By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday the U.S. military will be prepared to carry out whatever President Donald Trump decides on Iran to ensure Tehran does not pursue nuclear weapons capability.

With a large U.S. military force gathered in the region, Hegseth was asked by Trump at a cabinet meeting to comment on the situation.

Around 1,500 Israeli Jews prayed at a contested tomb in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday morning, and a settler leader hailed an "important step" towards establishing Israeli sovereignty over the site.

Jews believe Joseph's Tomb in the north of the Palestinian territory is the burial site of the Biblical patriarch Joseph. Muslims consider it the burial place of a local religious figure.

The entry of Jewish pilgrims often sparks clashes with Palestinians, who claim the visits are a provocation.

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Global problems will not be solved by one power "calling the shots," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday, warning that international law was being trampled and cooperation eroded.

Although Guterres did not reference any particular country, his remarks come a week after U.S. President Donald Trump launched his Board of Peace. This was initially designed to cement Gaza's rocky ceasefire, but Trump foresees it taking a wider role, an approach that worries some global powers.

(Removes extraneous word in paragraph 14)

By Mariam Rizk and Mohamed Ezz

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt Jan 29 (Reuters) - As the blue-and-white tram carriages rattle into a large square in the heart of Alexandria, doors creak open to a crush of passengers, many of whom can recite every stop by heart.

But the clatter of single and double-deck trams along this century-and-a-half-old line – a source of civic pride and transport alike for tens of thousands of daily commuters in Egypt's second city – is soon to be stopped.

Faced with political deadlock, open American meddling and the threat of war across its borders, is Iraq being dragged back to darker times after achieving hard-won stability?

After decades of conflict and chaos, Iraq has recently regained a sense of normalcy, yet its politics is haunted by the struggle to balance relations with its two main allies, Iran and the United States.

Washington makes no secret of its will to interfere in Iraqi domestic decision-making. While Iraqis discussed choosing their next premier, US representatives lobbied.

BRUSSELS, Jan 29 (Reuters) - European Union foreign ministers have agreed to add Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to the bloc's list of terrorist organisations, European Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas said on Thursday on social media platform X.

"EU Foreign Ministers just took the decisive step of designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation. Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise", Kallas said.

(Reporting by Lili Bayer, writing by Louise Rasmussen, editing by Charlotte Van Campenhout)

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Plainclothes Iranian security forces have rounded up thousands of people in a campaign of mass arrests and intimidation to deter further protests after crushing the bloodiest unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, sources told Reuters.

By Mohammad Yunus Yawar

KABUL, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Afghanistan will roll out a $100 million food security project, the United Nations said on Thursday, as it contends with a worsening hunger crisis driven by mass deportations of Afghans from neighbouring states, foreign aid cuts and economic crisis.

Afghanistan's humanitarian situation is deteriorating sharply, with millions pushed into hunger by the loss of remittances, limited job opportunities and a sharp reduction in international assistance.

MOSCOW, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Russia is ready to evacuate its staff from Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant if necessary, Alexei Likhachev, the head of Russia's state nuclear corporation, was cited as saying on Thursday by the state news agency TASS.

President Vladimir Putin said last year that hundreds of Russians were working at the facility, Iran's only operating nuclear power plant, which Moscow built for Iran.

More nuclear facilities are currently being built at the Bushehr site by Russia.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which EU ministers agreed on Thursday to designate as a terrorist organisation, is the ideological army of the Islamic republic tasked with preserving the future of the revolution but which activists say played a frontline role in suppressing protests.

Celebrated as a pillar of the theocratic system by the Iranian authorities, it is accused by the West of militant activity abroad and serial rights violations at home.