Iran, Tehran | featured news

WASHINGTON — In a move Democrats denounced as trying to sabotage the Obama administration’s foreign policy, Sen. Rob Portman and 46 other Senate Republicans yesterday warned Iran’s leadership that any agreement to limit Tehran’s apparent efforts to build a nuclear bomb would need Senate approval to stay in effect beyond 2016.

Iran will present a new advance in its atomic program Wednesday by loading domestically made nuclear fuel into a research reactor in the capital Tehran, a senior Iranian official told a Russian news agency Tuesday.

The lawyer for two American hikers is holding out hope that Tehran will show leniency toward his clients who have been sentenced to eight years in prison.

Iran would consider ending higher level uranium enrichment, the most crucial part of its controversial nuclear activities, if world powers send Tehran nuclear fuel for a medical research reactor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told reporters Friday.

The Senate on Thursday approved tough new unilateral sanctions aimed at squeezing Iran's energy and banking sectors, which could also hurt companies from other countries doing business with Tehran.

There were reports of sporadic clashes between the police and protesters around Tehran, with reports of arrests varying from a handful to 200.

Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd, two of the three Americans held in Iran on suspicion of spying, have gotten engaged in Tehran's Evin jail and will marry once they are freed, their mothers said on Monday.

A nuclear physics professor at Tehran University was killed Tuesday by a bomb-rigged motorcycle parked outside his home in Iran's capital, state media reported.

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Saudi Arabia urged Iran on Saturday to allow a daughter of Osama bin Laden, who fled house arrest and sought refuge in the Saudi embassy in Tehran, to leave the country if she wishes.

Political conflict and public piety converged on tension-filled streets in Tehran, Iran, on Saturday. Clashes erupted between riot police and opposition protesters as hundreds of people solemnly took part in an annual Shiite Muslim observance.