse of the Iranian rial, which lost more than 30% of its value and fell to nearly 40,000 to the U.S. dollar on the open market. As that happened, text messages of unknown origin went viral asking business owners to temporarily shut down their shops all over Tehran to protest the government&#8217;s mismanagement and indifference to the currency crisis. The day before, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had tried to absolve his government by defending its policies and blaming the situation on his opponents within the regime. He said he believes they have orchestrated a &#8220;psychological war&#8221; to discredit him. In a televised press conference on Tuesday, he also appealed to merchants and citizens to have patience and wait for the currency market to calm down. (VIDEO: Iran: Life Under the Sanctions) Ignoring the President&#8217;s appeal, thousands of businessmen and shoppers went chanting into the streets of central Tehran, asking the government to &#8220;let go of Syria” — a reference to the regime&#8217;s backing of Damascus — and to &#8220;think of the Iranian people instead.&#8221; Many others shouted &#8220;Ahmadi[nejad], be careful: we are people, not some fools.&#8221; Riot police cracked down on protesters using tear gas and batons, hitting and arresting demonstrators who had taken to breaking shop windows and setting garbage cans on fire. According to the Iranian Labor News Agency, which is close to the reformist faction of the government, the merchants&#8217; strike spread on Thursday to the jewelers&#8217; bazaar in Isfahan, one of Iran&#8217;s most important economic poles. Tehran&#8217;s Grand Bazaar remained shut, the shopkeepers dramatically protesting in silence inside their stores. &#8220;After Wednesday&#8217;s physical confrontations with the police, we have decided to give the government the silent treatment,&#8221; says Nasser, who works in the carpet market. &#8220;We have stopped all transactions and are sitting in half-closed<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=48134&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/600_int_merchants_1004.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Mideast Iran Merchants</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">samanthagrossman</media:title>
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		<title>Protests in Tehran: Will Pain of Sanctions Change Iran&#8217;s Nuclear Calculus?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/10/04/protests-in-tehran-will-pain-of-sanctions-change-irans-nuclear-calculus/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/10/04/protests-in-tehran-will-pain-of-sanctions-change-irans-nuclear-calculus/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:34:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tony Karon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ahmadinejad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[currency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[demonstrations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Khamenei]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tehran]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=47491</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The teargas that wafted over parts of Tehran on Wednesday might have been taken as the smell of victory for gung-ho advocates of the U.S. sanctions strategy against Iran &#8212; had any been there to catch a whiff. The gas was fired by riot police to disperse crowds gathered for a rare demonstration against the regime, driven to act by the precipitous collapse in the value of their currency, the rial, and against the authorities&#8217; efforts to prevent them from converting savings into foreign currencies in order to preserve their value. The rial has fallen 40% against the dollar in the past week alone, after three years of steady decline, accelerated by the rush to convert savings. For many in the West, the turmoil was interpreted as a sign that sanctions are having their desired effect. &#8221;From our perspective, this speaks to the unrelenting and increasingly successful international pressure that we are all bringing to bear on the Iranian economy,&#8221; State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said on Monday, referring to the chaos in Iran&#8217;s currency markets. Sanctions, she said, are &#8220;cutting deeper and deeper into the Iranian economy and this is an important factor in trying to change the [nuclear] calculus of the Iranian leadership.&#8221; For Iran&#8217;s citizens, who have seen the prices of many basic foodstuffs more than double since last year, and who are struggling to access even life-saving medicines, the effect of the sanctions is more than mere &#8220;collateral damage.&#8221; The sanctions are, as U.S. officials like to point out, designed to put Iran&#8217;s economy in a &#8220;chokehold&#8221;, in the hope that one of the effects will be that the resultant economic pain rouses them to defy and challenge the regime, forcing it to rethink its nuclear program in order to win Iran&#8217;s release from the stranglehold of sanctions that are fomenting rebellion. While official statements might insist that innocent Iranians are not the target of that &#8220;chokehold,&#8221; an unnamed senior U.S. intelligence officer showed no such squeamishness when explaining the sanctions strategy to the Washington Post earlier this year. &#8221;In addition<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=47491&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/tehran_protests_1004.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/tehran_protests_1004.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">Tehran Protests</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">tkaron2010</media:title>
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		<title>After November: 5 Middle East Headaches That Await the U.S.</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/10/01/after-november-five-mideast-headaches-looming-for-the-u-s/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/10/01/after-november-five-mideast-headaches-looming-for-the-u-s/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Oct 2012 09:45:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tony Karon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslim Brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Qatar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saudi Arabia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abbas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[assad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[intervention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Khamenei]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MEK]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Morsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestinian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[peace process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[refugee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taliban]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Turkey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[two state]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[withdrawal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=47201</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[1. Despite