THE speaker of Iraq’s Parliament last night announced a one-day extension in talks on Iraq’s new constitution.

No meeting of the Iraqi parliament to decide on the draft constitution will be held today and no date for a new session has been set, said the head of the assembly’s media department.

Iraqi leaders again delayed a vote on a draft constitution, in another dramatic last-minute stand-off.

IRAQI leaders finished their draft constitution yesterday and prepared to submit it to parliament - but withdrew it in the final minutes in order to give time to win over the Sunni Arab community whose support is key to ending the insurgency.

Iraqi leaders finished their draft constitution today and prepared to submit it to parliament – but withdrew it in the final minutes.

Iraq’s parliament speaker tonight condemned the deadly blasts in London, saying his people too “are suffering from such brutal acts”.

The leader of Iraq’s top Sunni party has been released after being mistakenly detained earlier today by US forces, the American military said.

AFTER nearly three months of political wrangling, Iraq’s interim National Assembly approved a partial cabinet yesterday, ushering in the country’s first elected government since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The interim National Assembly approved by show of hands today a partial Cabinet, including 27 ministers and five acting ministers, ushering in Iraq’s first elected government since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Iraq’s prime minister-designate today submitted to the presidential council a proposal for a broad-based cabinet, drawing in the country’s main ethnic and religious groups.

An attack by a suicide car bomber near an American patrol in southern Baghdad killed two US soldiers and wounded four, an official said today.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a prominent Shiite Arab, is expected to be named as Iraq’s prime minister today, taking the most powerful post in the country’s first democratically-elected government in 50 years and opening the way to picking a Cabinet.

THE Iraqi parliament yesterday picked Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as the country's new interim president yesterday.

Lawmakers ended days of stalemate and reached out to Iraq’s Sunni Muslim minority for their parliament speaker, cutting through ethnic and sectarian barriers that have held up selection of a new government for more than two months.

A car bomb exploded today in central Iraq, killing five people, including four police officers on patrol, while gunmen killed an education official in Baghdad.