IRAQ’S parliament approved Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his new government yesterday, nine months after an inconclusive election left politics in limbo and delayed investments to rebuild the country after years of war.

The death toll from two bombs that struck a crowded market in Iraq has risen to 52.

The Iraqi government and Arab countries are engaged in bitter squabbling on the eve of a Baghdad conference that America hoped would finally unite them in efforts to stabilise the war-torn nation.

Iraq’s president rejected suggestions that an international conference be held to address the violence wracking his country, echoing sentiments expressed by other leading politicians.

US president George Bush marked the anniversary of the Iraq war by touting efforts to build democracy there and avoiding any mention of the daily violence still raging three years after he ordered an invasion.

THE Islamist Shi'ite Alliance bloc will fall short of retaining its parliamentary majority after last month's election, according to an almost final tally of seats.

Iraqis went to cast their vote for a new government today as polling stations opened amid huge security.

The trial of Saddam Hussein resumes today – after Iraqi authorities said they had foiled an insurgent plot to fire rockets at the courtroom.

IRAQ’s ruling Shi’ite Islamist parties struck a last-minute deal to patch up differences yesterday and agreed to register as a united bloc for December 15 polls where they face a new Sunni Arab alliance.

INSURGENTS determined to wreck Iraq’s constitutional referendum killed nearly 45 people and wounded dozens in a series of attacks yesterday, including a suicide car bomb that ripped apart a crowded market in a town near the Syrian border, police said.

An election official today said Iraqi law will allow Saddam Hussein and thousands of other Iraqi detainees to vote in this weekend’s crucial constitutional referendum.

AMERICAN Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld delivered a terse warning to Iraq's new leaders yesterday, urging them to avoid political purges that could lead to charges of corruption in the new government.

ITALIAN hostage Giuliana Sgrena, shot and wounded after being freed in Iraq claimed that US forces may have deliberately targeted her because Washington opposed Italy’s policy of dealing with kidnappers.

IRAQ’S main Shi’ite alliance proposed a religious conservative for prime minister yesterday, signalling that he will almost certainly get the job after the alliance’s success in last month’s election.

Recent information links one of Saddam Hussein’s most notorious former generals to the massacres of Shiites in southern Iraq, a human rights group said today.

IRAQ’S main Shi’ite alliance, fresh from winning landmark elections, gathered yesterday to choose a candidate for prime minister and the allies it needs after failing to win an absolute majority.

Clergy-backed Shiites and independence-minded Kurds swept to victory in Iraq’s elections, according to final results released tonight.

AN alliance of Shia Muslim parties is expected to claim victory in Iraq’s elections, but continuing violence underlined the massive problems the country still faces.

GUNMEN seized four Egyptian engineers in Baghdad yesterday, underlining Iraq’s dangers despite its recent election and steps toward democracy.

IN Iraq’s south, where people favour US jeans, Italian- style shoes and pledge allegiance to football teams as readily as religious figures, many fear their lifestyle is under attack.

IRAQI prime minister Iyad Allawi urged the country to unite after an election lauded by world leaders as a historic breakthrough that must not be undermined by sectarian conflict.

Iraqis embraced democracy in large numbers, standing in long lines to vote in defiance of mortar attacks, suicide bombers and boycott calls. Pushed in wheelchairs or carts if they could not walk, the elderly, the young and women in veils cast ballots in Iraq’s first free election in 50 years.

IRAQIS defied violence that killed 44 people and calls for a boycott to cast ballots in Iraq's first free election in a half-century yesterday.

MILITANTS loyal to Islamic extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who vowed an all-out war against Iraq’s election, claimed more than a dozen suicide attacks against voting stations on polling day.

Iraqis defied violence and calls for a boycott to cast ballots in Iraq’s first free election in a half-century today.

Only about 16% of eligible Iraqi voters living outside their country have registered for next weekend’s elections and the largest turnout so far has been in Iran, organisers said.

AL-QAIDA ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared war on Iraq’s landmark elections yesterday in a warning intended to scare away voters a week before they go to the polls amid a raging insurgency.

INSURGENTS killed 17 Iraqi police and National Guards yesterday in a string of bloody ambushes, bombings and suicide attacks aimed at wrecking Iraq’s January 30 national election.

Iraq's prime minister Iyad Allawi issued a strong warning to the country's neighbours to crack down on militants infiltrating from their territory, saying his country’s patience was wearing thin.

Tariq Aziz, once Saddam Hussein’s urbane voice to the world but now languishing in an Iraqi prison, has met his defence lawyer for the first time since his arrest in April last year.

A MORTAR and rocket attack on a US military dining hall killed 24 people and wounded more than 60 in Iraq's northern city of Mosul yesterday in one of the deadliest attacks on American forces since the war began.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair today made a surprise visit to Iraq as rebels launched another deadly attack on United States troops.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Baghdad today in a surprise visit for talks with interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein met a defence lawyer for the first time since his capture a year ago, days before several of his top aides are due to appear in court for war crimes hearings.

CAMPAIGNING for the first post-Saddam Hussein elections got under way in Iraq yesterday amid more bloodshed, as the ousted president met his family-appointed lawyers for the first time since his capture a year ago.

Saddam Hussein held talks with his defence lawyer today – the first meeting since his capture a year ago.

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin cast doubt over the viability of holding elections as planned next month in an Iraq under "total occupation" as the number of US soldiers killed by hostile fire reached 1,000.

Three Iraqis, arrested in Germany today, were plotting to assassinate Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi during his Berlin visit, prosecutors said.

A SUICIDE car bomber ploughed into policemen waiting to collect their salary at a police station west of Ramadi yesterday, killing 12 people in the latest insurgent attack on Iraq’s beleaguered security forces.

LEADING Iraqi political parties called yesterday for elections scheduled for January 30 to be delayed because of Iraq’s widening violence.

The Red Cross has visited Saddam Hussein again to check on his condition in detention.

The terror group led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility today for kidnapping three members of Iraq’s interim prime minister Iyad Allawi’s family.

Insurgents launched a deadly ambush yesterday in the guerrilla stronghold of Ramadi, killing eight Iraqi National Guardsmen and injuring 18 others.

IRAQ yesterday chose January 30, 2005 for its first democratic election in decades, but violence in Sunni Muslim areas underlined the challenge of holding polls on time.

THERE were fears last night for the lives of 31 Iraqi policemen who were kidnapped yesterday as a car bomb killed 10 people in Baghdad.

There were fears tonight for the lives of 31 Iraqi policemen who were kidnapped as they returned from a training camp in Jordan.

FIERCE battles between insurgents and US and Iraqi forces killed at least 16 people yesterday in the latest in a wave of clashes that has swept Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland.

US soldiers battled insurgents northeast of Baghdad today in clashes that killed more than 50 people.

The leader of a militant group involved in beheading hostages has been captured in Fallujah and the group was broken up, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said tonight.

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s office confirmed today the release of two of his female relatives kidnapped last week.