Netanyahu&#8217;s Retreat, Avoiding War with Iran Will Get Harder For all of his summer saber rattling and efforts to pressure the Obama Administration into stating imminent red lines for war with Iran, Israel&#8217;s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu effectively retreated at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday. Despite the familiar apocalyptic rhetoric, Netanyahu took care to signal Israel&#8217;s cooperation with the Obama Administration on the issue. More important, he drew his own red line &#8212; somewhat confusingly, given the much lampooned graphic on which he relied &#8212; at Iran possessing a sufficient stockpile of 20% enriched uranium to reprocess into one bomb&#8217;s worth of highly enriched uranium. At present rates of enrichment, he claimed, that point would be reached next spring or summer. Leave aside the considerable body of expert opinion that holds that the U.S. would have a lot more time than Netanyahu suggests to respond to an overt move by Iran to build nuclear weapons, the Israeli leader nonetheless once again wound forward his doomsday alarm clock, setting it to ring sometime early next year. That seemed to take off the table the threat of an Israeli strike over U.S. objections before November&#8217;s election. But the occupant of the Oval Office early next year may face a more acute crisis: sanctions have not so far changed Iran&#8217;s nuclear calculations, and such concessions as Iran has offered by way of capping its nuclear work are not ones that the Obama Administration has been ready to accept as a basis for easing sanctions. Iran doesn&#8217;t trust the U.S. any more than the U.S. trusts Iran, and Tehran believes the real purpose of the sanctions is to create economic chaos in the hope of provoking an uprising against the regime. Such suspicions will have been heightened by Friday&#8217;s U.S. decision to remove the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, an exile armed group that fought for Saddam Hussein against Iran in the 1980s and which is widely reviled even among leaders of the opposition Green Movement, from the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. (MORE: Apocalyptic Talk Aside, Israel<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=47201&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Syria</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/syria/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/aleppo.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">aleppo</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/9bd886fea2e4b000cf3c42ddaa6be6e4?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">tkaron2010</media:title>
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		<title>Apocalyptic Talk Aside, Israel Has Dialed Down Its Threat to Bomb Iran — for Now</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/09/28/apocalyptic-talk-aside-israel-has-dialed-down-its-threat-to-bomb-iran-for-now/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/09/28/apocalyptic-talk-aside-israel-has-dialed-down-its-threat-to-bomb-iran-for-now/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:56:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tony Karon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bomb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enrichment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[General Assembly]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[red line]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[speech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UN]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uranium]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=46714</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Israel is in discussions with the United States over this issue, and I am confident that we can chart a path forward together,&#8221; said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his U.N. speech on Sept. 27, referring to the question of Iran&#8217;s nuclear program, to which he devoted almost all of his remarks. The Prime Minister broke from his recent habit of tacitly, but obviously, criticizing President Barack Obama&#8216;s handling of Iran by hailing his achievements in putting together the most comprehensive sanctions package ever faced by any nation. Netanyahu also emphasized that the two governments are working together in pursuit of the common objective of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, a message the White House was happy to affirm via National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, who said the U.S. and Israel &#8220;will continue our close consultation and cooperation toward achieving that [shared] goal.&#8221; Although Netanyahu also maintained that sanctions have failed to stop Iran&#8217;s program and that time was running out, the Israeli leader has clearly dialed things down from his previous habit of presenting Obama — to the delight of the campaign of Mitt Romney — as naive and feckless in the face of a grave and gathering danger. Netanyahu may have, at one point, hoped to pressure Obama into taking a tougher stand, but the White House resisted Israeli demands that it more clearly draw &#8220;red lines&#8221; on Iran. Netanyahu found himself increasingly isolated at home in his threat to take unilateral military action and was sharply criticized even by Israeli President Shimon Peres for appearing to interfere in U.S. electoral politics. Other Israeli commentators were blunter, warning that Netanyahu was recklessly gambling on a Romney victory, which appeared, they said, increasingly unlikely. (MORE: At the U.N., Netanyahu Sides with Obama on Iran) The Israeli leader&#8217;s General Assembly speech was an odd mixture, not only because of the bizarre, cartoonish bomb graphic he used to depict Iran&#8217;s nuclear progress, which left confusion as to just where, in real terms, he was drawing his own red line. The<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=46714&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://world.time.com/2012/09/28/apocalyptic-talk-aside-israel-has-dialed-down-its-threat-to-bomb-iran-for-now/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>israel</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/israel-middle-east/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/netanyahu_redline_0928.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/netanyahu_redline_0928.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">Netanyahu points to a red line</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/9bd886fea2e4b000cf3c42ddaa6be6e4?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">tkaron2010</media:title>
