The most direct land route would take the pair straight through some of the region's most dangerous areas, including the Iraqi capital Baghdad, into war-torn Syria and straight through the embattled city of Aleppo to the Turkish border and on to Europe.

CNN: Pirates, wars: Hurdles for flight phobia boy

But the new parliament was at least able to elect a speaker, Osama al-Nujaifi (pictured above, right), an influential Sunni from the embattled northern city of Mosul, and to re-elect the incumbent president, Jalal Talabani (left), a Kurd.

ECONOMIST: But a painful labour is still ahead

These days, the Church is embattled, the City is in disrepute, and Parliament is floundering, but the National, under the canny stewardship of Nicholas Hytner, is on a roll unmatched in its nearly fifty-year history.

NEWYORKER: Curtain-Raiser

For the money paid, the embattled Detroit schools (those are city kids celebrating with the car at right) could send 4, 500 scholars to compete in a science fair.

FORBES: Written by Jim Motavalli