Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told FRANCE 24 in an interview on Wednesday that he feared a power vacuum if January elections are delayed following a veto from an Iraqi vice-president on a key electoral law.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told business leaders in Paris Wednesday that he wanted to see the French energy giant Total working in his country's oil fields. A senior Total executive confirmed that the company is preparing bids.
Iraq's vice president Tareq al-Hashemi (pictured) has vetoed part of an election law over the allocation of seats to displaced Iraqis, throwing fresh doubt over plans for general elections in January.
Jalal Talabi, the Iraqi President, begins a five days State visit in Paris. He is due to sign several accords including one on military cooperation. Jalal Tarabi is thought to welcome more warmly the French help to reconstruct his country.
In this Edition: Do the Lebanese welcome the new unity government; the growing wave of kidnappings in Iraq; and a report on female police officers in the West Bank.
The US government has no exact figure for how many contractors are employed in Iraq and Afghanistan, inviting the risk of fraud and security threats, a US commission has warned.
A bomb hidden in a bicycle has killed five people at a busy market in the Shiite city of Mussayib, while a total of at least ten died and scores more were injured in series of attacks across Iraq Sunday.
The Iraqi parliament has put off a vote on a key election law after failing to reach a quorum, raising the prospect of January polls being delayed. Some MPs blamed a Kurdish boycott for the failure.
More than 60 members of Iraq's security forces have been arrested in connection with a double suicide bombing at the weekend that killed 153 people, in one of the worst days of violence in Iraq in two years.
