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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. EMAILAs Iran's economy suffers from inflation and falling oil prices, the government's effort to increase revenue with a value-added tax on many items and more transparent bookkeeping meets resistance.
Taylor Luck and Holli Chmela tell their paper that a taxi driver illegally took them across the border into Syria. They say they were locked up and interrogated by Syrian authorities for a week.
The families of Taylor Luck, 23, and Holli Chmela, 27, ask for help in finding them. The two work for an English-language newspaper in Jordan.
The Iranian news agency that issued the report later acknowledges that the encounter did not involve Americans.
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.
Imad Mughniyah, alleged mastermind of infamous terrorist attacks, was one of the most hunted men in the world. His death is as mysterious as his life.
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.
Moscow plans to set up 18 checkpoints, some in Georgia proper, a Kremlin official says. The plan appears to violate the terms of a cease-fire.
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.
Russia supported separatists and distrusted Georgian leader Saakashvili, whose mocking attitude and head-long rush to embrace the U.S. made matters worse.
Condoleezza Rice evokes the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Russia is angry about the U.S. deal with Poland on a missile defense system.
Negotiations for the Russian forces to withdraw from the city end abruptly in a tense standoff.
Under the cease-fire terms, Georgia essentially would give up claims to the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
COLUMN ONE
The 10-year-old was married off to a man in his 30s who abused her. She made her way to a courthouse, found a lawyer and broke free.
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.