World powers and Iran hope to lay the groundwork for an end to the long-running crisis over Tehran's nuclear program in talks in Baghdad on Wednesday, but the challenges are immense.

The meeting with the P5+1 -- the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany -- comes at a time of unprecedented tensions more than three years since Barack Obama became U.S. president promising a new dawn in relations.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday he hopes to attend this summer's Olympic Games in London but that the British authorities were reluctant to allow him, state media reported.

"I would like to be beside the Iranian athletes at the Olympic Games in London to support them, but (the British) have issues with my presence," Ahmadinejad said, without offering further explanation.

The United States and 18 other countries have started in Jordan what was described as the largest military exercises in the Middle East in 10 years, focusing on "irregular warfare," top officers said on Tuesday.

"Yesterday we began to apply the skills that we have developed over the last weeks in an irregular warfare scenario ... They will last for approximately the coming two weeks," Major General Ken Tovo, head of the U.S. Special Operations Forces, told reporters in Amman.

China said Tuesday British Prime Minister David Cameron's meeting with the Dalai Lama was an "affront to the Chinese people", and launched "solemn representations" with London.

The statement from the Chinese foreign ministry came after Tibet's exiled spiritual leader held a private meeting with Cameron during a visit to London to receive one of the world's most lucrative prizes.

Queen Elizabeth II is meditating. Swathed in white fur and with her eyes closed, she seems momentarily far from the heavy responsibilities she carries.

This intimate portrait, a hologram by photographer Chris Levine, is one of sixty pictures of the British monarch on show at London's National Portrait Gallery from Thursday to mark her diamond jubilee.

Britain's defense secretary said he had finally balanced his department's books, in an interview out Sunday, following a week in which he made a U-turn on purchasing jets, to the annoyance of France.

Philip Hammond told The Sunday Times newspaper that he will be able to announce this week that he has fixed the £38 billion ($61 billion, 47 billion euro) so-called "black hole" in the Ministry of Defense (MoD) budget.

Bomb disposal experts carried out a series of controlled blasts in the British town of Cheltenham, media reports said Saturday, after police evacuated the area and held two men on terror charges.

The local men, aged 52 and 31, were arrested over explosives offences in Friday raids on two locations in a quiet residential suburb of the spa town, which is also home to Britain's national electronic surveillance center.

Internet security specialists have applied for a ".secure" domain that they plan to turn into an online safe zone where bad guys aren't allowed.

San Francisco-based Artemis was awaiting word Friday from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on whether it was approved to host websites with ".secure" addresses.

A group of nine men of Pakistani and Afghan origin were sentenced to jail Thursday for grooming white British schoolgirls for sex, using drink and drugs.

The men, aged between 22 and 59, were convicted Wednesday of conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with children under the age of 16, and other offences.

Rupert Murdoch is not fit to lead a major global company, British lawmakers said in a scathing report Tuesday, accusing him of "willful blindness" over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

Parliament's influential culture committee said Murdoch's U.S.-based News Corporation media empire had misled lawmakers and added that the 81-year-old tycoon and his son James should take corporate responsibility.