Official Visits

Thirty years ago, as President Carter was preparing to visit West Africa, a Nigerian government official asked a member of Carter's advance team whether the president would like to attend a public execution on a Lagos beach. It is safe to say that no government official made such an inquiry of President Bush's staff as it prepared the agenda for the six-day, five-nation African trip he completed Thursday.

Iran's president began a historic visit here Sunday, decrying the presence of foreign troops and subtly criticizing American allies. In meetings with Iraqi leaders, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad outlined his nation's plans to consolidate economic ties with Iraq, speaking within earshot of roaring U.S. helicopters taking off from Landing Zone Washington in the nearby Green Zone. Nearly five years after the U.S.

An Iraqi American who helped organize a controversial U.S. congressional trip to Baghdad in 2002 was charged Wednesday with working for ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government, which paid for the visit, the Justice Department said. The indictment against Muthanna Hanooti said Iraq's foreign intelligence service funneled $34,000 through the Islamic charity Life for Relief and Development to pay delegation expenses.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles serves three counties with an estimated Roman Catholic population of 4.3 million. So it didn't take long to distribute the just over 100 tickets it was allotted for Masses to be said by Pope Benedict XVI when he visits the East Coast this month. Among those who clamored for tickets is Helen Milan, 51, who says she is trying to make up for more than two decades as a lapsed Catholic.

When Pope Benedict XVI visits the United States next week, he will find a nation consumed by a heated presidential election campaign. Will his presence have an influence? Although he will meet with President Bush at the White House during his East Coast swing, Benedict is not expected to overtly speak of the campaign or U.S. politics.

A dispute erupted Monday over the lack of Israeli secret service protection for former President Carter as he visited this border town and called rocket attacks by Palestinian militants "a despicable crime" that he hoped a cease-fire would halt. Carter's planned talks with the leader of the militant group Hamas and a book he published in 2006 that called Israeli policy in occupied Palestinian territories "a system of apartheid" have caused official displeasure in Israel.

The pope may be viewed by his church as infallible, but for his U.N. visit, it was Alice Hecht's job to make sure everyone else would be as close to perfect as possible. Hecht, United Nations chief of protocol, said that prepping for Friday's visit by Pope Benedict XVI was much more difficult than getting ready for a state visit by President Bush, who didn't move around the building as much or require the same kind of security. Hecht, a U.N.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will travel to Israel next month for a weeklong mission devoted to security, counter-terrorism and green technologies, aides announced Tuesday. Villaraigosa will lead a delegation of city officials and about a dozen religious and business leaders June 11-18, his third overseas trip since taking office nearly three years ago.

Only days after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he would leave town in June for a trip to Israel, a city councilman from the San Fernando Valley announced Thursday that he would spend an entire month looking at trash conversion facilities around the globe. Councilman Greig Smith said he and other city officials would travel to Canada, Japan, Israel, France, Germany and Spain as part of a fact-finding mission waged by the city's Bureau of Sanitation. They will also visit Bakersfield.

Among the patchwork of ethnic communities that shape the everyday life and politics of Los Angeles, few groups have been romanced as much by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as Southern California's substantial Jewish population.