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.

Tehran  - Iraq's parliamentary speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani arrived in Tehran Tuesday for a two-day visit after his plane was intially refused permission to land the day before, Fars news agency reported.

The Sunni politician was to meet his Iranian counterpart Ali Larijani as well as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to discuss the latest developments in Iraq, including its security pact with the United States, Fars said.

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

Ankara - Turkish warplanes on Tuesday continued bombing missions against suspected Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq, the Turkish General Staff announced.

A statement posted on the General Staff official website said Turkish Air Force jets hit 21 suspected PKK targets early Tuesday morning in the region of Avasin and the mountains of Iki Yaka and Buzul.

All of the planes returned safely to their bases after completing their missions, the statement said.

The attacks are the fourth since a PKK attack on a military border post on Friday left 17 soldiers and 23 PKK separatists dead.

The PKK uses mountainous northern Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks inside Turkey.

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.