Pope Francis on Monday called for an end to wars in the Middle East during the first visit by the head of the Catholic church to the birthplace of Islam -- the Arabian Peninsula.

Police and medical officials say seven Iranian Shiite pilgrims traveling in central Iraq were wounded when their bus came under attack by unidentified gunmen.

The officials said late Sunday that the bus carrying 10 pilgrims was north of the capital of Baghdad when gunmen opened fire.

Forty years after he defected from the shah's Imperial Guard to join the Islamic Revolution, Mohammad Reza Tajik, like many Iranians from that time, looks back wistfully at the youthful excitement they felt and the losses they suffered since then.

Working in his woodshop in Tehran, he recounted the deaths of his brother in Iran's 1980s war with Iraq and of a friend last year in Syria's long civil war in which Iran is involved.

President Donald Trump is the latest chief executive to deliver a State of the Union address at a time of turmoil.

But others may have had it even worse. Abraham Lincoln delivered a written report during the Civil War, Richard Nixon spoke while embroiled in the Watergate scandal and Bill Clinton gave one of his State of the Union speeches just weeks after he'd been impeached in the very same room.

A senior U.S. official has warned Lebanon's Hezbollah against exploiting the position of the Health Ministry to funnel funds to institutions affiliated with the Shiite militant group.

The remarks by Marshall Billingslea, the U.S. Treasury's assistant secretary on terror financing, came as Lebanese political factions agreed on Thursday to form a new government.

The Trump administration is poised to announce Friday that it is withdrawing from a treaty that has been a centerpiece of superpower arms control since the Cold War and whose demise some analysts worry could fuel a new arms race.

An American withdrawal, which has been expected for months, would follow years of unresolved dispute over Russian compliance with the pact, known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, treaty. It was the first arms control measure to ban an entire class of weapons: ground-launched cruise missiles with a range between 500 kilometers (310 miles) and 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles). Russia denies that it has been in violation.

Thousands of Iranians gathered at the mausoleum of the Islamic republic's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran on Friday to launch celebrations for the 40th anniversary of its revolution.

Mariah Carey, one of the world's most celebrated artists, is performing in Saudi Arabia on Thursday for the first time, but there's a growing chorus of Saudi women calling on her to cancel the concert to show support for detained women's rights activists.

Carey is the highest-profile star to perform in the kingdom since it began loosening decades of restrictions on entertainment, music and fun as part of a push by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to overhaul the economy and transform society.

Britain, France and Germany will launch a special payment mechanism Thursday that the EU hopes will help save a nuclear deal with Iran by bypassing U.S. sanctions, European sources told AFP.

The entity, registered in France with German governance and finance from all three countries, will allow Iran to trade with EU companies despite Washington reimposing U.S. sanctions after President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 accord.

The Spanish government has condemned the detention of three reporters and a driver working for Spain's state-run EFE news agency in Venezuela's capital.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's office issued a statement Thursday calling for their immediate release.