Baghdad - Iraq's Presidential Council on Tuesday unanimously endorsed a long-delayed provincial councils' election law, state- controlled media reported.

A statement from the presidential office said that article 50, a controversial article which deals with minority rights, had been referred to parliament for further consideration.

Baghdad - Two blasts occurred outside Iraq's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday as visiting US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was due to hold a press conference in the Green Zone compound, al-J

Baghdad  - The Iraqi Ministry of Interior has launched investigations into cases of 48 media personnel who were either killed or subjected to acts of violence, the director of the ministry's National Command Center said Monday.

"Investigations have been launched following the establishment of a partnership with the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO) with the aim of protecting journalists while covering news stories," Major General Abdel Kareem Khalaf told Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

In late September, the JFO launched a joint project with the Interior Ministry aimed at protecting media workers and to allow foreign journalists to enter the country.

Baghdad  - Arab League envoy to Iraq, Hani Khalaf, is expected on Monday to resume the diplomatic work of the Arab League mission in Baghdad, the state Middle East News Agency
(MENA) reported.

In July Arab League Chief Amr Mussa appointed the retired diplomat, an Egyptian national, to head the Arab League representation in Iraq.

Khalaf made a number of visits to Baghdad in August to check the security situation there.

The Arab League office in Baghdad was previously headed by a Morrocan, Mukhtar Yemeni, who resigned in the summer of 2007 over the security conditions in the country. Since then the post has been vacant.

Baghdad - Eleven people from one family were killed by US fire in the Iraqi city of Mosul, an official security source said on Sunday.

"US troops killed 11 people from one family while conducting a dawn raid on a house in the 17 Tammuz neighborhood, western Mosul," the source told Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

"Iraqi army forces delivered the bodies, which had been placed in nylon bags by the US forces, to the morgue in Mosul city," the source explained.

A morgue official told VOI that the dead included three women, three children and five men.

Baghdad - An Iraqi soldier was killed late Saturday when two Black Hawk helicopters collided while landing in northern Baghdad, a US military spokesman told CNN.

Two US troops and two Iraqi soldiers were injured in the crash, said military spokesman Lieutenant Patrick Evans.

He said enemy fire was not suspected in the collision of the two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.