DEVELOPMENTS | What's been happening

The latest developments in Iraq:
Iraq's prime minister declared a state of emergency Wednesday in once-peaceful and oil-rich Basra, as the sectarian and militia violence engulfing the country's capital spread to its southern economic heartland.
The chief judge in Saddam Hussein's trial threw the ousted Iraqi leader's intelligence chief out of court Wednesday during a heated argument after the defense accused the prosecution of trying to buy testimony from a witness.
A mortar attack killed nine people and wounded 20 in Baghdad's Dora district.
A car bomb targeting a police patrol in Mosul killed at least five policemen and wounded 14.
Gunmen ambushed a minibus in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, killing at least five people and wounding three.
Jamal Kadhim Hassoun al-Zamili, former governor of Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad, was killed in a drive-by shooting, and a bomb hidden in an air conditioner killed the mayor of Muqdadiyah, north of Baghdad.
A 25-year-old sportscaster for al-Iraqiya TV, Ali Jaafar, was gunned down near his home in Baghdad.
Gunmen killed a Shiite muazzin as he was leaving his house to go to the Imam Ali Mosque in Baghdad.
Police in the northern city of Mosul said gunmen killed two civilians and wounded another.
At least 19 bodies were found in Baghdad, many blindfolded and handcuffed, apparent victims of sectarian killings.
Source: Combined dispatches