Parliament approves new govt, despite more violence

Parliament approved Iraq’s new national unity government today, achieving a goal it is hoped will reduce widespread violence so that allied forces can eventually go home. But as the legislators met, at least 27 people were killed and 68 wounded in a series of attacks.

Police also found the bodies of 21 Iraqis who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured by death squads that plague the capital and another area. The wounded included two British soldiers whose convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in the southern city of Basra, police said.