As troubles for the United States mount in Iraq, the Bush administration escalates its complaints against Iran: Iran won’t recognize Israel. Worse, it says Israel ought to be wiped off the map. It won’t abandon its nuclear program. It continues to support the Hezbollah insurgents in Lebanon. It is intervening …

A Marine was arraigned a second time Thursday on charges of kidnapping and murdering an Iraqi civilian after he withdrew a guilty plea last month that had been part of a pretrial agreement.

It was a choice that perhaps owed more to the public mood than to any cute lyrical hook or novel musical riff. Asked to pick a song for this year’s Eurovision song contest, Israelis paid little heed to the eternal Eurovision themes of peace, love and harmony and settled instead …

Iranian students involved in an angry protest against the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been expelled and earmarked for compulsory military service in an apparent act of official retribution.

Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier Qassim Moussawi said the blasts were part of a new security offensive against militants in the capital. A US military spokeswoman said she had no details on the blasts.

Iraq has announced an initial conference of world and regional powers will be held in Baghdad on March 10 to discuss ways to stabilize Iraq.

Visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised Thursday in Khartoum that his country would stand on the side of Sudan in the latter’s confrontation with what he called the “Western pressures”.

A roadside bomb exploded Thursday alongside the convoy of a prominent Shiite cleric whose high-level political ties have made him the target of past assassination attempts. The imam was not injured, but several bodyguards were wounded.

China hopes Iran would address the international community’s concern over its nuclear issue positively, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said yesterday.

Those who sign up will be shipped off to villages with names like Tikrit and Fallujah, where they’ll don dishdashas and head scarves and live in crowded huts surrounded by rumbling tanks and the crackle of machine guns. Their neighbors will be Shiites and Sunnis, soldiers and insurgents.