Baghdad - Unknown gunmen assassinated a senior member of Iraq's Umma

Baghdad  - Mostafa Hussein, a young man from Baghdad, once dreamed of joining Iraq's security forces to help end the fighting that has torn his country apart in recent years.

And so Hussein joined the Sunni tribal police as a first step. He tried not to let the death threats he received as a result bother him. Undeterred, he applied for a job with the Iraqi police.

When the police turned him down, Hussein did not give up. He tried bribing his way into a job, also without success. All the government jobs, he said, are reserved for friends and relatives of government officials.

Baghdad  - A coalition led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki won a majority of seats in Iraq's Basra province and a near majority in the capital of Baghdad, Iraq's electoral commission announced on Thursday.

In the southern province of Basra, al-Maliki's State of Law coalition won 20 out of the province's 35 seats, Iraqi news agency the Voices of Iraq (VOI) reported.

The province, known for its oil, is an important victory for the Iraqi premier.

Baghdad - The Iraqi parliament is expected to choose a new speaker in a run-off vote on Thursday after lawmakers failed on Wednesday to end an impasse that has paralysed the assembly since late December.

Iraqi law gives Sunni lawmakers the responsibility of nominating the speaker of the parliament, but Sunni parties again failed to agree on a nominee Wednesday, despite increasing pressure from the rest of the Iraqi government to end the dispute.

"We had hoped to reach an agreement among the factions on a single candidate," deputy speaker Khalid al-Attiya told reporters on Wednesday.

Baghdad The final results of the provincial council elections held in Iraq in late January will be announced on Thursday afternoon, Iraq's electoral commission announced on Tuesday.

"The results will be out at 5 pm (14:00 GMT) Thursday," Karim al-Tamimi, a spokesman for the Independent High Electoral Commission, told reporters at a Baghdad press conference on Tuesday.

Preliminary results announced earlier in February showed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawlat al-Qanun (State of Law) coalition ahead in Iraq's nine southern provinces.