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		<title>How Many Civilians Would Be Killed in an Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Sites?</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/09/27/how-many-civilians-would-be-killed-in-an-attack-on-irans-nuclear-sites/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/09/27/how-many-civilians-would-be-killed-in-an-attack-on-irans-nuclear-sites/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Sep 2012 22:13:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Azadeh Moaveni</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear power]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nukes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strike]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=47185</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[No one in Iran is—and few in the West are—talking about the potential death toll but it could rival the catastrophes of Bhopal and Chernobyl<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=47185&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/150470015.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/150470015.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/150470015.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">IRAN-ISLAM-RAMADAN-EID</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/4ab960893402d351149744fa3600405b?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">tepous</media:title>
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		<title>Exit Ahmadinejad: Iranian President Leaves World Stage with a Whimper</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/09/27/exit-ahmadinejad-iranian-president-leaves-world-stage-with-a-whimper/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/09/27/exit-ahmadinejad-iranian-president-leaves-world-stage-with-a-whimper/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:07:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Ishaan Tharoor</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ahmadinejad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IRNA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[javanfekr]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[morsy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=47013</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Wednesday’s two attention-grabbing speeches at the U.N. General Assembly — one by Egypt’s Mohamed Morsy and the other by Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — were those of two Presidents whose political stars are moving in opposite directions<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=47013&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/middle-east/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/2012-09-26t145629z_80347588.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Iran&#039;s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sits with his delegation prior to his address to the 67th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in New York</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">itharoor</media:title>
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		<title>Must-Reads from Around the World</title>
		<link>http://world.time.com/2012/09/13/must-reads-from-around-the-world-25/</link>
		<comments>http://world.time.com/2012/09/13/must-reads-from-around-the-world-25/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Sep 2012 09:50:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>TIME.com</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Asia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Briefing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Europe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[India]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Japan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Netherlands]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Yemen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[atomic energy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attacks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child mortality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child survival]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[embassy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fukushima]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[global health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamabad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[militant faction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[new delhi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nuclear energy]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Renewable Energy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taliban]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UNICEF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://world.time.com/?p=44783</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Pakistan-India Ties &#8212; VOA News notes that improving ties between Pakistan and India in recent months are pivotal for Afghanistan&#8217;s future. Increased co-operation between Islamabad and New Delhi could help bring more stability to Afghanistan, which is plagued by powerful militant factions that are believed to have links to the Pakistani military. Experts explain that &#8220;the peace process in South Asia is linked to how militant groups are dealt with, and linked to the situation in Afghanistan,&#8221; quoted VOA. Japan&#8217;s Nuclear Phaseout &#8212; Japanese media said that the country plans to phase out all nuclear plants by the 2030s, reports the Washington Post. The proposed phaseout of Japan&#8217;s 50 operable reactors over the next two decades &#8220;represents a major concession from Japan&#8217;s traditionally pro-nuclear leaders to a largely anti-nuclear public&#8221; that has become skeptical about nuclear energy after the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March 2011. Phasing out Japan&#8217;s nuclear plants raises concerns about how the country will meet its energy needs and whether it can grow renewable energy into a feasible and affordable alternative, explains the Post. Child Mortality &#8212; The Guardian looks at the latest U.N. report which shows that the world&#8217;s mortality rate for young children has nearly halved over the past two decades. In 2011, 6.9 million children under the age of five died, compared to 12 million in 1990, says the UNICEF report &#8220;Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed.&#8221; Despite the progress made in improving child survival, especially in the likes of Bangladesh, Brazil, Liberia, and Oman, &#8220;there is also unfinished business,&#8221; said UNICEF&#8217;s executive director Anthony Lake, as millions of children under five are still dying from mainly preventable causes. Aftermath of Attacks &#8211; Despite being &#8220;garbed in religious language and references,&#8221; the Los Angeles Times suggests that the attacks on U.S. diplomatic compounds in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday, in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed, were &#8220;more about local politics than Islam,&#8221; noting both nations&#8217; &#8220;serious domestic political fragmentation.&#8221; Meanwhile, Al Jazeera English observes how a &#8220;little-seen trailer posted on YouTube in July&#8221; has &#8220;incited violence and outrage<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&#038;blog=19871253&#038;post=44783&#038;subd=timeglobalspin&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Daily Briefing</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://world.time.com/category/daily-briefing/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeglobalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/india_pak_0411.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">India and Pakistan</media:title>
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