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Beirut
Borzou Daragahi, Bureau Chief
Borzou Daragahi previously served as bureau chief in Baghdad where he led the team that won a 2006 Overseas Press Club award and was recognized as a 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist in international reporting. Before joining the Times in 2005, he covered war, politics, culture and commerce in the Middle East for various print and broadcast outlets. He was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist in international reporting for his coverage of Iraq. He graduated with honors from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and received an undergraduate degree from the Eugene Lang College of the New School for Social Research. Born in Iran, he grew up in the Chicago area and New York City. He speaks Farsi, Spanish and German. EMAIL-->
Pentagon spokespeople say they have no knowledge of the incident. An Iranian official says a news service misinterpreted a routine event involving a non-U.S. airplane on a humanitarian mission.
While Western economies lurch, sovereign funds in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, flush with oil gains, are snapping up property, companies and even English soccer teams.
FROM OUR BLOGS
An intriguing item about the mysterious leader of a ferocious militant group floated around the Lebanese and Syrian media over the weekend.
The American-Iranian Council, a nonpartisan group promoting better ties between the nations, still needs permission from the Iranian government.
Ali Kordan tells President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that his Oxford law degree is phony. The issue has raised questions about the qualifications of Ahmadinejad's inner circle.
The blast hits a bus carrying Lebanese soldiers. Civilians are also among the casualties.
Syria has strained ties to some Sunni Arab countries because of its support for Shiite groups. It may have sent troops to the Lebanese border to prevent an attack from militants, analysts say.
Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency says his agency can't guarantee that Iran isn't engaging in nuclear activities. Tehran says the agency is a tool for Western pressure.
Iran's supreme leader brushes aside recent overtures by top Iranian officials to Israeli citizens with statements that could inflame tensions.
The agency's report says Iran continues to dodge questions about its alleged nuclear weapons research and has expanded its ability to produce radioactive material.
In the hit 'Ekhrajiha,' the soldiers who fought in the Iran-Iraq war were bawdy, undisciplined young men, not pious Muslim recruits. But they were no less fierce against their enemies.
A study by the IAEA, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, says sensitive documents on bombs were available electronically.
Nini Gogiberidze is among the activists who seek to foster democracy through peaceful means. She travels abroad to teach others how to agitate nonviolently for change.
Parliament shelves a bill that the activists say would have curtailed the rights of women. But four of their leaders are sentenced to prison for contributing to banned websites.
Followers in the Amal movement demand answers from Libya, where Imam Moussa Sadr disappeared in 1978. He is also considered a spiritual forebear by Hezbollah.
The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seems to have strongly endorsed the controversial president for another four-year term.
COLUMN ONE
Yoga, French poetry, pizza making -- the international forces stationed there give war-weary residents a respite from their cares.
Moscow presents a patriotic concert in South Ossetia as it continues to assert authority in Georgia.
International journalists on a Georgian government tour see little in the way of destruction at the hands of Russian forces. Both sides appear to be stretching the facts.
'There is no indication to us that they have begun to pull back,' a Pentagon official says. Georgia's government says Russians have reentered some positions in western areas.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, meanwhile, voices strong support for Georgia's desire to join NATO, a goal that has fed Moscow's anger toward Saakashvili and the West.
Democracy advocates condemn the move in the Arab nation. President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, who had recently fired key military figures, is placed under house arrest.
In a well-publicized tour of his country's neighbor, President Ahmadinejad smiles and spreads his message across Baghdad: America doesn't belong here; Iran does.
Tehran maintains that nothing more than routine contact occurred in the strait.
The power of Shiite Muslim clergy has eroded in favor of various competing groups within a unique religious, civil, social and bureaucratic framework.
Pointing to the conclusion that Tehran's secret nuclear arms program halted years ago, officials ask Washington to apologize.
COLUMN ONE
Of Iran's 27,000 attorneys, perhaps no more than 100 take politically charged cases. They brave insults, assaults and jail.