Iraq's Prime Minister has pledged to halve his salary in a move that appears aimed at placating frustrations over mounting inequality and poor basic services, as protests rage around the. West Asia.

US Vice President Joe Biden was in Baghdad on Thursday for a first meeting with Nuri al-Maliki since the Iraqi prime minister began a second term and talks with other top officials, US officials said.

Kuwait's Prime Minister arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday in the first such visit since Saddam Hussein's forces invaded the oil-rich emirate in 1990, Iraqi officials and Kuwaiti state media said.

Two US soldiers have been killed in central Iraq in the first deadly attack of 2011 on American forces in the country, the military said on Monday.

Gunmen with silenced weapons raked an army brigadier general's car with gunfire in a Baghdad street, killing him and wounding his daughter, defence and interior ministry officials said Thursday.

The danger of war or hostilities is rising on the Korean peninsula, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is "a very unpredictable guy," the top US military officer said on Tuesday.

The top American military officer said today that any agreement to keep US forces in Iraq past a 2011 deadline would be reached only after Iraqi officials form a new government a laborious process tha

The United States' top military officer was in Baghdad on Monday, the American Army said.

Iraq has 835 people waiting to be executed, interior minister Jawad al-Bolani said Monday, just days after the UN envoy to Baghdad called on the country to abolish capital punishment.

Seven Iranian pilgrims were among 10 people killed in a spate of bombings across Baghdad this morning, security officials said.