Baghdad  - Iraqi parliament adopted on Wednesday a new provincial elections law after months of heated dispute on the issue of power-sharing in the multi-ethnic Kirkuk.

"The Iraqi parliament had unanimously adopted a provincial elections law," lawmaker Ahmed Anwar of the Kurdistan Alliance bloc, told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

The head of the Fadila party, Hassan Shammari said earlier that the parliamentary blocs reached a consensus on the article related to Kirkuk, the oil rich northern area inhabited by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen.

Amman  - The first shipment of oil from Iraq to Jordan arrived at the Iraqi side of the border and is expected to enter Jordanian territory later in the day, Jordan's Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Khaldoun Quteishat said Tuesday.

He said the shipment was carried by 16 cargo tankers that were scheduled to unload at the Jordan Petroleum Refinery near Zarqa, 30 kilometres east of the capital Amman.

Over the past three days, a total of 18,500 barrels of Iraqi oil were loaded by tankers for Jordan from the Kurdish region's Biji station, one of the three main refineries in Iraq, Quteishat said.

London, Sept 23 : Britain might soon withdraw its troops from Iraq, going by UK Defence Secretary’s statement that a “turning point” has been reached in Iraq.

According to the Mirror, at the Labour Party''s annual conference Des Browne said, "The Iraqi armed forces, supported by British and U. S. forces, have taken on and defeated the militia in Basra."

While echoing Prime Minister Gordon Brown''s statement in July that there would be a "fundamental change of mission" early next year, a phrase understood to mean a withdrawal of troops, Browne said, "We have reached a turning point in our involvement."

Baghdad - Two civilians were killed when an improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated close to their vehicle in Iraq's Diyala province late on Monday, police sources said on Tuesday.

Baghdad- Amid what appears to be a trend in the killing of journalists in Iraq, the Iraqi Committee to Protect Journalists (ICPJ) issued a warning to media personnel to be on the lookout for car bombs.

"We call on all journalists and media staff to inspect the cars carefully before getting in the car, in case there is a bomb inside or around their car," committee president Ibrahim al-Sergany told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency.

Earlier this month, a bomb was defused in the car of a correspondent of the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV channel.

Ankara - The Turkish government is to seek parliamentary approval for a year-long extension to a mandate that allows the Turkish military to launch operations in northern Iraq against rebels from the separatists Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).

The cabinet formally presented a motion to parliament on Monday that would extend until October 2009 a broad remit for the army to launch military operations, CNN-Turk television reported. The current mandate ends on October 17.