Iraq’s cabinet has submitted to parliament a draft bill that would ease curbs on former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party joining the civil service and military, the government said on Wednesday.

In a hotel room in southern Russia, Lydia and Pavel Izvozchikov are praying their son will be found alive somewhere in the shallow waters at the mouth of the Black Sea.

Wearing blue camouflage fatigues and crooning about Islamic holy war, the five members of Hamas’s Protectors of the Homeland police band are trying to boost morale in Gaza with an arsenal of anti-Israel numbers.