Washington  - The midwest state of Iowa be

Strasbourg, France  - While overshadowed by talks about Afghanistan and Russia, France's return to NATO's military command structure is a defining event of the alliance's summit being held Friday and Saturday in France and Germany.

The decision by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to return his country to full NATO membership may not change a great deal for France in practice, since Paris has participated in all NATO conflicts, including the war in Afghanistan.

But it has enormous symbolic significance for the future of the alliance.

Prague  - The notorious Czech provocateur of an artist, David Cerny, had the privilege last summer to shake hands with Condoleezza Rice, the then US secretary of state.

Passing an alley of garbage cans to do so, she showed up at one of Prague's many popular yet downscale cafes which happened to double as a centre for supporters of US plans to build a missile shield base in the Czech Republic, Cerny among them.

But when US President Barack Obama arrives in the Czech capital this weekend, Cerny and his associates won't get near that sort of access. "It does not look good," the artist said.

Baghdad  - A US warplane killed at least one Iraqi insurgent and wounded at least two more when they were spotted planting explosives by the side of a road, the Multinational Forces in Iraq announced Friday.

US forces said an air weapons team on Thursday night fired on four armed men spotted placing an explosive near a road intersection north of Taji, not far from the site of a large US military base north of Iraq, killing at least one and wounding at least two others.

Strasbourg, France  - United St