Grozny: At least two people were killed on Tuesday when a suicide bomber and two gunmen attacked the local parliament in Russia's restive southern republic of Chechnya, RIA news agency reported.

RIA said a suicide bomber had detonated explosives just outside parliament and that two armed insurgents had then engaged in a gun battle with guards around the building. Interfax news agency said the shooting was continuing.

The Kremlin is struggling to contain a growing Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus, a strip of impoverished, ethnically mixed provinces along predominantly Orthodox Christian Russia's southern border.

The Kremlin had declared victory in its battle with Chechen separatists, but analysts say a wave of shootings and bombings over recent months shows Moscow has failed to tame the growing insurgency.

BAGHDAD: Iraqi politicians on Monday postponed for two weeks a session of parliament that should have picked the country’s new president after failing to make any headway in talks on a coalition government, lawmakers said.

The delay in holding the session, due to be held on Tuesday, was due to political deadlock more than four months after a March 7 election and means that parliament has failed to meet a constitutional deadline and entered unconstitutional territory.

Parliament’s temporary speaker Fouad Masoum acknowledged that the constitution was being violated. “Yes, that’s right,” he said. “But it is, as the proverb says, not the first clay jar to be broken.”

Under Iraq’s constitution drawn up in the chaotic wake of the 2003 US-led invasion, the new 325-seat parliament should have picked a new speaker and a new president before July 14. The new president in turn should select a prime minister and ask the nominee to form a government.
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BAGHDAD: Iraqi politicians on Monday postponed for two weeks a session of parliament that should have picked the country’s new president after failing to make any headway in talks on a coalition government, lawmakers said.

The delay in holding the session, due to be held on Tuesday, was due to political deadlock more than four months after a March 7 election and means that parliament has failed to meet a constitutional deadline and entered unconstitutional territory.

Parliament’s temporary speaker Fouad Masoum acknowledged that the constitution was being violated. “Yes, that’s right,” he said. “But it is, as the proverb says, not the first clay jar to be broken.”

Under Iraq’s constitution drawn up in the chaotic wake of the 2003 US-led invasion, the new 325-seat parliament should have picked a new speaker and a new president before July 14. The new president in turn should select a prime minister and ask the nominee to form a government.
...