"It is a matter of saving Iraq from dipping into a major constitutional crisis by holding the elections on Jan. 30 as planned," Fareed Ayar, spokesman of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission, said Tuesday. As the war-scarred country braces for the first elections after the Iraq War, the technical electoral body, assigned with a mission to organize the polls, is running against time to make the elections smooth. The only way to serve the Iraqi people and the country is "to try our best to bring forward all the necessary requirements for the process," Ayar said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. (XINHUA online)

Two Iraq cities await elections, Fallujah and Sadr City. (USA Today)

World oil prices rose Tuesday in cautious trade ahead of Iraqi general elections and a meeting of OPEC, feared to be considering an output cut. [...] Traders were awaiting both the Iraqi elections and a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna, each falling on January 30, the analyst said. [...] (TurkishPress.com)